Danny Dunn and the Voice from Space

by Raymond Abrashkin

  “Everybody out,” said Dr. Badger. “This is where we’re staying.”

  The other car drove up and Mr. Pearson leaned out of the window. “Is this it?” he said. “It looks great, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s very picturesque,” said Mrs. Miller. “And look, we’re right on the banks of a river.”

  “That’s the Severn,” Dr. Badger said. “Come on, let’s get the luggage inside.”

  The Bell Inn in Grendel was one of the oldest in England. It had been built in 1370, and its three-foot-thick walls and heavy, dark beams seemed to have been there forever. The bedrooms were small, and furnished with such huge beds and chairs that there wasn’t much space left for people.

  “It’s queer to think,” said Danny, bouncing on the bed in the room he shared with Joe, “that we’re here, in a place that was built six hundred years ago. It’s creepy! I’ll bet it’s full of ghosts.”

  “Don’t say such things,” said Joe. “I’ve got too much imagination. I’ll be lying here tonight, in this giant bed, thinking about ghosts, and suddenly the door will creak slowly open and—”

  He broke off. For the door was, indeed, slowly creaking open.

  There was a pause, during which both boys stood petrified. Then, something small and dark darted into the room and vanished under the bed.

  Joe let out a piercing yell and tried to get as far from the bed as he could. Danny moved at the same time, and they collided and fell into one of the enormous overstuffed chairs.

  “Let me up!” yelled Joe. “Did you see that thing? It was a dwarf, or a goblin, or a hobbit, or something.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Danny, trying to untangle himself. “Shut up, will you? It was a— a cat—or something.”

  “With arms and legs? You saw it. And those eyes! It was a something all right, and I don’t want to know what.”

  “I beg your pardon,” said a strange voice. The boys stopped struggling. A sturdy girl with short blond hair was standing in the doorway.

  “Did Mr. Parsley come in here?” she asked.

  “Mr.—Mr. Parsley?” stammered Danny.

  “My monkey.” She made a cheeping noise, and after a bit a whiskered face appeared from beneath the bed.

  “I’m afraid he startled you,” the girl smiled.

  “Afraid? He? Startled? Us? Don’t be silly,” said Joe, pulling himself free and getting to his feet. “We were—um—just looking for a comfortable chair to scream in—I mean, sit in.”

  The monkey emerged and jumped up to the girl’s shoulder. He curled his tail around her neck and looked at the boys with bright, interested eyes.

  Irene came in at that moment. “What was all that racket?” she was beginning, and then she cried, “Oh, what a darling monkey! Whose is it? Can I pet it?”

  “Oh, yes. He won’t hurt you,” said the other girl.

  Irene gently touched the coarse, cinnamon-colored fur. The monkey put out one of his hands, with its tiny fingernails like a baby’s, and touched Irene’s dark hair. Both girls laughed.

  “What’s his name?” Irene asked.

  “Mr. Parsley. I call him that because he looks so much like the greengrocer in the village.”

  “I didn’t know there were any monkeys in England,” said Joe.

  “There aren’t. Only visitors like Mr. Parsley,” the girl said. “He was sent to me from Barbados by my Uncle John, because I’m so interested in animals. Poor poppet, he had to spend six months in quarantine. We’ve only just got him out, and he’s beginning to feel he’s alive again after sitting in a cage all that time.”

  Irene introduced herself and the boys.

  “I’m Meg Lucas,” the blond girl said. “My father owns the inn. I’m going to be a zoo-keeper when I grow up. I want to have my own zoo, some day, like Mr. Durrell.”

  “What fun!” said Irene.

  “Would you like to see my animals?” Meg said.

  She led them along the corridor, down a narrow back stair and out into a garden thick with roses and lupines. A rickety shed stood in a corner, and Meg pulled the door open. A rank, sharp, interesting smell hit them. Inside there were home-made wire cages along a shelf, and Meg proudly pointed out a hedgehog—a bristly little beast with an appealing, pig-like face— some field mice, two turtles, a bat, and a pair of grass snakes.

  “I haven’t many now,” she explained. “I’ve had a fox cub, only I gave him to the Bristol Zoo, and a young badger, but I let him go, and a weasel, but he escaped. I didn’t really mind—he had a rotten temper.”

  Mr. Parsley, who had been sitting quietly on her shoulder, began jumping up and down impatiently, chattering at the other animals.

  “All right, love,” said Meg. “I know. It’s four o’clock and you want your tea.”

  “Tea? Do you give him tea?” asked Danny.

  “Not really. I give him a biscuit and a lump of sugar, just to keep him happy while I have my own tea.”

  “Are you going to have it now?” Joe asked.

  “Yes. Come along and join me.”

  “It seems like days since we ate lunch,” Joe remarked, as they followed Meg back into the house. “I’m kind of homesick.”

  “Homesick?”

  “For that ship’s dining room.”

  In the long, stone-floored kitchen, Mrs. Lucas, a gray-haired woman with a round, rosy face, had already set out on the table bread and butter, chocolate cookies (which Meg called “Biscuits”) and floury biscuits (which she called “scones”), jam, and half a lemon frosted cake.

  “Sit you down, my dears,” she called. “I saw you in the garden, and something told me Meg would bring you in for tea. Your parents are having theirs in the dining room.”

  Meg chained Mr. Parsley to a wooden perch and gave him a cookie to nibble on. Then she joined the others at the table.

  “Do you do this every day?” Danny said, heaping raspberry jam on a scone.

  “We generally have a little something at about this hour,” said Mrs. Lucas, pouring milk into their cups, and following it with strong, black tea. “When school begins, Meg will have her tea at about six, and then it’ll be a proper meal.”

  Joe sipped at his cup and made a face. “I don’t mean to be rude or anything,” he said, “but I don’t suppose you have any nice cold soda pop, do you? I’m thirsty, but this tea sort of squinches up my mouth.”

  “We have some ginger beer,” Meg replied. “It’s fizzy stuff, awfully good.”

  She ran to the pantry and brought out three bottles. Danny picked one up to look at it. “It’s warm,” he said.

  “Yes, I’m afraid we don’t drink icy things as you do,” said Meg. “We could put it in the fridge, but it would take quite a while to chill.”

  “I’ll fix that.” Danny jumped to his feet. “Just give me a minute.”

  “Where is he off to?” Mrs. Lucas said, as he tore out of the kitchen.

  “I know. He’s gone to get the Zero-maker,” said Irene. “I just wonder whether he’ll think to stop and ask the Professor’s permission.”

  Joe propped his chin on his hands, and sighed. “My friend Danny,” he said, “generally jumps into things first and asks how deep they are afterward. I have that funny, sinking feeling that spells trouble.”

  “What on earth is a Zero-maker?” said Mrs. Lucas.

  Irene tried to explain. While Mrs. Lucas and Meg were still puzzling over the problems of heat and energy, Danny returned carrying the cryostat. The new and improved model was even smaller and lighter than the original had been. Danny put it on the table and lined up the three bottles of ginger beer so that they were almost touching the crystal at the ends of the two rods.

  “Dan,” Irene said, “before you begin, can I ask you something? Did Professor Bullfinch say you could use the Zero-maker?”

  Danny blushed. “Well—they
were all in the dining room, eating, and I didn’t like to bother them. And anyway, it’ll only take a second.”

  Irene began to say something, but Danny had already flipped the switch. At once, the gob of frozen air grew around the crystal, like a ball of soft, foggy glass.

  With three simultaneous sharp snaps, the bottles shattered, cracked by the cold. But the ginger beer inside them stood among the splinters, frozen solid in the shape of the bottles.

  “Shut it off!” Irene cried.

  Danny was staring, open-mouthed. Before he could move, a wasp which had been buzzing around the jam flew up and came within an inch or two of the Zero-maker’s tip. It dropped straight to the table top. In the silence, the tiny clink with which it hit was plainly heard.

  Danny came to with a start, and his hand darted out to the switch. The lump of frozen air disappeared in curls of steam.

  Joe bent forward to stare at the dead wasp.

  “It’s turned to ice,” he said, in a hushed voice. “You know what? That thing is dangerous!”

  In a very subdued way, without a word Danny picked up the Zero-maker and carried it out of the room. They could hear him in the hall, calling,

  “Professor Bullfinch, can I talk to you for a minute?”

  CHAPTER 8

  A Lunch Basket Is Opened —

  At breakfast, next morning, a small bombshell was exploded by the three ladies of the party.

  “We are leaving you,” Mrs. Dunn said firmly.

  “But why?” said Professor Bullfinch. “My dear Mrs. Dunn, I don’t understand. This afternoon we’re all supposed to visit the Grendel Observatory—”

  “That’s exactly why,” Mrs. Dunn answered. “We know that you men will be quite happy puttering about the observatory. And we feel reasonably sure the children will want to do the same, at least part of the time.”

  “You bet!” said Danny. “That’s what we came here for.”

  “It’s not what we came here for,” his mother smiled. “Mrs. Pearson, Mrs. Miller, and I want to see all the sights of London, and look at the shops—”

  “And try on hats,” said Mrs. Miller.

  “And look at Buckingham Palace and the Bloody Tower,” added Mrs. Pearson.

  “We’ve found out that there’s a train we can catch at eleven this morning,” Mrs. Dunn went on. “And Mrs. Lucas has given us the name of a very nice hotel, not at all expensive, and I’ve already phoned them and made our reservations. So we’re leaving you to your fate. Mr. and Mrs. Lucas will look after you, and you have two automobiles so you can do a little sight-seeing along with your star-gazing, and there’s all this lovely countryside for you to explore, and—well—that’s all.”

  Mr. Pearson shook his head. “I don’t know about you fellows,” he said, “but I think this is desertion.”

  “You’re right, Alvin,” said Dr. Miller. “But I don’t see what we can do about it except bear it gracefully and drive them to the station.”

  At eleven o’clock, therefore, the ladies climbed aboard the little train. Its coaches were much smaller than those of American trains, and were divided into compartments which seated six or eight people.

  After many embraces and much waving and cries of, “Remember to wear your rubbers!” “Take care of yourselves!” “Drink plenty of milk!” the doors were slammed shut by the guard, the engine gave a shrill peep! like that of a toy, and away they went.

  The others got back into the cars, rather solemnly.

  “Gee, everything suddenly feels sort of— well—empty,” Danny observed.

  “I know what you mean,” Irene said. “We’re three thousand miles from home, and suddenly our mothers are all somewhere else.”

  Lunch helped them over their feeling of strangeness, and after lunch it was time to go to the observatory. Irene, who had been whispering with Meg, asked Professor Bullfinch whether they could take the other girl with them.

  “I don’t see why not,” said the Professor. “I’m sure she’ll enjoy seeing the place and I don’t believe Sir Edward will object.”

  The observatory was about a mile from the village of Grendel. They drove along a narrow lane with high hedges cutting off the view on either side and emerged at last on an open plain. Far away across the flat land, they could see three spiderwebby triangles sticking up near a low, brick building. On their tops were round objects that looked like shallow dishes.

  “Is that the observatory?” asked Danny.

  “That’s it,” said Dr. Badger.

  “I thought there’d be a high building of some kind, with a round top—you know,” Joe said. “Where’s the telescope?”

  “Those are the telescopes,” Dr. Badger answered.

  As they drove on along the road, the three webby things grew larger and larger until they towered far above the cars. They were made of a lattice-work of steel beams, and on each was set a saucer of metal sheets. Each one rested on wheels as tall as a man, which ran on railroad tracks so that the radio-telescopes could be moved to different positions on the plain.

  The cars were parked in front of the brick building and everyone got out. Meg was carrying a large lunch basket.

  “You weren’t taking any chances on finding tea out here, were you?” joked Dr. Badger. “Why not leave it in the car?”

  Meg smiled quietly. “No, I don’t mind carrying it,” she said, exchanging a rather odd look with Irene.

  A man came out to greet them. He had very pink cheeks, a mane of white hair, and a short white beard so that there was something Santa Claus-like about him, but his tone was as commanding as that of an army officer.

  “Gentlemen!” he barked. “Delighted to see you. Brought along all your brood, I see. Very good. Nothing like starting them off young.” He turned to the Professor. “My dear Bullfinch. It’s been a long time.”

  “Three years,” said the Professor, shaking hands. “I’m sorry for our disagreement, Pomfret. I’m willing to concede that cricket is a fine game.”

  “Nonsense, my dear chap,” answered Sir Edward. “When I read your paper on high magnetic field superconductors, I decided that baseball must be a jolly good sport, after all.”

  The Professor introduced the others. After welcoming them, Sir Edward said, “I know you’d like to look round. Before I show you the place, I must say I’m very pleased that you are letting us have the first model of your cryostat. I suppose it will be arriving soon?”

  “It’s already arrived,” said the Professor. He held up the case.

  Sir Edward’s eyes popped. “That?” he exclaimed. Hastily, he pulled a pair of glasses out of his pocket and clapped them on, to stare more closely. “That little box? I thought it was a portable radio. You’re not joking, are you? Will that tiny thing really do the same job as our liquid helium tanks?”

  “I think you’ll find it’s perfectly satisfactory,” said Professor Bullfinch.

  “At the moment, I find it hard to believe,” Sir Edward said. “Well, come along, all of you. I’ll show you the station, first.”

  Inside, the building looked even less like an observatory. There was a kitchen—“for a bit of hot soup now and then, and of course tea,” said Sir Edward—an office with blackboards and a long table, a small reference library, and finally the control room itself, full of machinery. Thick cables ran about the floor. Grey steel cases clicked and hummed. A long desk fronted a wall of glass, which looked out toward the field and the three huge saucers of steel.

  A man in shirtsleeves was sitting at the desk. As they came in, he was saying into a radiotelephone, “Yes, Jodrell, I am receiving you loud and clear. I am about to set the aerial on the source. It’s 342.4—right? Over and out.” He got up and glanced at the dials in a console. Then he twisted a control knob.

  “Look out there,” said Sir Edward. “You can see the dish move.”

  They looked t
hrough the big window. The furthest of the telescopes was slowly turning in response to the turning knob.

  “We move them from here,” Sir Edward said. “Quite a job. More than a thousand tons, that one weighs. We’ll go out and look at it more closely, shall we? Better put these on. It’s a regulation.”

  He handed each of them a plastic helmet and led the way out to the field.

  They walked to the base of one of the telescopes and climbed a steel stairway to a level about halfway up, where a steel-walled room was built into the framework. In this room was housed the machinery which moved the telescope when the remote control was operated from the station. Standing on the platform outside the room, they looked out at the back of the gigantic circle of metal balanced on its beams and stretching high above and below them.

  “This particular one is the largest in the world,” Sir Edward said, proudly. “You could play a game of football in it and still have room left over for a lot of watchers.”

  “You just don’t think of this kind of thing as a telescope,” Danny said.

  Sir Edward stroked his beard thoughtfully. “I know what you mean,” he said. “But look here. An optical telescope collects the light radiating from a star. This telescope collects the radio waves radiating from a star. They’re the same as light—the wavelength is different, that’s all. We get essentially the same information about a star from both types of wave— speed, temperature, size, and so on. Do you see that metal drum, or box, bolted to the end of those long girders and sticking out in front of the dish? That’s the feed. The radio waves come down from the star we’re watching, bounce against the plates of the saucer, and are focused in the feed. They are then amplified and recorded so that we can study them.”

  “The radio telescope has a lot of advantages over the optical telescope,” said Dr. Badger. “For instance, you can use it during the day as well as at night. And clouds, atmosphere, and weather have no effect on it.”