And: "What of it?" he demanded; "what of it? What"s that got to do with it?"
"A death ray," the other agreed. "You have dreamed, Avery--one must in order to create--but it is only a dream. You dreamed of life--a fuller life--for the world, but you would have given them, as you have just seen, death."
The face of Avery was white as wax; his eyes glared savagely from dark hollows.
"A rat!" he protested. "You have killed a rat ... and you say--you say--" He raised one trembling hand to his lips to hold them from forming the unspeakable words.
"A rat," said the Professor--"or a man ... or a million men."
"We will control it."
"All men will have it--the best and the worst ... and there is no defence."
"It will free the world--"
"It will destroy it."
"No!"--and the white-faced man was shouting now--"you don"t understand--you can"t see--"
The lean figure of the scientist straightened to its full height. His eyes met those of the younger man, silent now before him, but Avery knew the eyes never saw him; they were looking far off, following the wings of thought. In the stillness the man"s words came harsh and commanding--
"Do you see the cities," he said, "crumbling to ruins under the cold stars? The fields? They are rank with wild growth, torn and gullied by the waters; a desolate land where animals prowl. And the people--the people!--wandering bands, lower, as the years drag on, than the beasts themselves; the children dying, forgotten, in the forgotten lands; a people to whom the progress of our civilization is one with the ages past, for whom there is again the slow, toiling road toward the light.
"And somewhere, perhaps, a conquering race, the most brutal and callous of mankind, rioting in their sense of power and dragging themselves down to oblivion...."
His gaze came slowly back to the room and the figure of the man still fighting for his dream.
"They would not," said Avery hoa.r.s.ely; "they"d use it for good."
"Would they?" asked Professor Eddinger. He spoke simply as one stating simple facts. "I love my fellow men," he said, "and I killed them in thousands in the last war--I, and my science, and my poison gas."
The figure of Avery slumped suddenly upon a chair; his face was buried in his hands. "And I would have been," he groaned, "the greatest man in the world."
"You shall be greater," said the Professor, "though only we shall know it--you and I.... You will save the world--from itself."
The figure, bowed and sunken in the chair, made no move; the man was heedless of the kindly hand upon his shoulder. His voice, when he spoke, was that of one afar off, speaking out of a great loneliness. "You don"t understand," he said dully; "you can"t--"
But Professor Eddinger, a cog in the wheels of a great educational machine, glanced at the watch on his wrist. Again his thin shoulders were stooped, his voice tired. "My cla.s.ses," he said. "I must be going...."
In the gathering dusk Professor Eddinger locked carefully the door of his office. He crossed beyond his desk and fumbled with his one hand for his keys.
There was a cabinet to be opened, and he stared long in the dim light at the object he withdrew. He looked approvingly at the exquisite workmanship of an instrument where a generator of the cathode ray and an intricate maze of tubing surmounted electro-magnets and a round lead bulb. There were terminals for attaching heavy cables; it was a beautiful thing.... His useless arm moved to bring an imaginary hand before the window of quartz in the lead sphere.
"Power," he whispered and repeated Avery"s words; "power, to build a city--or destroy a civilization ... and I hold it in one hand."
He replaced the apparatus in the safety of its case. "The saviors of mankind!" he said, and his tone was harsh and bitter.
But a smile, whimsical, kindly, crinkled his tired eyes as he turned to his desk and its usual litter of examination papers.
"It is something, Avery," he whispered to that distant man, "to belong in so distinguished a group."
A STAR THAT BREATHES
Beta Cephei, the mysterious Milky Way star which expands and contracts as though it were breathing, at last has a biography.
A summary of known facts concerning the star, interpreted in the light of recent observations at the Lick Observatory at the University of California was completed recently by H. S. Mendenhall, graduate student.
Mendenhall"s interpretations were said to lend weight to the theory that Beta Cephei is contracting and expanding once in every four and one-half hours. This is such a terrific rate of speed from a terrestrial point of view that it appears to be moving toward and away from the earth at a velocity reaching a maximum of about nine and one-half miles per second.
Beta Cephei is a variable star in the Constellation Cepheus. It is best visible in the northern sky during July or August. Its distance from the earth is estimated roughly at 2,000,000,000,000,000 miles, and Mendenhall estimates its diameter at almost 2,000,000 miles, more than twice that of the sun.
In addition to the apparent velocity caused by contraction and expansion of its surface five times a day, Beta Cephei seems to have another motion. This was said by Mendenhall to be a rotation around some other star in a period of 20 years. Velocity of this rotation is something over three miles a second.
Variable stars are of particular interest to astronomers because the light from them pulsates regularly, flaring and dying as though fuel were replenished at regular intervals. The rate of this pulsation has been found to be a measure to the candle power of the star. Its distance then can be determined by contrasting its actual candle power with the apparent magnitude as seen from the earth.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Oh my G.o.d!" gasped Bell. He"d known this man before. A Secret Service man--one of the seven who had vanished._]
Murder Madness
PART THREE OF A FOUR-PART NOVEL
_By Murray Leinster_
Seven United States Secret Service men have disappeared in South America. Another is found--a screaming homicidal maniac. It is rumored that they are victims of a diabolical poison which produces "murder madness."
[Sidenote: More and more South Americans are stricken with the horrible "murder madness" that lies in The Master"s fearful poison. And Bell is their one last hope as he fights to stem the swiftly rising tide of a continent"s utter enslavement.]
Charley Bell of the "Trade"--a secret service organization which does not officially exist--discovers that a sinister system of slavery is flourishing in South America, headed by a mysterious man known only as The Master. This slavery is accomplished by means of a poison which causes its victims to experience a horrible writhing of the hands, followed by a madness to do murder, two weeks after it is taken.
The victims get relief only with an antidote supplied through Ribiera, The Master"s Chief Deputy; but in the antidote there is more of the poison, which again in two weeks will take effect. And so it is that a person who once receives the poison is forever enslaved.
Ribiera kidnaps Paula Ca.n.a.lejas, daughter of a Brazilian cabinet minister who, on becoming a victim, has killed himself, preferring death to "murder madness." Bell rescues Paula, and they flee from Ribiera in a plane. They find The Master"s hidden jungle stronghold, and Bell destroys it with a bomb attack from the air. As he is getting away his motor quits. Paula jumps for her life, and shortly afterwards Bell follows, drifting straight down towards his enemies below.
CHAPTER XI
Bell was falling head-first when the "chute opened, and the jerk was terrific, the more so as he had counted not the customary ten, but fifteen before pulling out the ring. But very suddenly he seemed to be floating down with an amazing gentleness, with the ruddy blossom of a parachute swaying against a background of l.u.s.trous stars very far indeed over his head. Below him were ma.s.ses of smoke and at least one huge dancing ma.s.s of flame, where the storage tank for airplane gas had exploded. It was unlikely in the extreme, he saw now, that anyone under that canopy of smoke could look up to see plane or parachute against the sky.