This Island Earth (eBook)

Raymond F. Jones (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
160 Seiten
Wildside Press (Verlag)
978-1-6676-6175-9 (ISBN)

Infos

A purchasing agent accidentally intercepts technology far beyond human science, leading radio engineer Cal Meacham to construct an 'interocitor'-a device that connects him to the enigmatic Peace Engineers. Recruited to their secretive desert compound, Cal is drawn into a shadowy struggle involving spaceships, mind control, and galactic warfare. As he uncovers their true mission, he must decide whether to support their covert battle or expose their perilous secrets. In a race against deception and cosmic enemies, the fate of Earth could rest in one man's judgment.

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A purchasing agent accidentally intercepts technology far beyond human science, leading radio engineer Cal Meacham to construct an "e;interocitor"e;-a device that connects him to the enigmatic Peace Engineers. Recruited to their secretive desert compound, Cal is drawn into a shadowy struggle involving spaceships, mind control, and galactic warfare. As he uncovers their true mission, he must decide whether to support their covert battle or expose their perilous secrets. In a race against deception and cosmic enemies, the fate of Earth could rest in one man's judgment.

Textauszug

CHAPTER 1

The offices of Joe Wilson, purchasing agent for Ryberg Instrument Corporation, looked out over the company’s private landing field. Joe stood by the window now, wishing they didn’t, because it was an eternal reminder that he’d once had hopes of becoming an engineer instead of an office flunky.

He saw the silver test ship of the radio lab level off at bullet speed, circle once and land. That would be Cal Meacham, Joe thought. Nobody but a radio engineer would fly an aeroplane that way.

He chomped irritably on his cigar and turned away. From his desk he picked up a letter and read it through slowly for the fourth time. It was in answer to an order he had placed for condensers for Cal’s hot transmitter job—Cal’s stuff was always hot.

Dear Mr. Wilson:

We were pleased to receive your order of the 8th for samples of our XC-109 condenser. However, we find that our present catalog lists no such item nor did we ever carry it.

We are, therefore, substituting the AB-619 model, a high-voltage oil-filled transmitting-type condenser. As you specified, it is rated at 10,000 volts with 100% safety factor and has 4 mf. capacity.

We trust these will meet with your approval and that we may look forward to receiving your production order for these items. It is needless, of course, to remind you that we manufacture a complete line of electronic components. We would be glad to furnish samples of any items from our stock which might interest you.

Respectfully yours,

A. G. Archmanter

Electronic Service-Unit 16

Joe Wilson put the letter down slowly and took up the box of beads that had come with it.

He picked up one bead by a lead wire sticking out of it. The bead was about a quarter of an inch in diameter and there seemed to be a smaller concentric shell inside. Between the two was some reddish liquid. Another wire connected to the inner shell, but for the life of him Joe couldn’t see how that inner wire came through the outer shell.

It made him dizzy to concentrate on the spot where it came through. The spot seemed to shift and move.

“Ten thousand volts!” he muttered. “Four mikes!”

He tossed the bead back into the box. Cal would be hotter than the transmitter job when he saw these.

Joe heard the door of his secretary’s office open and glanced through the glass panel. Cal Meacham burst in with a breeze that ruffled the letters on Joe’s desk.

“See that landing I made, Joe? Markus says I ought to be able to get my license to fly that crate in another week.”

“I’ll bet,” he added, “if you live that long.”

“Just because you don’t recognize a hot pilot when you see one—what are you so glum about, anyway? And what’s happened to those condensers we ordered three days ago? This job’s hot.”

Joe held out the letter silently. Cal scanned the page and flipped it back to the desk.

“We’ll try them out. Give me an order and I’ll pick them up from Receiving on my way to the lab.”

“They aren’t in receiving. They came in the envelope with the letter.”

“What are you talking about? How could they send sixteen mikes of 10 kV condensers in an envelope?”

Joe held up one of the beads by a wire. “Guaranteed one hundred percent voltage safety factor.”

“What screwball’s idea of a joke is this? Did you call Receiving?”

Joe nodded. “I checked good. These beads are all that came.”

Cal grasped one by the lead wire and held it up to the light. He saw the faint internal structure that Joe had puzzled over.

“It would be funny if that’s what these things actual were, wouldn’t it?” he said.

“You could build a 50 kW transmitter in a suitcase, provided you had other corresponding components.”

Cal dropped the rest of the beads in his shirt pocket. “Call them on the teletype. Tell them this job is plenty hot and we’ve got to have those condensers right away.”

“What are you going to do with the beads?”

“I might put ten thousand volts across them and see how long it takes to melt them down. See if you can find out who pulled this gag.”

For the rest of the morning Cal checked over the antenna on his new ground transmitter, which wasn’t putting out power the way it should. He forgot about the glass beads until late in the afternoon.

Then, as he bent his head down into the framework of the set, one of the sharp leads of the alleged condensers stuck through his shirt.

He jerked sharply and bumped his head on the iron framework. He cursed the refractory transmitter, the missing condensers and the practical joker who had sent the beads. He pulled the things out of his shirt pocket and was about to hurl them across the room.

But a quirk of curiosity halted his hand in midair. Slowly he lowered it and looked again at the beads that seemed to glare at him like eyes in the palm of his hand.

He called across the lab to a junior engineer. “Hey, Max, come here. Put these things on voltage breakdown and see what happens.”

“Sure.” The junior engineer rolled them over in his palm. “What are they?”

“Just some gadgets we got for test. I forgot about them until now.”

He resumed checking the transmitter. Crazy notion, that. As if the beads actually were anything but glass beads. There was only one thing that kept him from forgetting the whole matter. It was the way that one wire seemed to slide around on the bead when you looked at it.

In about five minutes Max was back. “I shot one of your gadgets all to pieces. It held up until thirty-three thousand volts—and not a microamp of leakage. Whatever they are they’re good. Want to blow the rest?”

Cal turned slowly. He wondered if Max were in on the game, too. “A few hundred volts would jump right around the glass from wire to wire without bothering to go through!”

“That’s what the meter read.”

“Come on,” said Cal. “Let’s check the capacity.”

First he tried another on voltage test. He watched it behind the glass shield as he advanced the voltage in steps of 5 kV. The bead held at thirty—and vanished at thirty-five.

His lips compressed tightly, Cal took the third bead to a standard capacity bridge. He adjusted the plugs until it balanced—at just four microfarads.

Max’s eyes were slightly popped. “Four mikes—they can’t be!”

“No. They can’t possibly be, can they?”

Back in the Purchasing Office Cal found Joe Wilson sitting morosely at the desk, staring at a yellow strip of teletype paper.

“Just the man I’m looking for,” said Joe. “I called the Continental Electric and they said—”

“I don’t care what they said.” Cal laid the remaining beads on the desk in front of Joe. “Those are four-mike condensers that don’t break down until more than thirty thousand volts. They’re everything Continental said they were and more. Where did they get them? Last time I was over there Simon Forrest was in charge of the condenser department. He never—”

“Will you let me tell you?” Joe interrupted. “They didn’t come from Continental. Continental says no order for condensers has been received from here in the last six weeks. I sent a re-order by TWX.”

“I don’t want their order then. I want more of these!” Cal held up a bead. “But where did they come from if not from Continental?”

“That’s what I want to know.”

“What letterhead came with these? Let’s see it again.”

“It just says, ‘Electronic Service-Unit Sixteen’. I thought that was some subsection of Continental. There’s no address on it.”

Cal looked intently at the sheet of paper. “You’re sure this came back in answer to an order you sent Continental?”

Wearily, Joe flipped over a file. “There’s the duplicate of the order I sent.”

“Continental always was a screwball outfit, but they must be trying to top themselves. Write them again. Give the reference on this letter. Order a gross of these condensers. While you’re at it ask for a new catalog. Ours may be obsolete. I’d like to see what else they list besides condensers.”

“Okay,” said Joe. “But I tell you Continental says they didn’t even get our order.”

“I suppose Santa Claus sent these condensers!”

Three days later Cal was still ironing the bugs out of his transmitter when Joe Wilson called again.

“I just got the condensers—and the catalog! For the love of Pete, get up here and take a look at it!”

“A whole gross of condensers? That’s what I’m interested in.”

“Yes—and billed to us for thirty cents apiece.”

Cal hung up and walked out towards the Purchasing Office. Thirty cents apiece, he thought. If that outfit should go into the business of radio instruments they could probably sell a radio compass for five bucks.

He found Joe alone, an inch thick manufacturer’s catalog open on the desk in front of him.

“Did this come from Continental?” said Cal.

Joe shook his head and turned over the front cover. It merely said, Electronic Service—Unit 16.

“We send letters to Continental and stuff comes back,” said Cal. “Somebody over there must know about this! What’s so exciting about the catalog?”

Joe arched his eyebrows. “Ever hear of a catherimine tube? One with an endiom complex of plus four, which guarantees it to be the best of its kind on the market?”

“What kind of gibberish is that?”

“I dunno, but this outfit sells them for sixteen dollars each.” Joe tossed the catalog across the...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 26.5.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
• Schlagworte: Advanced Technology • aliens among us • classic science fiction • Interstellar War • media tie-in • Sci-fi adventure • Space Opera
• ISBN-10: 1-6676-6175-2 / 1667661752
• ISBN-13: 978-1-6676-6175-9 / 9781667661759