SPACE RAYS
By John W. Campbell, Jr.
_Illustration by Paul_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Wonder Stories December 1932.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Reasonableness In Science Fiction
BY HUGO GERNSBACK
When science fiction first came into being, it was taken
most seriously by all authors. In practically all instances,
authors laid the basis of their stories upon a solid scientific
foundation. If an author made a statement as to certain future
instrumentalities, he usually found it advisable to adhere closely
to the possibilities of science as it was then known.
Many modern science fiction authors have no such scruples. They do
not hesitate to throw scientific plausibility overboard, and embark
upon a policy of what I might call scientific magic, in other
words, science that is neither plausible, nor possible. Indeed, it
overlaps the fairy tale, and often goes the fairy tale one better.
This is a deplorable state of affairs, and one that I certainly
believe should be avoided by all science fiction authors, if
science fiction is to survive.
In the present offering, Mr. John W. Campbell, Jr., has no doubt
realized this state of affairs and has proceeded in an earnest way
to burlesque some of our rash authors to whom plausibility and
possible science mean nothing. He pulls, magician-like, all sorts
of impossible rays from his silk hat, much as a magician extracts
rabbits. There is no situation that cannot easily be overcome by
some sort of a preposterous scientific--(as he terms it)--gimmick.
Hurling fifteen million horsepower from one space flyer to another
means nothing. If he has left out any colored rays, or any magical
rays that could not immediately perform certain miraculous wonders,
we are not aware of this short-coming in his story.
In other words, the author proceeds to burlesque science
fiction--not only science fiction, but he burlesques his own
abilities, to show us what really can be accomplished when the
bounds of reasonableness are overstepped.
Yet, all in all, he has spun a delightful tale which will,
nevertheless, entertain you, and keep your interest throughout. We
were tempted to rename the story "Ray! Ray!" but thought better of
it.
I have gone to this length to preach a sermon in the hope that
misguided authors will see the light, and hereafter stick to
science as it is known, or as it may reasonably develop in the
future.
* * * * *
Eight large men were crowded in a small emergency space ship. They were
physically crowded; the air was bad for the little ship was built for
three men, and the capacity of the air apparatus was hardly sufficient
for them. And so the E.E. 4 was wobbling under her controls, with
acceleration greatly reduced.
Lt. Roger Lane and his men felt exceedingly foolish. They had just
surrendered without protest to a pirate, for the altogether-too-good
ship _Robin Good_ had suddenly appeared alongside the Lane Patrol ship
L.P.C. 563. The air in the patrol cruiser glowed faintly blue, and the
crew of seven men and two officers slumped down where they were. The
latest Farrel Atomics, capable of generating fifteen million horsepower
for the defense of the cruiser hadn't even started. Nine helpless men
watched while _Robin Good_ sent over a shipload of men in space suits.
Each carried a small hand projector, and without entering the beam from
the ship they turned their small projectors on the men in the cruiser.
Fully conscious, but helplessly paralyzed, Lt. Lane and his men
were dumped unceremoniously into this tiny escape ship, and turned
adrift, without radio or weapons. Lane was heading with all speed for
Mars, some thirty million miles away. But one of the pirate crew had
thoughtfully removed one of the miniature Farrel Atomic engines, with
the result that their McKinley space-drive plates were not getting
the power they should have--the lights were dim, and the already
over-loaded air apparatus was functioning badly.
Pilot Warren was in the tiny cubby-hole in the nose of the ship,
speeding with all the acceleration he could muster for Mars, although
the officers of the ship were not so enthusiastic about getting
there. It would have been bad enough to have been unable to find
the pirate after being sent out for the purpose of overhauling his
slower ex-space-yacht, but to have lost the speedy, powerfully armed
space cruiser without a struggle! Commander Morrison would make some
exceedingly pointed remarks, and it would be a long, long time before
Lane got a new rating.
"I'll bet Barclay gets a work-out outa this," said Patrolman Reynolds,
sourly.
Yes, decided Lane, Special-Captain Donald Barclay would probably get
some work. He hoped that Barclay would be picked up by the pirate too.
Barclay had an annoying habit of doing what he was sent to do. Nobody
ever said anything about it, least of all Barclay, but those reports on
the bulletin board had become monotonous.
Lt. Lane permitted himself to grouse heartily, silently and hungrily
for thirty hours while the escape ship limped into port. He decided to
permit himself a meal and a shower before appearing before Commander
Morrison. It would be a teleview appearance, because Morrison was on
Earth, but the Commander had long since learned the knack of being
nasty over the televisor. He would be specially nasty this time. Lane
took a long pull on some forbidden _tekey_--fermented Martian cactus
juice--and felt ready to face the Commander.
Half an hour later he came out of the booth. It was after sunset, the
air was chill, but Lane was sweating profusely. Morrison had just
grinned and nodded. Lane wished he could grin like that. Then he
wouldn't have to bawl out sloppy workers. Lane went to the barracks and
was soon asleep.
Meanwhile Commander Morrison started things moving. As he cut off the
teleview image of the harassed young officer on Mars, he pushed a
button, and his orderly appeared.
"Special-Captain Barclay, at once please." The orderly saluted smartly
and right-about faced. Ten minutes later a peculiar looking man entered
the room behind the orderly. Morrison greeted him with a friendly, easy
salute.
Special-Captain Don Barclay smiled at him. Barclay looked to be
about five feet tall by four feet wide. Actually he was nearly
five-feet-seven, but his enormous breadth belied it. Barclay was a type
of man seen rather rarely on the minor planets. He was a Jovian.
Three generations back his people had migrated from Earth, when
Jupiter's colonies were newly opened, in 2250. Men and women picked by
the Interplanetary Council, for both physical strength and health, for
courage and for trustworthiness. To them had been given the task of
developing a new race, a race of giants. Under a gravitational force
of from two and one half to three times that of the Earth, they had to
learn to live again. The cowards never started, the weaklings died.
Never was it more true than of this Jovian colonization.
* * * * *
Born and raised on this planet, where all things must move rapidly to
keep up with their surroundings, where a falling body moved two and
a half times as quickly as on Earth, Don Barclay had become a giant.
His legs were thick, heavy and almost blocky, his arms were built on
the same plan, his tremendous shoulders seemed rounded and padded as
though he wore wadding under the tight elastic Patrol uniform. His
massive head, crowned with crisp black hair, seemed set directly on his
shoulders, the neck seemed missing. Five-feet-seven--and he weighed
over two hundred and ninety pounds!
"More work, Commander? I thought I was to have a week off after
that little run-in with the Eugenic people." He smiled, his lean,
almost black face, burned from ceaseless exposure to the unshielded
ultraviolet rays of the sun, creasing in a good-natured smile.
"Uhuh--so did I. But remember, this isn't a business, it's a war, only
we don't know whom we're fighting half the time. This time it's Percy
DeWare Jennings, better known as 'Robin Good'," replied the officer
sourly. "He just stole one of our ships--the L.P.C. 563, Lt. Lane in
command."
"Ouch--he tickled us that time. That does demand some action. What else
has he been doing. I don't know all his story."
"Started off with a ten-man ship he bought second-hand on Mars,
only half a million horse, but he and his gang captured an ex-yacht
converted to an excursion ship. They used that about a month, then they
captured this ship of ours. Fifteen million horse in perfectly good
Farrel atomics, with induction rays, magnetic and induction screens,
super-sensitive electron balance detectors. It hasn't got protolectric
guns, but has got the shields. In other words he's got everything we've
got, plus his own paralyzing ray. All in all a sweet situ--"
Commander Morrison stopped. His orderly had intruded hurriedly with
"Pardon me, Commander, but this broadcast--" He snapped on the news
broadcast machine, and the screen glowed with the image of a popular
humorous news man.
"--anonymous person has sent in this tip from space. They gave data,
and checking shows it's right. Believe it or not, 'Robin Good' has
sneaked one over on the Patrol for sure this time. He stole their
patrol Cruiser 563, got away with it, and sent the men home, neatly
wrapped up in an escape ship designed for three men. They landed on
Mars, I hear. All this happened yesterday, Sol 3, of the year of our
Lord 2374. I certainly would like to have seen our good Commander
Morrison's face when Lt. Lane, commanding 563 reported _that_ in. Hah!
Hah!"
"Damn! Now who in the name of the nine planets sent that dope to that
blabber-mouthed nit-wit!" roared Morrison. "I'd like to twist his
squawking neck for--"
"And," continued the news machine imperturbably, "I'd like to see
Commander Morrison's face right now if he's listening."
Had he been able to, he would have seen it tinged with an apoplectic
purple, the stiff, iron-grey hair bristling erect on his head, his
mouth open and gasping for words to describe his opinion of the man.
* * * * *
The orderly shut off the machine and hurried from the room before
Commander Morrison could regain his tongue.
When the color had receded, his mouth closed with a snap. He turned on
Barclay with a roar. "Captain, GET THAT MAN, AND BRING HIM IN ALIVE!"
"I'll try," said Barclay, saluting. He left the office. "Whew--I think
I'd better. And it'll be one sweet job. Nobody ever sees that man's
ship; he's supposed to have found the secret of invisibility, and I'm
supposed to find him.
"I think some research is in order." His stride suddenly became
purposeful as he started for the elevator. He dropped swiftly to the
street, went down the hill to the edge of the Patrol Headquarters
grounds, and entered the city of Morristown itself. At the gates he
paused long enough to slip on a suit of civilian clothes. Then he went
directly to the monorail station, and swung aboard a car bound for New
York City 33rd. The streamlined car darted forward as a McKinley drive
plate in the nose came to life, and hurled itself along the rail fifty
feet above the countryside toward the city.
At 33rd Station he descended, and stepped aboard the uptown walk,
quickly moving over to the medium speed lane. At thirty-five miles an
hour he was swept along through the magnificent canyon of New York.
The flashing vitreous walls of huge buildings, made of colored glass
bricks, windowless, save on the first two stories where show windows
broke the sweeping lines of the pinnacles and lighted the street with
reflected lights of red and gold and blue. Within, perfectly controlled
artificial lights and perfectly comfortable artificial weather
displaced the glaring sunlight and humid heat of the streets.
To the man of Jupiter these cities were forever wonderful. Jupiter,
burdened with its heavy gravity, could not build so high, because
the sheer weight would have pulled the structure down. On Mars was
the Martian Lines Tower, carrying the flag of the Martian Lines
interplanetary ships one full mile into the clear, crisp air--standing
tall, almost alone among the massed ranks of giant structures that made
this a city like none other.
Finally, at 87th Street he left the moving walk, and went down to
the towering skyscraper library of the City of New York. It was the
scientific news journals that he inspected first. Journals of six
and eight months back, before Dr. Percy DeWare Jennings had gone
a-pirating, when he was a highly respected bio-physicist.
But there was little to indicate that he might have discovered the
secret of invisibility, his work had not been along those lines. But
six months ago he had announced his discovery of the long-sought
paralyzing ray that was not fatal. Others had made paralyzing rays that
paralyzed--permanently, however. The trouble was that they paralyzed
the heart and the lungs as well as the arms and legs. But Jennings
had announced his discovery of a non-fatal paralyzing ray. Scientists
of the world had scoffed--it was an impossibility. "Come and see!"
demanded Jennings.
They came. But they did not see, for something went wrong with the
apparatus. First it killed a dog, then a mouse ran about under it
unhampered. The scientists went home laughing.
Perhaps Jennings had gone slightly mad. At any rate he disappeared
for five months, to turn up with a pirate gang. They looted passenger
liners, helpless under the paralyzing ray, but they themselves could
not enter the ray without being paralyzed, for they had no screen for
it.
Don Barclay mused, investigated, and got later data--accounts of the
experiment written by scientists who had seen it, both immediately
after the demonstration, and five months later when Jennings proved his
claims all too thoroughly.
It was a long patient search, and took two days. The third day Special
Captain Barclay of the Interplanetary Lane Patrol became Dr. Donald
Barclay, and went to the Patrol research laboratories. He spent three
more days there. Commander Morrison asked him why he hadn't started,
and Barclay merely replied he had gone.
But on the sixth day he reported to Commander Morrison, and asked to be
assigned to a ship.
"Naturally," snapped Morrison. "But why didn't you come after it
sooner?"
"I was working on leads here," replied Barclay. "And may I have X-531?"
"What!" gasped Morrison, "X-531? That's a one-man experimental ship."
"With ten million horse in the brand-new Ridgely Automatic
Atomics," replied Barclay. "And I want another ship anyway, the new
Twenty-five-Hundred. And I'd like Dave Wier to take it, with a crew of
Jovians. I'll try to find the pirate myself in the small ship. I can
hide a mosquito like that in space, with a little black paint on it,
and some red windows, with green lights in the ship. I'm betting that's
what this Jennings does with his _Robin Good_ anyway. I hear that
Grantland has just finished a new type fast-action infra-heat photocell
that will work a viso-screen. I want one of those installed, that'll
make anything visible in space. And--here's something to install in the
I.P.C. 2500."
CHAPTER II
Barclay Goes to Work
Morrison looked at his crack Special-Captain sourly.
"Oh, yes sir, and can I give you the rest of the fleet?"
"Will you if I bring in Jennings and his crew--unharmed?" smiled
Barclay, looking at the news-receiver, clucking and chuckling to itself
on low power.
Morrison got slightly red and snapped "Yes!"
"And look at this, sir!" suggested Barclay. Morrison took the sheaf
of papers, and glanced hurriedly at the first lines, stiffened, and
scanned the paper rapidly. "Good Lord, will it work?"
"It does, Commander, I tried it. I did some research on reports I found
in the Public Library, and made some experiments."
"But--don't you want it in the X-531?" he asked in surprise.
"No sir, I don't. I want the Miller Twins instead. I have an idea that
works better this way."
"But the pirate may capture you, and learn the secret of the Miller
Twins. That's our latest and best weapon. Why, the Twenty-five-Hundred
isn't even commissioned yet, and she's the only one that's got them,
and the insulation," objected the Commander. "I can't let Wier take
that ship, she isn't commissioned."
"Commander, I'll bring in Jennings if you'll let Wier take that--if
he has to steal it unofficially. Why can't Wier take it out on trial
maneuvers?"
"Ahh--well," said Morrison, scowling at the news machine, "go
ahead--but if that half-witted flap-eared donkey reports that Jennings
is using the Miller Twins before any commissioned ship--you needn't
report back!"
Barclay's lips cracked in a slight smile. "He may--but don't worry
Commander--it'll be my own hide that suffers."
Barclay left with the requisition slips Morrison had been filling out.
And twenty-four hours later, after fifteen hours of concentrated sleep,
Barclay left Earth in a tiny pea-pod of a ship, scarcely twenty feet
long. But it carried ten million horsepower generators humming with a
soft, pleasant melody behind him. They occupied almost the entire bulk
of the ship, the pilot was forced to sleep in his pneumatic springed
pilot chair.
A million miles from Earth, on his way toward Mars, Barclay took a
small key and unlocked the acceleration stop-block. Presently he moved
the metal stop-block from its position at "4000" to "7500". Four
thousand centimeters per second per second was all any Earth-native
could stand in the way of acceleration and still retain sufficient
consciousness for fighting. Hence the lock, lest some foolhardy
fighter try more. But Barclay, brought up on a world where the natural
acceleration and gravity was nearer 3000, could readily stand the
higher value.
And somewhere in space he knew that Dave Wier, his support in the
Twenty-five-Hundred, was manipulating a similar key in a similar
lock-block. His crew of twenty-two men were all Jovians, for that
acceleration might well be fatal to the Earth-native.
Presently Barclay locked the block again, closed down the control panel
hood, and forced the accelerator control over. He pushed steadily till
his face grew pale under the nearly black complexion years in space
had given him. His arm was knotted with great muscles, the shoulders
bulging and straining at the fabric of his uniform. A black metal
needle had long since passed the red danger line on the accelerometer
gauge, and hung at 7500. Barclay gradually eased back, and the needle
dropped to a comfortable 2750. Barclay got up, and stretched under
Jupiter-normal.
He prepared a hasty meal while the ship darted along under automatic
controls, jogging slightly now and then as a meteor came into the range
of the exceedingly sensitive electro-static mass-detectors. Presently
he finished, cleaned away the scraps by dumping them into space,
re-seated himself and shoved the acceleration up a bit. Hour after hour
he bored on into space, his ship a black dot in a black void.
* * * * *
Three days later found the tiny ship far beyond Mars, circling near
the asteroids. _Robin Good_ was reported to work out this way in
search of Jupiter traffic. Barclay had been following the shifting
Jupiter-Earth lane for two days now. The Space Liner _Mira_ was due to
pass in another day, from Jupiter to Earth, and loaded with the usual
assortment of heavy metals, platinum, iridium, osmium, some uranium,
and a full pound and a half of jovium, element 97, on which the pirate
must depend for renewing his atomic engines.
The space patrol cruiser had had only a sixteen-hundredth of a gram
left in the supply bins, and an eight-thousandth of a gram in the
engines. This might well last a year in ordinary service, but under
the heavy drains the pirate's constant warfare would make, it would
probably give out in six months. With a pound and a half at his
command, he could retain a full ounce, a lifetime supply, and sell the
rest of the activator. Barclay felt sure he would attack.
Barclay was right. He was sleeping when the exceedingly delicate
electro-static apparatus gave him the first warning of the _Robin
Good's_ approach. The tiny X-531 spun on her axes in an instant--and
space was empty. Nowhere could Barclay get a sight of the ship the
instruments said was less than a mile away, and approaching! Then--the
infra-red screen, and the long, black hull was suddenly visible exactly
where the instruments had said it would be. Invisible in ordinary
light, the radiated heat made it shine a pale green on the screen.
Chuckling, Barclay shoved home a small control lever. The white cabin
lights suddenly snapped out, and green lights came on in their stead.
Simultaneously, the ship leapt forward at her full 7500 acceleration,
at right angles to the line between the two ships. Outside, the
pirate looked in vain for the tiny ship that had been shining red
before him. The green light did not penetrate the red glass windows.
Barclay was lost, and the special electro-static field he was setting
up, fluctuating wildly, made it impossible to locate him with the
instruments.
Ten miles from his original position, he swung, till the nose of his
ship pointed toward the pirate craft, and a pair of hair lines crossing
on the center of the infra-screen covered the center of the pirate
ship. The X-531 suddenly chattered violently as a machine gun, shooting
one inch slugs loaded with atomic explosive iron dust, raked the pirate
craft from stem to stern.
The ex-cruiser's magnetic screen stopped them, but they resulted in
a magnificent display of fire-works that would have blown an entire
nation off the face of the Earth. Barclay moved. From another angle he
centered his cross-hairs on the screen and pushed a button. Suddenly
a spot five feet across on the wall of the pirate ship was blazing
red--orange--and then black, while a sea of splashing, warring energy
appeared on the induction screen.
The arcing decreased abruptly as Barclay cut down the power on this,
and turned five million horsepower into an infra-heat ray. The result
was an instant blaze of white light, and a puff of white-hot vapor from
the bow of the _Robin Good_. The black outer-hull soaked up the heat
like a blotter taking water--and destroyed itself. But suddenly, in
the wink of an eye, the black was gone, and the clean, shining metal of
the patrol cruiser appeared. Instantly the reflected heat struck the
little X-531 and Barclay was compelled to shut off his beam and shift
hurriedly.
A sizzling induction beam from the pirate snapped by where he had been
a moment before. Barclay felt it was time for the Twins.
Twin, milky-white columns of light reached out like pipes of milky
glass. They swung abruptly, and touched the pirate ship some
twenty-feet from the tail. Instantly the metal between the two beams
blazed into white heat, and exploded out into space. And immediately
after, a second puff from the same spot indicated the destruction of
the inner skin of the ship. A long fountain of light stood out from the
wall of the ship as the air rushed out.
Barclay moved his beams slowly and steadily, while the generators
behind him whined and howled steadily. Ten million horsepower were
pouring into those beams, and into the metal of the other ship. For
less than five seconds that work continued. The _Robin Good_ rolled,
twisted and struggled, but the little mosquito ship hung grimly in
place, and poured its deadly beams in. Then a pale blue-green ray,
scarcely visible in space, reached back along the twin milky beams,
and touched the mosquito ship. Suddenly the X-531 followed a perfectly
straight course, and the twin beams wandered far afield.
Inside the ship the air became luminous with the blue-green beam, and
Barclay slumped inertly forward over his instrument panel. His eyes
were open, but stared motionlessly straight ahead. Don Barclay was
fully conscious, but absolutely unable to move a muscle.
* * * * *
The blue-green luminosity crept forward in the ship, till only the
pilot and the pilot's seat was bathed in it. Presently something grated
on the emergency escape air-lock, and there was a hiss of gas, then a
steady pumping. A moment later a giant of a man stepped from the inner
lock-door, a flashlight in one hand, a ray-pistol of some sort in the
other. It was a curious mechanism, a pistol grip, a flexible lead
looping back along his arm to a small pack on his back. The business
end of the pistol ended in a lens of wires, woven and crossed with
infinite care, the whole protected by bars of metalite, an insulating,
non-conductor of heat with the strength and polish of many metals.
The man was a giant, but such a giant as one might see in
dreams--nearly six-feet-eight in height, broad in proportion. He wore
only light green rayon shorts, a short-sleeved shirt to match, and a
broad leather belt from which hung three holsters, and two more pistols.
But his face was an awful travesty of what Nature had meant. At some
time he had been in a ray-fight, the entire left side of his face was a
mottled purple and angry red, the right side was puckered and twisted
till it drew the flesh away from the teeth, a horrible artificial grin
resulting. The tip of the nose was entirely missing. But from just
below the eyes to the hairline the flesh was smooth, and deeply tanned,
almost black from exposure to the sun of space. The face was topped by
a shaggy, unkempt mop of glaring red hair.
The motionless Barclay groaned inwardly. Belasco Red! Six months before
Lt. James McRuddy had reported the death of this devil in human form.
When the Belasco gang had been cleaned out of Thenton, Mars, he had
been rayed, across the face, the flesh charred black. A companion had
been there to drag him away. The companion had been captured two days
later and told the Patrol that Belasco Red had died and been cast into
space, while the ship struggled to make good its escape.
Belasco Red was grinning more broadly now. The pistol suddenly shot out
a blue-green ray which centered on Barclay's neck. A great hand waved,
and the beam from the pirate ship snapped out. Belasco walked forward
gingerly, keeping the ray on Barclay, then picked him up and carried
him back to the lock, through the metal communication tube and into the
pirate ship.
"Looka wat we caught," he laughed, dumping Barclay on the floor. For a
fraction of a second the patrolman was out of the ray, and the instant
his body touched the floor he leaped up like an un-leashed spring. His
hand darted toward the giant outlaw's pistol, but halfway it fell to
his side as the ray touched his neck once more.
"It wants to fight I think," said Belasco. "It's a patrolman from the
looks of the suit. Shall we play with it awhile?" His grotesque face
writhed into an expression impossible to describe.
A man of medium height, with smooth sandy hair had looked into the
room, where three other pirates had been when Belasco returned.
"Oh, I say, that looks like Special-Captain Barclay. Truly we're
honored, you know, Captain, but we must detain you a while.
"And, Red, let's let him help us a bit. I'm sure the fellow will be
glad to. That was a nasty little jolt he gave us with those skim-milk
rays of his. Did you look at the apparatus, Thad?" He spoke to a
stockily-built man to one side. Thad was nursing a burned hand.
"Yeah--it's been gimmicked. H-T stuff. Almost took my hand off. I was
careful enough, but the damn thing turned loose half a million volts
soon as I moved the control panel. I'll be damfino how it could. I shut
off the generators. They were new, too, but they blew out when the
beam-control went off."
"Ah--the new Ridgely Automatic Atomics. They can start themselves,
Thad. And they're much more powerful. Too bad. We'll have to capture
the Twenty-five-Hundred when they commission that. I hear it will be
equipped with the new generators.
"Well, it's all right. Cast the machine loose, burn it, and I'm sure
Special-Captain Barclay can help us. I know a bit about rays and such
myself. We should be able to figure it out together, don't you think so
Captain?" The lean man looked at Barclay. "Yes, I think so.
"By the way, Red, just go on and move into position for the _Mira_. We
won't need to make repairs before then, and haven't time. We don't know
just when she'll come, it may be a day or two, and it may be at once.
We can make repairs there."
The disfigured giant gave the ray-pistol to the stocky Thad, and
departed on his errand. Presently the ship swung somewhat in its course.
"Thad," said the sandy-haired one, "suppose I try using that pistol.
I'd like to talk to our friend here, and he seems sulky." Silently the
blocky Thad passed the weapon over. Quickly the new possessor made
several adjustments, then moved the beam from the neck to a point just
below the middle of the chest. Don found his neck and head as well as
his eyes could move now.
"Hello, Jennings. That feels better."
"Ah--quite so, quite so. Have you heard of the stimulator, I wonder?"
"No, I admit ignorance of that. A new invention?"
"Yes--quite. We ought to try it out, don't you think so, Thad? Please
bring me the portable set." Thad disappeared silently. Barclay looked
at the green-clad man before him. Save for the bright red-leather belt
at his waist, his uniform was exactly like the others.
"Is it Lincoln green?" asked Barclay. "I never did know colors."
"No," replied Jennings with mock sadness, "it isn't. We couldn't get
it. It isn't made, and I haven't had time to make any. Managing this
little adventure is really trying. Belasco is so insistent that we
remove all of your confrères on sight, he becomes hard to control at
times. Ah, the Americans are so enterprising. He wants to destroy the
entire patrol. I'm more modest in my desires. We English are apt to
be. I'm planning to induce certain so-called scientists to witness a
demonstration. That will probably take some time, and I do hope I will
continue to have Belasco's co-operation. He's almost impossible.
"You see I treated his face, and not being a skilled plastic surgeon,
it isn't beautiful. But he lived. It's healed now. I used a certain
drug during the process, very quick healing, but unfortunately it's
habit forming. He has hemorrhages of a most frightful sort if he
doesn't get his daily ration. And I'm the only one who can make it.
"He tried once to make me give him the secret. Just once. But he's
still hard to handle sometimes. You for instance. He will insist on
being unpleasant about it. And I am hoping to take certain captives
from the _Mira_ this time, with our larger ship, equipped as it is
with a brig for prisoners, it should be a lucrative trade. But he will
probably be unpleasant.
"Ah, Thad. Thanks. This is the stimulator, Captain. Stimulates certain
nerves. See?"