What Mad Universe
CHAPTER I
The Moon Rocket
THE FIRST ATTEMPT to send a rocket to the moon, in 1952, was a failure. Probably because of a structural defect in the operating mechanism, it fell back to Earth, causing a dozen casualties. Although not containing any explosives, the rocket—in order that its landing on the moon might be observed from earth—contained a Burton potentiomotor set to operate throughout the journey through space to build up a tremendous electrical potential which, when released on contact with the moon, would cause a flash several thousand times brighter than lightning—and several thousand times more disruptive. Fortunately, it came down in a thinly populated area in the Catskill foothills, landing upon the estate of a wealthy publisher of a chain of magazines. The publisher and his wife, two guests and eight servants were killed by the electrical discharge, which completely demolished the house and felled trees for a quarter of a mile around. Only eleven bodies were found. It is presumed that one of the guests, an editor, was so near the center of the flash that his body was completely disintegrated. The next—and first successful—rocket was sent in 1953, almost a year later.
Keith Winton was pretty well winded when the set of tennis was over but he tried not to show it. He hadn’t played in years and tennis—he was just realizing—is definitely a young man’s game. Not that he was old by any means—but at thirty-one you get winded unless you’ve kept in condition. Keith hadn’t. He’d had to extend himself to win that set.
He extended himself a bit more, enough to leap across the net to join the girl on the other side. He was panting a little but he grinned at her.
«Another set? Got time?»
Betty Hadley shook her blond head. «’Fraid not, Keith. I’m going to be late now. I couldn’t have stayed this long except that Mr. Borden promised to have his chauffeur drive me to the airport at Greeneville and have me flown back to New York from there. Isn’t he a wonderful man to work for?»
«Uh-huh,» said Keith, not thinking about Mr. Borden at all. «You’ve got to get back?»
«Got to,» she said emphatically. «It’s an alumnae dinner. My own alma mater and, not only that, but I’ve got to speak. To tell them how a love story magazine is edited.»
«I could come along,» Keith suggested, «and tell them how a science-fiction book is edited. Or a horror book, for that matter—I had Bloodcurdling Tales before Borden put me on Surprising Stories. That job used to give me nightmares. Maybe your fellow alumnae would like to hear about it, huh?» Betty Hadley laughed. «They probably would. But it’s strictly a hen party, Keith. And don’t look so downhearted. I’ll be seeing you at the office tomorrow. This isn’t the end of the world, you know.»
«Well, no,» Keith admitted. He was wrong in a way but he didn’t know that.
He fell into stride beside Betty as she started up the walk from the tennis court to the big house that was the summer estate of L. A. Borden, publisher of the Borden chain of magazines.
He sighed. «You ought to stay around to see the fireworks, though.»
«Fireworks? Oh, you mean the moon rocket. Will there be anything to see, Keith?»
«They’re hoping so. Read much about it?»
«Not a lot. I know the rocket is supposed to hit the moon like a flash of lightning or something. And they’re hoping it’ll be visible to the naked eye and everybody’s going to be watching for it. Sixteen minutes after nine, isn’t it?»
«Right. I’m going to be watching for it anyway. If you get a chance—watch the moon dead center, between the horns of the crescent. It’s a new moon, in case you haven’t been looking, and it’ll hit in the dark area. Without a telescope it’ll be a faint small flash, like somebody striking a match a block away. You’ll have to be watching closely.»
«They say it doesn’t contain explosives, Keith? What is it that will make the flash?»
«Electrical discharge—on a scale nobody’s ever tried before. There’s a new-fangled outfit in it—guy by the name of Professor Burton worked it out—that uses the kickback of the acceleration and converts it into potential electrical energy—static electricity, of a kind. The rocket itself will be something on the order of a monster Leyden jar with a tremendous potential.
«When it hits the surface of the moon and busts up the insulating layer outside—well, it’ll make the grand-daddy of all short circuits. It’ll be like a flash of lightning, only probably three or four thousand times stronger than the biggest lightning bolt that ever hit earth.»
«Sounds complicated, Keith. Wouldn’t an explosive charge have been simpler?»
«In a way, yes, but we’ll get a lot brighter flash from this—weight for weight—than even from an atomic warhead. And what they’re interested in is a bright flash, not an explosion. Of course, it will tear up a little landscape—not as much as an A-bomb, though more than a block-buster—but that’s incidental. And they expect to learn a lot about the exact composition of the surface of the moon by training spectroscopes on the flash through every big telescope available. They—»
They’d reached the door of the house and Betty Hadley interrupted by putting her hand on his arm. «Sorry to interrupt you, Keith, but I must hurry. Honestly, or I’ll miss the plane. ’Bye.»
She put out her hand for him to take but Keith Winton put his hands on her shoulders instead and pulled her to him. He kissed her and, for a breathless second, her lips yielded under his. Then she broke away.
But her eyes were shining—and just a bit misty. She said, «’Bye, Keith. See you in New York.»
«Tomorrow night? It’s a date.»
She nodded and ran on into the house.
Keith stood there, a fatuous smile on his face, leaning against the doorpost.
In love again, he thought. And this time it wasn’t quite like anything else that had ever happened to him. It was as sudden and violent as—well, as the flash on the moon was going to be at nine-sixteen tonight.
He’d known Betty Hadley only three days, seen her only once before this marvelous weekend—that had been Thursday when she’d first come to Borden Publications, Inc. The magazine she edited, Perfect Love Stories, had just been bought by Borden from a lesser chain. Part of the purchase contract had been that he could hire the editor who had done so well with it.
Perfect Love Stories had been a profitable magazine for three years now, due to Betty Hadley. The only reason the Whaley Publishing Co. had offered it for sale was that they were changing to exclusive publication of slicks. Perfect Love was their only surviving pulp.
So he’d met Betty Hadley on Thursday and, to Keith Winton, Thursday now seemed just about the most important day in his life to date. Friday he’d had to go to Philadelphia to see one of his writers, a guy who could really write but who’d been paid in advance for a lead novel and didn’t seem to be doing anything about writing it. He’d tried to get the writer started on a plot, and thought he’d succeeded.
Anyway, he’d missed seeing Joe Doppelberg, his prize fan, who’d picked Friday to happen to be in New York and to call at the Borden offices. Maybe that was a gain, judging from Joe Doppelberg’s letters.
And then, yesterday afternoon, he’d come out here at Borden’s invitation. And just another weekend on the boss’s estate (this was the third time Keith had been here) had turned into sheer magic when Betty Hadley turned out to be one of the other two guests from the office.
Betty Hadley—tall and lithe and golden blonde, with soft sun-tanned skin, with a face and figure that belonged on the television screen rather than in an editorial office—how she ever got to be an editor—