There was a comic book in the
alien space ship--of a sort. But
it wasn't meant for children.
_Whether in science fiction or on the screen the starkly realistic
documentary has become increasingly popular in recent months. When
handled with deftness, and brilliant technical skill it is very
likely to ring the bell at the apex of the entertainment meter.
John Victor Peterson lives in Jackson Heights, close to the scene
he describes. He has also a sound grasp of the intricacies of space
navigation on all levels._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Fantastic Universe July 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_This, for the greater part, George Winthrop learned later_:
The harried controller observing the airport surveillance radarscope in
the La Guardia Airport control tower that sultry night at first ignored
the uncommonly bright blip creeping in from the 'scope's periphery.
Blips thirty miles out are of little significance; there are too many
other airports within the radius with their own traffic problems.
This return was coming from northwest of Teterboro, New Jersey. Let
Teterboro Tower worry about it!
The weather was worsening and the Air Route Traffic Control Center
already had traffic stacked up and holding--traffic he could not ignore!
But his tired eyes were repeatedly drawn to the fantastically
registering blip as it traced some object's bee line path in from the
northwest, progressively advancing across the electronic range-marks,
and maintaining a constant course toward the Airport, as charted by the
indicator's reference bearing mark. Over New Hackensack now, moving
across the 'scope's overlay map toward the George Washington Bridge--
The return's strength easily equaled that from a dirigible and far
exceeded that from a commercial ship. The blip was too bright, the
trail behind it too long, too remarkably persistent.
Possibly the Air Force has some super-Globemaster that might account
for the blip. But in that case a flight plan would have been filed on
so huge a craft's trip into the metropolitan area.
It was damnably puzzling!
There was something inexorable about the steady, precise progress of
the object which brought mounting, unaccountable alarm.
He raised his head, his thin, tense face doubly shadowed by the amber
light of the 'scope's filter and the radar tent's ultra-violet lighting.
"Hey, Bill!" he shouted. "I've either picked up something strictly
unclassified, or gone cockeyed!"
The chief controller crowded into the radar tent beside him.
"Where--_oh_, oh! I'm calling Mitchel Field. This is for the Air Force!"
I
It was warm that night with the breathless, enervating warmth before
a summer storm--too warm certainly to sit below in the apartment in
idle discussion, knowing that his brother and sister-in-law would have
resented missing the TV shows which a modest purse made their sole
entertainment.
Earlier George Winthrop had excused himself and gone to the apartment
building's roof to watch the steady procession of planes coming in
under the murky, threatening overcast over Jackson Heights--planes
which swept spectacularly low over Grand Central Parkway to the runway,
their throttled engines coughing loudly in the closeness of the night.
He leaned against the concrete and brick parapet, looking
disinterestedly at the round red eyes of the airport's approach light
lane staring unblinkingly at the threatening sky toward Brooklyn.
He was chokingly filled with thoughts of yesterday's work, and of his
planned tomorrow, impatient with the enforced vacation of today.
His eyes wandered blindly toward the northern sky, and cleared
suddenly, focussing.
Coming in over the airport at less than four hundred feet altitude
was an unilluminated cylinder, pointed at the nose, bulbous at the
stern. It was descending almost imperceptibly, moving with unbelievable
slowness for its apparent size and lack of airfoils.
He knew at once that he beheld something the like of which no nation on
Earth had presumed to make--except as a mockup on a picture lot.
_Spaceship_, his mind registered.
With mounting excitement he saw the object slowly crossing through the
beam of the ceiling light pointing up from the airport's Administration
Building. It moved without visible means of propulsion. Was it moving
silently? He couldn't be sure, for several planes were noisily warming
for takeoff between it and his vantage point.
He'd watched aircraft, V-2's and various missiles too long to miss the
significance of the object's glide angle. Unless it lifted under power
it would surely descend in the Flushing area. He turned, raced across
the roof, and descended quickly to the street, his heart beating like a
bass drum. Ten minutes later, as he swung his car toward Grand Central
Parkway, he felt time's urgency, the beating pulse that had measured
out minutes that so often could have been the _last_ minutes--when he'd
perched upon high towers removing the connecting plugs of fission bombs
that had failed to detonate--
_Oh, God! Not this stomach-wrenching nervousness again!_
His eyes flicked momentarily to the dashboard's vacant panel which had
held the clock he'd smashed that day when time's pressure had grown too
great....
_Forget it!_ he told himself almost frantically. _You're over that!
You're well again!_
He sped past the airport, curved under the bridge where Northern
Boulevard's eastbound lane crosses the parkway, and found the heavy
late evening traffic out of Manhattan stalled, blocking all three lanes
ahead.
_It must have landed in Flushing Meadow Park!_
On impulse, he swung right and up around to Northern Boulevard,
crossing over the parkway. He cut left through a half-moon
turn-around--the wrong way--and swung deftly through the westbound
traffic into the Boat Basin, and then back under the boulevard on the
undulating road through the park.
Passing under the towering elevated structure and the railroad
overpass, he discovered with a strange mixture of exultation and
apprehension that his deduction had been correct. The cylinder lay in
smothering folds of darkness on the gently rising slope near The City
of New York Building.
He stopped, leaving the car's motor running, its headlights on high
beam. Quickly he took a Geiger counter from the glove compartment and,
dismounting, approached the object.
The counter failed to respond. There was not even heat radiation. To
his cautious touch the stern was neither warmer nor cooler than the
night.
He gazed fascinatedly at the object's expanse. Two hundred feet long,
he guessed, increasing from its pointed bow to about a thirty foot
diameter at its midpoint. The diameter was constant back to a point
thirty feet forward of the stern, then became abruptly bulbous. It
resembled a monstrous gourd--_bearing what strange seeds?_
Undoubtedly this silent, implacable thing came from far beyond man's
ken, a misshapen _Nautilus_ fitted out to probe the void. Had it come
deliberately or had it blundered--a derelict?--to Earth?
The sultry night suddenly filled with sound. Awed and frightened
motorists broke through the fence from Grand Central Parkway, and
streamed across the park until a voice cried out authoritatively:
"Keep back! This is the Army! This is a restricted area!"
Other figures raced from within the park. Anti-aircraft crews, Winthrop
thought.
The man who had shouted the orders was coming toward him.
"What are _you_ doing here?"
"It isn't just idle curiosity, lieutenant," Winthrop said, quickly.
"I'm a physicist. Los Alamos and other places. I'm afraid I'm damnably
curious when something unclassified drops into our ordered world."
"I see. All right, stick around, maybe you can help us classify it!"
The lieutenant smiled, and swung away.
Winthrop stood there alone as the soldiers got rid of the other
civilians and established guardposts, then as prime movers urgently
and noisily brought up ack-ack guns, searchlights, and engine
generators.
There was a bawling of commands, a tense, noisy excitement. Under the
encircling searchlights' glare guards walked short posts, sub-machine
guns ready. The noise subsided.
Everything was in readiness and, Winthrop thought, God grant that
everything would be enough!
Suddenly lightning forked across the sky. With the crashing thunder
came a teeming rain which drove Winthrop hastily back to his car.
The radiator coolant was boiling murmurously amid the rain's driving
tumult. Winthrop shut off the lights and engine, sat staring through
the streaming windshield at the smooth, enigmatic surface of the
cylinder on the slope.
There was a sleep-provoking magic in the downpour's prolonged pattern.
_Oh, ship of space, the rains of Earth will wash your surface clean!_