The Radio Planet

by Ralph Milne Farley

  “They are not Cupians.” Myles wrote. “They are Vair-kings, a race much like myself, who send messages with their mouths and with their ears, instead of using their antennae for both, as the Cupians and you Formians do. Do you remember the old legend of Cupia, that creatures like me dwell beyond the boiling seas? Well, it appears to have been true, though how any one could have known or even suspected it, is a mystery to me.”

  “You have not yet told me how you stand,” the ant-man reminded him.

  “They recognize me as a great magician,” Myles answered, “and I have promised to build them a radio set, and to lead them,to victory over the Formians.”

  “Just as you did for the Cupians,” Doggo mused. “But you will have a harder task here, for these furry creatures appear to know no metals, nor any of the arts save wood-carving.”

  They patted each other’s cheeks again. Then, before any one could interfere, Myles Cabot unbolted the door of the cage, and out walked Doggo, a free ant once more.

  The soldiery, and Jud with them, promptly scattered to the four walls of the room.

  “Come over here, Jud,” Myles invited, “and meet my friend—that is, unless you are afraid.”

  “Oh, no, I do not fear him,” Jud the Excuse-Maker replied, “but I do not consider it consistent with the dignity of my position to be seen fraternizing with a wild beast.”

  It was typical. Myles laughed. Then he led the huge ant home with him to his quarters.

  Quivven was amazed, but not at all frightened, at the great black creature; and when an introduction had been effected on paper, she and Doggo developed quite a strong liking for each other.

  As soon as the Formian had been fed and assigned to a room in the ménage—some improvement over the menagerie, by the way—his host and hostess took him on a tour of inspection of their laboratory.

  With the true scientific spirit so characteristic of the cultured but warlike race which once dominated Cupia, Doggo plunged at once into the spirit of the almost super-

  Porovian task which Myles had undertaken; and it soon became evident that the new comer would prove to be an invaluable accession. His scientific training would dovetail exactly with that of the earth-man, and would supplement it at every point.

  Almost at the very start he suggested a solution of the problems which had been puzzling Myles.

  Cabot’s recollection of the process of sulfuric acid manufacture had been that it required a complicated roasting furnace, two filtering towers, and a tunnel about two hundred feet long made of lead, and into which nitric acid fumes had to be injected. His recollection of nitric acid manufacture was that it required sulfuric acid among other ingredients. So how was he to make either acid without first having the other? And furthermore, where was he to procure enough lead to build a two-hundred-foot tunnel?

  Doggo solved these problems very nicely—by avoiding them.

  “What do you need sulfuric acid for?” he wrote. “Merely to use in making hydrochloric acid,” wrote the earth-man in reply. “And that?”

  “To use in making sal ammoniac for my batteries.”

  “Do you need nitric acid for anything except the manufacture of sulfuric?”

  “No.”

  “Then,” Doggo suggested, “let us make our sal ammoniac directly from its elements. We shall build a series of about twenty vertical cast-iron retorts, as soon as you have smelted your iron. These we shall fill with damp salt, pressed into blocks and dried. We shall heat these retorts with charcoal fires, and through them we shall pass then, air, and the sulphur fumes of your ore-roasting.

  “After about fifteen days we shall daily cut out the first retort, dump out the soda which has formed in it, refill it, and place it at the farther end of the series. The liquid, which condenses at the end of the series, will be diluted hydrochloric acid. By passing the fumes of roast animal refuse through it we shall convert it into sal ammoniac solution.”

  Accordingly, the quicker they started their foundry operations, the better.

  By this time chalcopyrite, quartz, and charcoal were present at Vairkingi in large quantities. The ore was first roasted, and then was piled into the smelter with the quartz and charcoal; the air-bellows were started, fire was inserted through the slaghole, and soon a raging pillar of flame served notice on all Vairkingi that the devil-furnace of the great magician was in full blast. By this time it was night, but no one thought of stopping.

  Of course, there were complications. The furry soldiers deserted the pumps at the first roar of green-tinged flame, but Doggo instantly stepped into the breach and operated all of the bellows with his various legs. Finally the warriors, on seeing that Myles and Quivven had survived the ordeal of fire, sheepishly returned to their posts, and were soon loudly boasting of their own bravery and of how their fellows would envy them on the morrow when they should relate their experiences.

  Along toward morning Cabot drew his first heat of molten matter into a brick ladle and poured it into the converter. It was an impressive sight. The shadowy wooden-walled inclosure, lit by the waving greenish flare of a pillar of fire, which metamorphosed the white skin of the earth-man into that of a jaundiced Oriental, tinged Quivven with green-gold, and glinted off the shiny carapace of Doggo as off the facets of a bloodstone. In the darkness of the background, toiled the workers at their pumps.

  Then there came a change. The fires died down, the pumping ceased, oil lamps were lit, and the ghostly glare gave place to a faint but healthy light, although over all hung the ominous silence of expectancy.

  The ladle was brought up, a hand-hole-cover removed, and out flowed a crimson liquid, tinting all the eager surrounding faces with a sinister ruddiness.

  Again the red glare, as the ladle was poured into the barrel-shaped converter. Then the pumps were started again, and the blast from the converter replaced that of the furnace with its ghostly light. Two hours later the converter was tipped, and pure molten copper was poured out into the ladle. Once more the sinister ruddiness.

  Quickly the molds were filled, the red light was gone, the spell was broken, conversation was resumed. The first metallurgy of Vairkingi was an accomplished fact.

  Day came, and with it loud pounding on the gate. Cabot answered it, carelessly and abstractedly sliding back the bolt before inquiring who was outside. The gate swung open with a bang, almost knocking Myles into a flower bed, and in rushed a Vairking youth with drawn sword and panting .heavily.

  “You beast!” he cried, lunging at the earth-man as he spoke.

  But in his haste and anger he lunged too hard and too far; so that Cabot, although unarmed, was able to step under his guard and grasp him by the wrist before he recovered. Quick as lightning the boy’s sword arm was bent up behind his back, and he was “in chancery”, to use the wrestling term.

  Slowly, grimly, Cabot forced the imprisoned hand upward between the shoulder-blades of his opponent, until with a groan the latter relinquished the sword, and it fell clattering to the ground.

  Smiling, Cabot stooped down and picked it up, and forced the young intruder against the wall.

  “Now,” said the earth-man, “explain yourself.”

  The boy faced Myles like a cornered panther.

  “It’s Quivven,” he snarled. “You have stolen my Quivven.”

  “Nonsense!” Myles exclaimed. “What do you mean?”

  “I am Tipi the Steadfast,” the youth replied. “Long have I loved the Golden Flame, and she me, until you came to this city. When you arrived I was away on a military expedition, winning distinctions to lay at the tiny feet of my fair one. Last night I returned to find her working at your laboratory. One or the other, you or I, must die.”

  “You are absurd!”

  “In my country,” Tipi returned, looking the earth-man straight in the eye, “no common soldier is permitted to dictate manners to a gentleman. I repeat that Quivven—”

  But at this point, Myles cuffed the young Vairking over one ear, knocking him flat upon the
walk; and, as he scrambled sputtering to his feet, dealt him another blow which sent him reeling into the street. Then Myles barred the gate, and turned toward the house.

  In the doorway stood Quivven, shaking with laughter. Myles was immediately embarrassed. He hadn’t known that his encounter had been observed. He hated to show off, and was afraid that his actions had appeared very melodramatic.

  “Isn’t Tipi silly?” she asked.

  “But he may make trouble with your father,” Myles said, with a worried frown.

  “Oh, I’m not afraid of father.”

  “But he will put an end to my experiments.”

  So Quivven went home to chat with her father before young Tipi could get there to stir up possible trouble. She returned later in the day to resume her work. While she was gone, Cabot conferred with Doggo.

  “Why are you building this radio set?” the ant-man wrote. “I did not ask you before in the presence of the lady, for I felt that perhaps you did not wish her to know your plans.”

  “Doggo, you show remarkable intuition,” Myles wrote in reply. “It is true that I do not wish any of the Vairkings to know. My idea is to communicate with Cupia, learn how Lilla is getting along, and encourage my supporters there to hold out until in some way I can secure a Formian airship and return across the boiling seas.”

  “Then cease your work,” Doggo wrote, “for my plane, in perfect condition, lies carefully hidden in a wood not a full day’s journey from this city. All that we need is alcohol for the trophil-engines.”

  XV

  PLANS FOR ESCAPE

  “We can make the alcohol in a few days in my laboratory,” Cabot wrote, “but it will not do for us to escape too precipitately, lest our plans be discovered and blocked. The Vairkings like sleight-of-hand, and wish to keep me with them as their court magician. Let us bide our time until they become sufficiently accustomed to you, so that they will not question your accompanying me on an expedition. Then, away to the plane, and off to Cupia!”

  The ant-man assented. It seemed logical. And yet I wonder if this logic would not have done credit to Jud the Excuse-Maker. I wonder if Cabot was not subconsciously influenced by a scientific desire to complete his radio set in this land of people who used only wood and flint. I wonder.

  At all events, the work proceeded.

  He had planned to use the slag from the copper furnace as the “ore” for his iron, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that its high sulphur content would probably ruin any steel which he produced. Fortunately, however, he ran across a deposit of magnetic iron ore near Vairkingi.

  This he ground and placed in his crucibles with charcoal, and they built charcoal fires in the pits around them. The slag he skimmed off with copper—later iron—ladles. The melting had to be repeated many times in order to purify the iron sufficiently, and further in order to secure just the right carbon content for cast-iron, steel, or wrought-iron, according to which he needed for any particular purpose. This securing the proper carbon content was largely a matter of cut-and-try.

  With iron and steel available, he now made pots, retorts, hammers, anvils, drills, wire-drawing dies, and a decent Bessemer converter.

  Copper tubes for glass-blowing, and copper wire were drawn. A simple wooden lathe was made for winding thread around the wires. This thread, by the way, was the only Vairkingian product which the earth-man found ready to his hand.

  As soon as the iron retorts were available, the joint manufacture of sal ammoniac and soda was started, as already outlined by Doggo.

  In iron pots, Cabot melted together finely ground white sand, with lime, soda, and potash, and blew the resulting glass into bottles, retorts, test tubes, and other laboratory apparatus; also jars for his electric batteries. He used both soda and potash, as this would render the glass more fusible than if made with either alone.

  Lead was melted from galena crystal in small quantities for solder. Thus was suggested to Doggo, the manufacture, on the side, of bullets, gunpowder, and cartridges, for the rifle which Myles had in his quarters, and for the one which lay in the concealed airplane.

  Tales of the copper-smelting had spread among the populace, who evinced such great interest that double guards had to be placed and maintained about the laboratory inclosure. And every returning military expedition brought with it samples of unusual minerals.

  Meanwhile, Cabot instituted a regular campaign of getting Vairkingi accustomed to Doggo. Every day, Doggo would parade the high-walled streets, with Quivven the Golden Flame perched upon his back. The ten-foot ant inspired great interest and considerable fear.

  She enjoyed her rides thoroughly, not only for the novelty of the thing, but also because her seat on his six-foot-high back brought her head above the level of the fence palings, and thus enabled her to survey the private yards of everyone.

  Tipi had not been seen or heard from..

  Arkilu the Beautiful thoroughly made up with the earth-man, and even admitted that her love for him had been a mistake. Plans for her wedding with Jud proceeded rapidly.

  When this coming marriage was publicly announced, Art the Terrible sent in a Roy runner with the message that he didn’t in the least care.

  . Quivven now lived in the palace, so as to be near her father, but came to work regularly each day. Theoph the Grim interposed no objection to this, and, in fact, frequently accompanied his daughter to the laboratory. He loved to mess around the bottles and retorts, and lost much of the grimness when engaged in this childish meddlesomeness.

  So every one was happy except Tipi the Steadfast and Att the Terrible.

  Jud continued the operation of the brickyard, even though Cabot had no more need of bricks, for Jud planned to build himself a brick palace which would outshine even the palace of King Theoph.

  Melting the platinum for the wires presented a problem, until Myles thought of electrolyzing some ordinary water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen, and then burning these two materials together in a double blow-pipe, much like that used in oxyacetylene welding.

  But to do this he had to make batteries. To this end he already had sal ammoniac and jars. He needed carbon and zinc. For carbon he pressed charcoal into compact blocks. To extract zinc from the blend ore he made long cylindrical retorts of clay, with a long clay pipe for a vent. The ore, after being thoroughly roasted in the copper-roasting furnace to remove all sulphur, was ground, mixed with half its weight of powered charcoal, and then charged into the retorts, where it was baked. The result was to distill the pure zinc, which condensed on the walls of the tubes.

  Cabot now at last had all the elements for his batteries, and so was able, by employing about seventy cells in multiple, to get the two volts, three hundred fifty amperes, necessary to electrolyze the oxygen and hydrogen for melting his platinum.

  The platinum proved to be quite free of iridium, and so was easily drawn into wires.

  Needless to state, the distilling of alcohol in large quantities, ostensibly for the laboratory burners, but actually for Doggo’s airplane, was commenced as soon as they had blown their first glass retorts.

  Myles was going strong!

  One day, in the midst of all this technical progress, as Myles was passing through one of the streets of Vairkingi on some errand or other, and admiring the quaint and brightly colored wood carvings on the high walls which lined the way, his attention was arrested by the design over one of the gateways.

  It was a crimson swastika within a crimson triangle, the insignia of the priests of the lost religion of Cupia, the priests who had befriended him in their hidden refuge of the Caves of Kar, when he was a fugitive during the dark days of his second war against the ant-men.

  Could it be that the lost religion was also implanted upon this continent? Myles had never discussed religion with Arkilu, or Jud, or Quivven, or Crota, or any of his Vairking friends. Somehow the subject had never come up. Full of curiosity, Cabot knocked in the door.

  Immediately a small round aper
ture opened and a voice from within inquired “Whence come you?”

  For reply, the earth-man gave one of the passwords of the Cupian religion. To his surprise, the gate swung open, and he was admitted into the presence of a long-robed priest, clad exactly like his friends of the Caves of Kar.

  “What do you wish?” asked the guardian of the gate.

  Having made his way so far, Myles decided to continue, on the analogy of the religion of his own continent. Accordingly, he boldly replied, “I wish to speak with the Holy Leader.”

  “Very well,” said the guard; and closing the gate and barring it, he led Myles through many winding passages, to a door on which he knocked three times.

  The knock was repeated from within, the door opened, and Myles entered to gaze upon a strangely familiar scene. The room was richly carved and colored. On three sides hung the stone lamps of the Vairkings. Around the walls sat a score or more of long-robed priests, some on the level and some on slightly raised platforms. On the highest platform of all, directly opposite the point where Cabot had entered, sat the only hooded figure in the chamber, quite evidently the leader of the faith.

  Him the earth-man approached, and bowed low.

  Whereat, there came the unexpected words: “Welcome to Vairkingi, Myles Cabot.”

  Then the priest descended, took the visitor by the hand, and led him to a seat at his own left. A few minutes later, the assembly had been temporarily suspended, and Myles and his host were chatting together like old friends.

  Myles told the venerable prelate the complete history of all his adventures on both continents of the planet Poros, not omitting to dwell with considerable detail upon the vicissitudes of the lost religion of Cupia. This interested the priest greatly, and he asked numerous questions in that connection.

  “Strange! Strange!” he ruminated. “It is undoubtedly the same religion as ours. So there must at some time have been some connection between the two continents.”

  “Yes, there must have been,” the earth-man assented, “for the written language of both Cupia and Vairkingi is the same. Yet the totally different flora and fauna of the two continents negatives this history.”