What was the extraordinary connection between Dr. Livermore's
sudden disappearance and the coming of a new satellite to the
Earth?
were heard by both amateur and professional short wave operators during
the nights of the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of last September, and
even more will remember the astounding discovery made by Professor
Montescue of the Lick Observatory on the night of September
twenty-fifth. At the time, some inspired writers tried to connect the
two events, maintaining that the discovery of the fact that the earth
had a new satellite coincident with the receipt of the mysterious
messages was evidence that the new planetoid was inhabited and that the
messages were attempts on the part of the inhabitants to communicate
with us.
The fact that the messages were on a lower wave length than any receiver
then in existence could receive with any degree of clarity, and the
additional fact that they appeared to come from an immense distance lent
a certain air of plausibility to these ebullitions in the Sunday
magazine sections. For some weeks the feature writers harped on the
subject, but the hurried construction of new receivers which would work
on a lower wave length yielded no results, and the solemn pronouncements
of astronomers to the effect that the new celestial body could by no
possibility have an atmosphere on account of its small size finally put
an end to the talk. So the matter lapsed into oblivion.
While quite a few people will remember the two events I have noted, I
doubt whether there are five hundred people alive who will remember
anything at all about the disappearance of Dr. Livermore of the
University of Calvada on September twenty-third. He was a man of some
local prominence, but he had no more than a local fame, and few papers
outside of California even noted the event in their columns. I do not
think that anyone ever tried to connect up his disappearance with the
radio messages or the discovery of the new earthly satellite; yet the
three events were closely bound up together, and but for the Doctor's
disappearance, the other two would never have happened.
* * * * *
Dr. Livermore taught physics at Calvada, or at least he taught the
subject when he remembered that he had a class and felt like teaching.
His students never knew whether he would appear at class or not; but he
always passed everyone who took his courses and so, of course, they
were always crowded. The University authorities used to remonstrate with
him, but his ability as a research worker was so well known and
recognized that he was allowed to go about as he pleased. He was a
bachelor who lived alone and who had no interests in life, so far as
anyone knew, other than his work.
I first made contact with him when I was a freshman at Calvada, and for
some unknown reason he took a liking to me. My father had insisted that
I follow in his footsteps as an electrical engineer; as he was paying my
bills, I had to make a show at studying engineering while I
clandestinely pursued my hobby, literature. Dr. Livermore's courses were
the easiest in the school and they counted as science, so I regularly
registered for them, cut them, and attended a class in literature as an
auditor. The Doctor used to meet me on the campus and laughingly scold
me for my absence, but he was really in sympathy with my ambition and he
regularly gave me a passing mark and my units of credit without regard
to my attendance, or, rather, lack of it.
When I graduated from Calvada I was theoretically an electrical
engineer. Practically I had a pretty good knowledge of contemporary
literature and knew almost nothing about my so-called profession. I
stalled around Dad's office for a few months until I landed a job as a
cub reporter on the San Francisco _Graphic_ and then I quit him cold.
When the storm blew over, Dad admitted that you couldn't make a silk
purse out of a sow's ear and agreed with a grunt to my new line of work.
He said that I would probably be a better reporter than an engineer
because I couldn't by any possibility be a worse one, and let it go at
that. However, all this has nothing to do with the story. It just
explains how I came to be acquainted with Dr. Livermore, in the first
place, and why he sent for me on September twenty-second, in the second
place.
* * * * *
The morning of the twenty-second the City Editor called me in and asked
me if I knew "Old Liverpills."
"He says that he has a good story ready to break but he won't talk to
anyone but you," went on Barnes. "I offered to send out a good man, for
when Old Liverpills starts a story it ought to be good, but all I got
was a high powered bawling out. He said that he would talk to you or no
one and would just as soon talk to no one as to me any longer. Then he
hung up. You'd better take a run out to Calvada and see what he has to
say. I can have a good man rewrite your drivel when you get back."
I was more or less used to that sort of talk from Barnes so I paid no
attention to it. I drove my flivver down to Calvada and asked for the
Doctor.
"Dr. Livermore?" said the bursar. "Why, he hasn't been around here for
the last ten months. This is his sabbatical year and he is spending it
on a ranch he owns up at Hat Creek, near Mount Lassen. You'll have to go
there if you want to see him."
I knew better than to report back to Barnes without the story, so there
was nothing to it but to drive up to Hat Creek, and a long, hard drive
it was. I made Redding late that night; the next day I drove on to
Burney and asked for directions to the Doctor's ranch.
"So you're going up to Doc Livermore's, are you?" asked the Postmaster,
my informant. "Have you got an invitation?"
I assured him that I had.
"It's a good thing," he replied, "because he don't allow anyone on his
place without one. I'd like to go up there myself and see what's going
on, but I don't want to get shot at like old Pete Johnson did when he
tried to drop in on the Doc and pay him a little call. There's something
mighty funny going on up there."
* * * * *
Naturally I tried to find out what was going on but evidently the
Postmaster, who was also the express agent, didn't know. All he could
tell me was that a "lot of junk" had come for the Doctor by express and
that a lot more had been hauled in by truck from Redding.
"What kind of junk?" I asked him.
"Almost everything, Bub: sheet steel, machinery, batteries, cases of
glass, and Lord knows what all. It's been going on ever since he landed
there. He has a bunch of Indians working for him and he don't let a
white man on the place."
Forced to be satisfied with this meager information, I started old
Lizzie and lit out for the ranch. After I had turned off the main trail
I met no one until the ranch house was in sight. As I rounded a bend in
the road which brought me in sight of the building, I was forced to put
on my brakes at top speed to avoid running into a chain which was
stretched across the road. An Indian armed with a Winchester rifle stood
behind it, and when I stopped he came up and asked my business.
"My business is with Dr. Livermore," I said tartly.
"You got letter?" he inquired.
"No," I answered.
"No ketchum letter, no ketchum Doctor," he replied, and walked stolidly
back to his post.
"This is absurd," I shouted, and drove Lizzie up to the chain. I saw
that it was merely hooked to a ring at the end, and I climbed out and
started to take it down. A thirty-thirty bullet embedded itself in the
post an inch or two from my head, and I changed my mind about taking
down that chain.
"No ketchum letter, no ketchum Doctor," said the Indian laconically as
he pumped another shell into his gun.
* * * * *
I was balked, until I noticed a pair of telephone wires running from the
house to the tree to which one end of the chain was fastened.
"Is that a telephone to the house?" I demanded.
The Indian grunted an assent.
"Dr. Livermore telephoned me to come and see him," I said. "Can't I call
him up and see if he still wants to see me?"
The Indian debated the question with himself for a minute and then
nodded a doubtful assent. I cranked the old coffee mill type of
telephone which I found, and presently heard the voice of Dr. Livermore.
"This is Tom Faber, Doctor," I said. "The _Graphic_ sent me up to get a
story from you, but there's an Indian here who started to murder me when
I tried to get past your barricade."
"Good for him," chuckled the Doctor. "I heard the shot, but didn't know
that he was shooting at you. Tell him to talk to me."
The Indian took the telephone at my bidding and listened for a minute.
"You go in," he agreed when he hung up the receiver.
He took down the chain and I drove on up to the house, to find the
Doctor waiting for me on the veranda.
"Hello, Tom," he greeted me heartily. "So you had trouble with my guard,
did you?"
"I nearly got murdered," I said ruefully.
"I expect that Joe would have drilled you if you had tried to force your
way in," he remarked cheerfully. "I forgot to tell him that you were
coming to-day. I told him you would be here yesterday, but yesterday
isn't to-day to that Indian. I wasn't sure you would get here at all, in
point of fact, for I didn't know whether that old fool I talked to in
your office would send you or some one else. If anyone else had been
sent, he would have never got by Joe, I can tell you. Come in. Where's
your bag?"
"I haven't one," I replied. "I went to Calvada yesterday to see you, and
didn't know until I got there that you were up here."
The Doctor chuckled.
"I guess I forgot to tell where I was," he said. "That man I talked to
got me so mad that I hung up on him before I told him. It doesn't
matter, though. I can dig you up a new toothbrush, and I guess you can
make out with that. Come in."
* * * * *
I followed him into the house, and he showed me a room fitted with a
crude bunk, a washstand, a bowl and a pitcher.
"You won't have many luxuries here, Tom," he said, "but you won't need
to stay here for more than a few days. My work is done: I am ready to
start. In fact, I would have started yesterday instead of to-day, had
you arrived. Now don't ask any questions; it's nearly lunch time."
"What's the story, Doctor?" I asked after lunch as I puffed one of his
excellent cigars. "And why did you pick me to tell it to?"
"For several reasons," he replied, ignoring my first question. "In the
first place, I like you and I think that you can keep your mouth shut
until you are told to open it. In the second place, I have always found
that you had the gift of vision or imagination and have the ability to
believe. In the third place, you are the only man I know who had the
literary ability to write up a good story and at the same time has the
scientific background to grasp what it is all about. Understand that
unless I have your promise not to write this story until I tell you that
you can, not a word will I tell you."
I reflected for a moment. The _Graphic_ would expect the story when I
got back, but on the other hand I knew that unless I gave the desired
promise, the Doctor wouldn't talk.
"All right," I assented, "I'll promise."
"Good!" he replied. "In that case, I'll tell you all about it. No doubt
you, like the rest of the world, think that I'm crazy?"
"Why, not at all," I stammered. In point of fact, I had often harbored
such a suspicion.
"Oh, that's all right," he went on cheerfully. "I _am_ crazy, crazy as a
loon, which, by the way, is a highly sensible bird with a well balanced
mentality. There is no doubt that I am crazy, but my craziness is not of
the usual type. Mine is the insanity of genius."
* * * * *
He looked at me sharply as he spoke, but long sessions at poker in the
San Francisco Press Club had taught me how to control my facial muscles,
and I never batted an eye. He seemed satisfied, and went on.
"From your college work you are familiar with the laws of magnetism," he
said. "Perhaps, considering just what your college career really was, I
might better say that you are supposed to be familiar with them."
I joined with him in his laughter.
"It won't require a very deep knowledge to follow the thread of my
argument," he went on. "You know, of course, that the force of magnetic
attraction is inversely proportional to the square of the distances
separating the magnet and the attracted particles, and also that each
magnetized particle had two poles, a positive and a negative pole, or a
north pole and a south pole, as they are usually called?"
I nodded.
"Consider for a moment that the laws of magnetism, insofar as concerns
the relation between distance and power of attraction, are exactly
matched by the laws of gravitation."
"But there the similarity between the two forces ends," I interrupted.
"But there the similarity does _not_ end," he said sharply. "That is the
crux of the discovery which I have made: that magnetism and gravity are
one and the same, or, rather, that the two are separate, but similar
manifestations of one force. The parallel between the two grows closer
with each succeeding experiment. You know, for example, that each
magnetized particle has two poles. Similarly each gravitized particle,
to coin a new word, had two poles, one positive and one negative. Every
particle on the earth is so oriented that the negative poles point
toward the positive center of the earth. This is what causes the
commonly known phenomena of gravity or weight."
"I can prove the fallacy of that in a moment," I retorted.
"There are none so blind as those who will not see," he quoted with an
icy smile. "I can probably predict your puerile argument, but go ahead
and present it."
* * * * *
"If two magnets are placed so that the north pole of one is in
juxtaposition to the south pole of the other, they attract one another,"
I said. "If the position of the magnets be reversed so that the two
similar poles are opposite, they will repel. If your theory were
correct, a man standing on his head would fall off the earth."
"Exactly what I expected," he replied. "Now let me ask you a question.
Have you ever seen a small bar magnet placed within the field of
attraction of a large electromagnet? Of course you have, and you have
noticed that, when the north pole of the bar magnet was pointed toward
the electromagnet, the bar was attracted. However, when the bar was
reversed and the south pole pointed toward the electromagnet, the bar
was still attracted. You doubtless remember that experiment."
"But in that case the magnetism of the electromagnet was so large that
the polarity of the small magnet was reversed!" I cried.
"Exactly, and the field of gravity of the earth is so great compared to
the gravity of a man that when he stands on his head, his polarity is
instantly reversed."
I nodded. His explanation was too logical for me to pick a flaw in it.
"If that same bar magnet were held in the field of the electromagnet
with its north pole pointed toward the magnet and then, by the action of
some outside force of sufficient power, its polarity were reversed, the
bar would be repelled. If the magnetism were neutralized and held
exactly neutral, it would be neither repelled nor attracted, but would
act only as the force of gravity impelled it. Is that clear?"
"Perfectly," I assented.
"That, then, paves the way for what I have to tell you. I have
developed an electrical method of neutralizing the gravity of a body
while it is within the field of the earth, and also, by a slight
extension, a method of entirely reversing its polarity."
* * * * *
I nodded calmly.
"Do you realize what this means?" he cried.
"No," I replied, puzzled by his great excitement.
"Man alive," he cried, "it means that the problem of aerial flight is
entirely revolutionized, and that the era of interplanetary travel is at
hand! Suppose that I construct an airship and then render it neutral to
gravity. It would weigh nothing, _absolutely nothing_! The tiniest
propeller would drive it at almost incalculable speed with a minimum
consumption of power, for the only resistance to its motion would be the
resistance of the air. If I were to reverse the polarity, it would be
repelled from the earth with the same force with which it is now
attracted, and it would rise with the same acceleration as a body falls
toward the earth. It would travel to the moon in two hours and forty
minutes."
"Air resistance would--"
"There is no air a few miles from the earth. Of course, I do not mean
that such a craft would take off from the earth and land on the moon
three hours later. There are two things which would interfere with that.
One is the fact that the propelling force, the gravity of the earth,
would diminish as the square of the distance from the center of the
earth, and the other is that when the band of neutral attraction, or
rather repulsion, between the earth and the moon had been reached, it
would be necessary to decelerate so as to avoid a smash on landing. I
have been over the whole thing and I find that it would take twenty-nine
hours and fifty-two minutes to make the whole trip. The entire thing is
perfectly possible. In fact, I have asked you here to witness and report
the first interplanetary trip to be made."
"Have you constructed such a device?" I cried.
"My space ship is finished and ready for your inspection," he replied.
"If you will come with me, I will show it to you."
* * * * *
Hardly knowing what to believe, I followed him from the house and to a
huge barnlike structure, over a hundred feet high, which stood nearby.
He opened the door and switched on a light, and there before me stood
what looked at first glance to be a huge artillery shell, but of a size
larger than any ever made. It was constructed of sheet steel, and while
the lower part was solid, the upper sections had huge glass windows set
in them. On the point was a mushroom shaped protuberance. It measured
perhaps fifty feet in diameter and was one hundred and forty feet high,
the Doctor informed me. A ladder led from the floor to a door about
fifty feet from the ground.
I followed the Doctor up the ladder and into the space flier. The door
led us into a comfortable living room through a double door arrangement.
"The whole hull beneath us," explained the Doctor, "is filled with
batteries and machinery except for a space in the center, where a shaft
leads to a glass window in the bottom so that I can see behind me, so to
speak. The space above is filled with storerooms and the air purifying
apparatus. On this level is my bedroom, kitchen, and other living rooms,
together with a laboratory and an observatory. There is a central
control room located on an upper level, but it need seldom be entered,
for the craft can be controlled by a system of relays from this room or
from any other room in the ship. I suppose that you are more or less
familiar with imaginative stories of interplanetary travel?"
* * * * *
I nodded an assent.
"In that case there is no use in going over the details of the air
purifying and such matters," he said. "The story writers have worked
out all that sort of thing in great detail, and there is nothing novel
in my arrangements. I carry food and water for six months and air enough
for two months by constant renovating. Have you any question you wish to
ask?"
"One objection I have seen frequently raised to the idea of
interplanetary travel is that the human body could not stand the rapid
acceleration which would be necessary to attain speed enough to ever get
anywhere. How do you overcome this?"
"My dear boy, who knows what the human body can stand? When the
locomotive was first invented learned scientists predicted that the
limit of speed was thirty miles an hour, as the human body could not
stand a higher speed. To-day the human body stands a speed of three
hundred and sixty miles an hour without ill effects. At any rate, on my
first trip I intend to take no chances. We know that the body can stand
an acceleration of thirty-two feet per second without trouble. That is
the rate of acceleration due to gravity and is the rate at which a body
increases speed when it falls. This is the acceleration which I will
use.
"Remember that the space traveled by a falling body in a vacuum is equal
to one half the acceleration multiplied by the square of the elapsed
time. The moon, to which I intend to make my first trip, is only 280,000
miles, or 1,478,400,000 feet, from us. With an acceleration of
thirty-two feet per second, I would pass the moon two hours and forty
minutes after leaving the earth. If I later take another trip, say to
Mars, I will have to find a means of increasing my acceleration,
possibly by the use of the rocket principle. Then will be time enough to
worry about what my body will stand."
A short calculation verified the figures the Doctor had given me, and I
stood convinced.
"Are you really going?" I asked.
"Most decidedly. To repeat, I would have started yesterday, had you
arrived. As it is, I am ready to start at once. We will go back to the
house for a few minutes while I show you the location of an excellent
telescope through which you may watch my progress, and instruct you in
the use of an ultra-short-wave receiver which I am confident will pierce
the heaviest layer. With this I will keep in communication with you,
although I have made no arrangements for you to send messages to me on
this trip. I intend to go to the moon and land. I will take atmosphere
samples through an air port and, if there is an atmosphere which will
support life, I will step out on the surface. If there is not, I will
return to the earth."
* * * * *
A few minutes was enough for me to grasp the simple manipulations which
I would have to perform, and I followed him again to the space flier.
"How are you going to get it out?" I asked.
"Watch," he said.
He worked some levers and the roof of the barn folded back, leaving the
way clear for the departure of the huge projectile. I followed him
inside and he climbed the ladder.
"When I shut the door, go back to the house and test the radio," he
directed.
The door clanged shut and I hastened into the house. His voice came
plainly enough. I went back to the flier and waved him a final farewell,
which he acknowledged through a window; then I returned to the receiver.
A loud hum filled the air, and suddenly the projectile rose and flew out
through the open roof, gaining speed rapidly until it was a mere speck
in the sky. It vanished. I had no trouble in picking him up with the
telescope. In fact, I could see the Doctor through one of the windows.
"I have passed beyond the range of the atmosphere, Tom," came his voice
over the receiver, "and I find that everything is going exactly as it
should. I feel no discomfort, and my only regret is that I did not
install a transmitter in the house so that you could talk to me; but
there is no real necessity for it. I am going to make some observations
now, but I will call you again with a report of progress in
half-an-hour."
* * * * *
For the rest of the afternoon and all of that night I received his
messages regularly, but with the coming of daylight they began to fade.
By nine o'clock I could get only a word here and there. By noon I could
hear nothing. I went to sleep hoping that the night would bring better
reception, nor was I disappointed. About eight o'clock I received a
message, rather faintly, but none the less distinctly.
"I regret more than ever that I did not install a transmitter so that I
could learn from you whether you are receiving my messages," his voice
said faintly. "I have no idea of whether you can hear me or not, but I
will keep on repeating this message every hour while my battery holds
out. It is now thirty hours since I left the earth and I should be on
the moon, according to my calculations. But I am not, and never will be.
I am caught at the neutral point where the gravity of the earth and the
moon are exactly equal.
"I had relied on my momentum to carry me over this point. Once over it,
I expected to reverse my polarity and fall on the moon. My momentum did
not do so. If I keep my polarity as it was when left the earth, both the
earth and the moon repel me. If I reverse it, they both attract me, and
again I cannot move. If I had equipped my space flier with a rocket so
that I could move a few miles, or even a few feet, from the dead line, I
could proceed, but I did not do so, and I cannot move forward or back.
Apparently I am doomed to stay here until my air gives out. Then my
body, entombed in my space ship, will endlessly circle the earth as a
satellite until the end of time. There is no hope for me, for long
before a duplicate of my device equipped with rockets could be
constructed and come to my rescue, my air would be exhausted. Good-by,
Tom. You may write your story as soon as you wish. I will repeat my
message in one hour. Good-by!"
At nine and at ten o'clock the message was repeated. At eleven it
started again but after a few sentences the sound suddenly ceased and
the receiver went dead. I thought that the fault was with the receiver
and I toiled feverishly the rest of the night, but without result. I
learned later that the messages heard all over the world ceased at the
same hour.
The next morning Professor Montescue announced his discovery of the
world's new satellite.
No comments:
Post a Comment