Part 1

YOUNG READERS Science Fiction Stories

By RICHARD M. ELAM

ILLUSTRATED BY VICTOR PREZIO

_Publishers_ GROSSET & DUNLAP, INC. _New York_

© 1957 by LANTERN PRESS, INC. By arrangement with Lantern Press, Inc.

PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN CANADA BY GEORGE J. MC LEOD, LIMITED, TORONTO, ONTARIO MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO THE YOUNG TRAVELERS OF TOMORROW

_CONTENTS_

_Beth and the Twilight Star_ 13 _Gib Takes a Space Test_ 28 _The Space Mail Run_ 39 _All Aboard for Space_ 55 _Wheel in the Sky_ 69 _Danger on the Ice Canal_ 83 _Cargo for Callisto_ 95 _The Big Show on Titan_ 107 _Adventure on the Sun’s Doorstep_ 119 _The Flying Mountain_ 132 _Castaways in Space_ 144 _The Big Space Ball Game_ 158 _Paper Treasure for Mars_ 171

_ILLUSTRATIONS_

She saw a strange land unfolding before her eyes 22 Everyone was told to buckle himself to the rail by a short length of cord 62 The tornado bomb was on its way, speeding hundreds of miles a second Earthward 81 He saw her flinging her arms and legs about like a drowning swimmer 128 Benasco was seated on the floor like a child with a new scrapbook 187

YOUNG READERS Science Fiction Stories

_BETH AND THE TWILIGHT STAR_

Beth Harrison and her father had driven into the desert to look for dead branches of “jumping cactus,” which were used in making lamps for Mr. Harrison’s tourist shop in Tucson. He and Beth had just gotten out of the station wagon and were gazing up a slope of bristly cacti.

“This looks like a good place, Daddy,” Beth said.

Mr. Harrison nodded. “We’ll have to hurry, though. It’s getting late.”

They started up the sandy slope carrying straw market bags that would hold their gleanings.

“Maybe we’ll see some Flying Saucers,” Beth said half-jokingly. “Someone thought he saw one out here the other day.”

Her father grinned. “Flying Saucers indeed! You and that lively imagination of yours, Beth!”

They set to work searching for dead branches. They found a few good specimens. But they were not enough to suit Beth and she decided to broaden the search. She went over the slope and up and down another, and before long her roaming carried her out of sight of her father.

Amidst the stunning colors of the sunset, Beth could make out a lone star—Sirius—the brightest true star in all the sky. It reminded her of a pearl glowing in the heavens.

Presently Beth had a bag full of cactus wood for the lamp shop. She was about to return to her father when suddenly she saw something ahead that she had not noticed before. Almost hidden within a dense thicket of smoky green _paloverde_ was a shiny surface that reflected the dying sun’s rays. Her imagination stirred, Beth decided to investigate.

She put down her bag and made her way into the thicket. As she moved carefully through the thorns, she found some of the branches pushed aside as if someone had used this path before. She was almost through when she tripped and fell head-first. Her forehead bumped against an unyielding branch, causing her to see more than one star this time.

She didn’t know how long she lay on the ground half-stunned before she got to her feet. There was a painful bruise on her forehead, but her curiosity was still strong and she went on. The shiny surface turned out to be a wall as smooth and glossy as steel.

“Jeepers!” Beth thought. “What can it be?”

She reached out to touch the wall. Before she could do so, a door opened in the wall.

The first thing she noticed beyond was a soft yellow light filling a handsome room. Feeling like Alice on the threshold of Wonderland, she stepped inside, more thrilled than afraid.

She heard a sighing behind her and saw the door closing shut. Only then did she become frightened. She beat against the wall, wishing that she had not been so rash as to venture into such a strange place.

She heard a voice say, “That will not help.”

Beth turned and saw a girl of about her own age standing on a richly-carpeted platform across the room. The odd unearthliness of the girl struck Beth immediately. She was pretty and her skin was milky white. Her costume seemed to be of a blue phosphorescent material, as did her shoes. Her short hair was almost as red as glowing coals.

“Wh—who are you?” Beth stammered.

“I am Linnia,” the girl replied in a voice that sounded almost as if she were singing. “You are Beth.”

“Yes,” Beth replied in amazement, “but how did you—?”

“I can read your mind.”

Beth gulped. “You can?”

“Come over and sit down,” Linnia said. “We shall talk.”

She sat in a nearby chair that seemed to be made of steel matchsticks, it looked so frail. Beth sat in the chair opposite and found that it was very sturdy.

“You are thinking that I look very strange to you,” Linnia said. “You seem strange to me too, but that is because we are of different worlds.”

Beth gulped again. “D—different worlds?”

Suddenly the yellow light in the room changed to a pulsing orange. Linnia straightened up quickly. “That is the signal,” she spoke. “I did not expect it so soon. We must hurry and prepare ourselves!”

Beth started asking questions, but Linnia said not now. Beth found herself following the girl across the room to a row of couches. Beth lay down on one and somehow knew exactly what she was to do. She guessed that Linnia was putting the thoughts into her head. She lifted the straps that hung at the sides and buckled them across her body.

The couch was soft as a cloud and Beth was thinking how much she would like to have a bed like this when all at once she felt herself sinking deeply into the cushion as if a great hand were thrusting her down. For several moments she was as giddy as if she were riding the roller-coaster at the carnival. Then finally her breath came back and she felt herself rise to the top of the cushion again.

“We can get up,” she heard Linnia say. “We’re coasting now.”

They unbuckled their straps and rose to their feet. Linnia walked over to the wall, pressed a button, and a blind rolled back, revealing a long window.

“Look,” Linnia said.

Beth joined her and looked out the window. Her heart fairly rose into her throat. She was up in the sky, far up in the sky! Through a veil of clouds beneath she could see the curve of the earth itself!

Beth seized Linnia by the arm. “Jeepers, what’s going on! Where are you taking me?”

Linnia pointed to the white beacon of Sirius in the blue-black sky.

“You’re from Sirius?” Beth asked in amazement.

“Yes, from Tata Moori, one of its planets. Our work on earth is through for right now and my father and I are returning home to make a report.”

Linnia went on to say that her father’s space ship was only one of many which were studying the earth to see how the people here lived. Her father’s assignment had been to make an analysis of the soil. The visitors intended no harm and in time they planned to meet the people of earth face to face.

“Well, I have already met you,” Beth said boldly, “and I’m ready to go back!”

Linnia shook her flame-topped head. “We tried to keep our ship hidden, but you found it, Beth, and so there is nothing to do but take you back with us for awhile. When you came close, the electric eye opened the door and let you inside before it was time for any earth person to see one of our ships.”

“But my father and mother,” Beth said desperately, “and my friends! They’ll be worried to death! You must not take me, Linnia! Please, isn’t there something you can do?”

Linnia studied Beth’s pleading face. Then she replied, “I’ll talk to my father. He’s busy running the ship, but I’ll do what I can for you. While I’m gone, you can see what it’s like on our world by pushing the button on that cabinet against the wall. Father and I look at the film sometimes to keep from getting homesick.”

Beth was in no mood for looking at pictures. She was feeling worse by the minute as she considered what it would be like to be parted from her family and friends. As she sat in the chair, dreading and wondering, suddenly it became too much for her and she began to cry.

“Jeepers, why did I ever wander off from Daddy?” she moaned.

The tears made her feel better and presently she was calm enough to go over to the cabinet and turn it on. A large screen brightened and she saw a strange land unfolding before her eyes.

There were winding highways raised into the sky and skyscrapers like tall crystal columns. She saw motorcars of tear-drop design and helicopters filling the air. The people looked much like Linnia, with phosphorescent clothing, and all had hair as flaming red as Linnia’s own.

Yes, Tata Moori looked like an exciting place to visit, but it was not a visit Beth would want to make without another person from her own planet. As she thought about her predicament, she began to be scared again and the tears filled her eyes once more. Why, Sirius was _trillions_ of miles from Earth!

She went to the window. The dwindling earth was becoming a green ball against the black deeps of space. The stars were dazzling and seemed as countless as the sands of the seashore. The view made Beth terribly homesick.

Finally Linnia returned.

Beth looked at her anxiously, trying to read her fate in the foreign girl’s eyes.

“What did your father say?” Beth asked, with fluttering heart. “Did he say he’d take me back? Please tell me he did!”

Linnia smiled. “Yes, Beth. He said that we are not supposed to take younger persons to Tata Moori. He was angry with me for not telling him you were aboard, but I told him you came in just before we blasted off.”

“Gee, I’m so relieved!” Beth said happily. “I don’t mean I wouldn’t like your company, Linnia, but you know how it is.”

“Yes, I know,” Linnia replied wistfully. “I have missed my mother and friends too. I had to take my brother’s place on this trip when he became sick. You see, everyone on Tata Moori learns science when they are very young.”

“I’ve been wondering how it is that you speak English, Linnia.”

“We keep tuned in on your radio and television,” Linnia answered. “That’s how we learned your language and so many other things about you.”

“You people seem to be ahead of us in progress,” Beth said. “I believe there is much we can learn from you.”

“We can learn much from you too,” Linnia spoke. “I hope the people of our planets are permitted to meet very soon.”

The girls had to belt down on their couches again because of the mounting speed at which they were returning to earth. Beth felt herself sinking deeply into her cushion once more and she grew breathless again. Minutes later, the ship stopped moving.

Beth hurriedly unbuckled and ran over to the window. Through a break in the _paloverde_ thicket she could see her father’s station wagon parked at the roadside. She was back at the same place she had started from.

“Thank goodness!” she breathed.

Linnia walked with her to the outer door.

“My father said he’d like to have met you,” Linnia said, “but he is too busy preparing for our blast off again. We must hurry because we are behind schedule. Before you leave, Beth, Father has said that you must promise never to speak a word about all this to anyone. I have searched your mind and I know you to be honest.”

Beth was disappointed that she could not make known her fabulous journey, but she promised that she would never tell.

Linnia waved her hand at the door and the electric eye opened it.

“Goodbye, Beth,” Linnia said.

“Goodbye, Linnia.”

Beth heard the sighing of the door as it closed behind her.

Suddenly her head began aching and she remembered the fall she had taken earlier. As she made her way out of the thicket, she began to have a queer feeling about her adventure. It made her wonder if perhaps she might not have been unconscious and imagined the whole thing.

When she reached the car, her father said with some concern, “You were gone so long I started to come for you, Beth. What happened to your forehead?”

She told him about her fall but did not mention the space ship.

“Did you see something land a few minutes ago, Daddy?” Beth asked.

Mr. Harrison grinned. “You mean, maybe, a Flying Saucer? No, I’m afraid I didn’t. Are you sure your imagination isn’t working overtime again, Beth?”

As they were about to get into the car, Beth saw a dark object in the distance rise from the ground and move off into the deepening twilight. She was certain she did not imagine this.

“You saw that, didn’t you, Daddy?” Beth asked.

Mr. Harrison nodded. “Probably a hawk. Hmm, it looks like it’s heading right for the Evening Star, doesn’t it?”

Beth gazed at the brilliant light of Sirius, gorgeously bright now with darkness closing in.

“I wish I knew if it really was,” Beth murmured.

_GIB TAKES A SPACE TEST_

Gib Bromfield was nine, and the thing he wanted to do most was to make a flight into space. A colony on the Moon had already been started for scientific research, and a huge man-made space platform circled the Earth once every twenty-four hours.

“I want to go back to the Moon with you, Father,” Gib would plead every time Mr. Bromfield came home on a furlough.

“I’m afraid you’re still a little young, Gib,” his father would reply. “Some day you will be able to go out into space with me, but not yet.”

Mr. Bromfield was a construction engineer, and he was helping to build a big spaceport on the Moon. He came home to see his family every six months. Each time he returned, Gib couldn’t wait to meet him at the front door of their prefabricated home.

Gib would shake hands with him like a man and take his bags from him. Then he would step back and admire the tall, handsome man in the glossy black boots and gray uniform of the Space Service. By this time, Mother usually came running up, followed by Sandra, Gib’s little sister.

On Mr. Bromfield’s latest visit, Gib waited until the usual family talk had subsided before he started asking his father about his recent adventures. After Father had brought him up to date, Gib asked the same question he always asked:

“Father, my I go back with you this time for a short visit—just a short one?”

Mr. Bromfield smiled and rumpled Gib’s blond hair. “It’s not the time element, Gib,” he said patiently. “It’s the rigors of space itself, which are much rougher than Captain Rocket on TV would have us believe.”

Gib’s face fell. He had hoped that this time his father would give in and let him go back. Mr. Bromfield could see that his son was disappointed. He stared at Gib thoughtfully for a moment, then spoke again.

“All right, Gib, I’ll put you through S.Q.T. If you pass it and still want to go spaceward, I’ll take you.”

“Gee, do you mean that?” Gib burst out.

He was so excited he didn’t know what to do. Gib had never had any doubt that he would pass the S.Q.T.—the Space Qualification Test—that all those who go spaceward must take.

Mr. Bromfield went immediately to the video-phone and put through a call to S.Q.T., having them place Gib’s name on the space test list.

“Thanks, Father!” Gib said excitedly. “At last I’ll be going spaceward!”

“We’ll see,” Mr. Bromfield replied soberly.

Gib spent the next afternoon on the first part of the test, which was a complete physical examination.

“It didn’t hurt the tiniest bit,” Gib joked with his father that night. “If all the parts of the test are as easy as this first one, I won’t have any trouble.”

Mr. Bromfield did not say anything, but he smiled to himself as though he knew something that Gib did not know.

Gib and his father took the elevated expressway to the S.Q.T. center early the next morning in their atom-powered Johnson Superjet. The final portions of Gib’s test would be covered today.

The first part was familiarity with the space suit. In company with about fifty other candidates, Gib was given a supply of clothing. Then everyone was shown how to zip up their thickly insulated suits in front. Next, an attendant snapped metal cylinders to their shoulders and screwed the flexible tubing into valves on their suits. Last to be put on were helmets of light metal that had a darkened glass in front so that the wearer could look out.

“Now, all of you turn the little black knob on your chests,” the tester said. His voice sounded muffled to Gib because of the helmet he wore.

Gib turned his knob and felt his suit blowing up like a balloon as air flowed in from the oxygen tanks.

“This is how you would be dressed for a walk on the Moon,” the tester told them. “Now I want all of you to walk into the next room.”

As Gib went into the room with the others, he was thinking how easy the test had been up until now. And what fun it was taking the very tests that Captain Rocket himself must have taken at one time! He thought his father was surely mistaken for having doubted his ability to pass the S.Q.T.

The tester left the room and shut the door. In a few moments Gib began to have a strange sensation. He was feeling lighter and lighter, and the others with him were beginning to float right off the floor!

Gib struggled frantically as he felt himself go off balance. Each movement he made, however, shot him off at swift, crazy angles. He felt himself sweating with fear, and for the first time he was believing that maybe the S.Q.T. wasn’t going to be so easy after all.

It seemed as if he had the strength of a Samson, but it was a strength he could not control. A simple kick sent him hurtling across the room toward the wall! He tried to brake himself, but nothing he did would stop him. He crashed headlong into the wall. It shook him up a little, but he was not hurt. He saw that the wall was thickly padded.

After about fifteen minutes of helplessness, Gib felt himself getting heavier again and saw his companions drop to the floor in normal position. The tester came in with some doctors. The doctors looked over each candidate and asked many questions. Gib was still dazed and wasn’t sure of the answers he gave.

When the doctors were through, the tester explained what had happened: “This room was de-gravitized, which means the Earth’s gravity in here was cut off by mechanical means. It’s the same condition you will find in a space ship when the gravity plates are turned off. From the looks of some of you, this experience was something of a shock. But the final test will be even rougher. Anybody who wants to drop out now may do so.”

Gib saw that about a third of the candidates had had enough. Gib was still giddy himself and started to join them. He was disappointed in the harshness of “zero-gravity.” It had always looked so simple to him the way that Captain Rocket “swam” about in his rocket flyer.

Gib did not want his father to think him a quitter, though, and decided to stick out the test to the end. When his turn came, he was led into a huge room by himself and up to a queer-looking machine. It resembled one of the thrill rides at a carnival, the one that whirls you round and round like a ball on the end of a string. Gib entered a tiny cabin at the end of the large swinging arm and sat down in a thick foam-rubber reclining chair.

As he was strapped down, the tester said to him, “This is called the ‘Centrifuge,’ son, and it simulates the blast-off from Earth in a rocket ship. You appear to be a little young to be taking it, so if you’ve had enough just yank that lever in front of you and we’ll stop the machine.”

“I—I will,” Gib replied, getting scared already.

He got more scared as all sorts of instruments were strapped to him. The tester explained that these were to record his reactions. As the door was closed on him. Gib had a trapped feeling. Then he composed himself and waited for the worst, telling himself that a spaceman must be brave.

Presently he felt the cabin begin to move, slowly at first. This much was fun, Gib thought, just like the carnival ride. As the cabin picked up speed, it was even more thrilling. But then as the speed increased still more, Gib began to lose his enjoyment.

Faster and faster he went, and Gib was crushed deeply into the chair cushion. He felt his cheeks draw back from his teeth, the corners of his eyes making him squint. There was heavy pressure on his chest, as if an elephant were standing on him. His breath hung in his throat and he saw strange colors and darting forms before his eyes.

He stood the agonizing effect as long as he could, and then his frightfully heavy hand crept unsteadily toward the lever in front of him and jerked it.

The cabin began losing speed and finally stopped. Gib saw a blurred image open the door and offer his hand. As he stumbled out, his head feeling big as a watermelon, Gib vaguely remembered hearing the tester say:

“You needn’t feel badly about this, son. You almost lasted it out. Come back in another year or two and then I think you’ll be able to pass.”

Gib still wasn’t quite himself as he met his father in the waiting room. He was quivering all over, and his dad wouldn’t quite come into focus.

“I flunked the test, Father,” Gib told him.

“It sounds to me as if you’re glad you did,” Mr. Bromfield replied, with a chuckle. “I was afraid it might be too rough for you, son, but I knew there was no other way to show you that space travel isn’t as easy as the comic books make out.”

“I’ll try again next year,” Gib said, “or the year after that, anyway. That’s what the tester told me.”

“I’m sure you’ll be ready then,” Mr. Bromfield replied. “Now, what do you say we go home? Captain Rocket is almost due on TV.”

_THE SPACE MAIL RUN_

The way he felt now, Jerry Welsh was almost sorry he had left Earth. The Moonship landing seemed to be crushing the very life out of him, although he lay flat on a couch to ease the strain.

Jerry turned his head toward his father, who was strapped down like himself, and suffering too. The craft was under its own control, for no human could withstand the rocket’s present speed and still be able to steer in for a landing.

Capt. Welsh was on his bi-weekly mail run to Luna, the Moon, and for the first time in ten years of service he had a passenger—his own twelve-year-old son.

At last Jerry felt a hard jolt under him. He knew the rocket’s tail fins had finally touched ground. Jerry unstrapped himself with rubbery fingers and sat up. Then he tried to stand, but flopped down again.

“Wow, I feel giddy!” he groaned.

His father laughed. “You’ll get your bearings presently, Son.”

How long Jerry had waited to make this space mail run with his father! Then finally last year, Capt. Welsh had said that Jerry could go with him when he became twelve, as he was especially husky and strong for his age.

But now that the great moment had come at last, Jerry wasn’t sure he was enjoying it as he had expected, for he had found space so vast, so dark, and so frightening.

“Do you still want to be a spaceman, Jerry?” his dad asked suddenly, as though Jerry had spoken his thoughts aloud.

“I—I think so, Dad,” he replied hesitantly.