A Matter of Matter (Stories from the Golden Age) Page 8

  Danny West read it again. The rest of his life those words would be engraved on his memory:

  MORTAN, DAGGER B. 116335

  MECHANIC FIRST CLASS, ROCKET TURBINES

  INTER-SYSTEM SPACEWAYS

  INOCULATED 10 JOLY 2595

  BLOOD TYPE O

  Danny West gave it up, numb with awe. His cellmate was applying a small gadget to the lock which dripped in large globules of iron upon the pavement.

  “But wait a minute,” said Danny West, “that lightning . . . That must have been . . .”

  “Yes,” said his cellmate, “this little gadget which you so carelessly supposed to be a fountain pen was the author of that. It’s not very much. The pile cell in it is almost worn out. It’s a sort of obsolete weapon, you see.”

  His cellmate walked through the swinging door, and then seemingly through the solid rock wall.

  A long time after he had gone, Danny West stood, arms hanging limply, still holding the laurel wreaths, his mouth forming the parting words:

  “An obsolete weapon!”

  Story Preview

  NOW that you’ve just ventured through some of the captivating tales in the Stories from the Golden Age collection by L. Ron Hubbard, turn the page and enjoy a preview of Greed. Join George Marquis Lorrilard, sometime lieutenant in the United Continents Space Navy—that pitiful handful of space guards—and now a space exploiter. Far in the future exist two Earth empires, separated by a weapon-projected wall of space and poised for war. Supposedly driven by greed, Lorrilard must change the fate of Earth and the stars.

  Greed

  IT can be said with more than a little truth that a society is lost when it loses its greed, for without hunger as a whip—for power, money or fame—Man sinks into a blind sloth and, contented or not, is gone.

  There were three distinct classes of men who made up the early vanguard into space—and they were all greedy.

  First were the explorers, the keen-eyed, eager and dauntless few who wrenched knowledge from the dark and unwilling depths of the universe.

  Next were the rangers, called variously the “space tramps,” “space nuts” and “star hobos,” who wandered aimlessly, looking, prospecting, seeing what was to be seen and wandering on.

  And last were the exploiters, the hardheaded, quick-eyed and dangerous few who accomplished, according to a standard and learned work of the times, the “rape of space.”

  Each had his hunger. The explorer wanted knowledge and fame and he often laid down his life in an effort to attain them. The space tramp wanted novelty, change, adventure and sojourns in the exotic humanoid societies or solitudes in the wastes. The exploiter wanted gems and gold.

  Hard words have been used against these last and it has been charged that their depredations in the first days of conquest committed ravages upon new planets which hundreds of generations could not repair.

  George Marquis Lorrilard, sometime lieutenant in the United Continents Space Navy—that pitiful handful of space guards—was an exploiter. The savage libels leveled at him in his days are leveled even now. In the kindest histories, he is “not quite nice.” And yet this man broke an impasse of Earth nations which threatened the future of all space conquest and planted the first successful colony in the stars.

  He wanted wealth and he made no secret of it. A lean, hardy, ice-eyed man, Lorrilard knew his own desires and he attained them. Lesser men were afraid of him and yet, when one reviews the evidence, he never gave his own kind reason.

  Often savage, always decisive and abrupt, George Marquis Lorrilard looms like a giant among his kind. He attained his goals. His fortune, wrested from brutal and inhospitable worlds, at one time amounted to twice the entire national debt of the United Continents and when it was at last dispersed in the reading of his will, it nearly wrecked Earth’s economy.

  But if one seeks to envision him as a palm-rubbing skinflint, cowering behind underlings, one is wrong. Even if that is the impression vengeful historians seek to give, nothing could be further from truth. He commanded his own ships. He fought his own fights. And he died in the act of personal conquest in the stars.

  Not too long after exploration had begun in earnest, men found that there was wealth to be had amongst the alien worlds. All they saw, then, was the portable wealth, the fabulous jewels and precious metals and elements, which lay either already mined in the hands of hapless humanoids or was to be had by the merest skimming of the virgin ground. Some of the tales told in these times are not exaggerations. It is actually true that there was an entire mountain of solid gold on Durak and that there was a ruby measuring eighty feet in diameter on Psycho. The humanoids of Darwin of Mizar used solid silver for paving. And into a thousand worlds went the exploiters, close behind the explorers, to extract their due with pick and gun. They fought animals, humanoids, men and absolute zero—some died and some received their pay.

  Few had thought of colonies at this time. Overpopulation on Earth was serious, but the first efforts with Mars had proven so pale that thoughts of new human worlds were few. Earth, as always, was too engrossed in her own travails to think much, as an entire society, about the stars.

  An invention had disrupted affairs entirely. And it was a sudden and stopping thing. Heretofore, nearly all research had aided space conquest but now, abruptly, the problems of the universe had to wait. The Asian government had triumphed.

  For many a long year there had been a single Earth, all properly patrolled and controlled by a single government. And the researches had become private affairs. Long sleep had lulled the salons, and the armor of their army and navy was almost sunk to rust. In the last year before the political cataclysm, the total United Nations appropriation for defense was less than one-tenth its expenditure for education, a thing which, while pretty, is not practical. And for a long, long while, the Asiatic races had slept.

  Earth had, as we all know, several human races. But her most energetic were the Oriental and the Occidental. And the Occidental ruled and the Oriental endured. A country which had been called Russia had almost triumphed once. And then it had failed. Although ostensibly white, it was actually Oriental. Sunk into what it considered a trying servitude to the Occidental races, Asia struggled behind her hands and at length, with the One-Earth government grown feeble, struck with suddenness.

  The wounds of a forgotten war had festered into a new invention. It was privately done. And it outstripped all the means of offense which could be employed against it.

  It was a simple contrivance. We would call it very elementary now. But to Earth it came as a stunning reversal of affairs. It was a “cohesion projector.” By using the force which keeps electrons and atoms together, rather than the force which blows them apart, space itself could be made into a solid wall. In an instant then, from a single generator, a column several hundred feet in diameter could be projected upwards for several thousand miles. It was not an elementary force screen such as those in early use to repel missile rockets. It was a solid, if invisible, wall. With a slightly greater frequency, it could have made matter, but they did not know that then and, indeed, did not find it out for another five hundred years.

  With cunning handicraft, the Asian races, under the direction of the ex-federation of Russia, constructed their thousands of generators, passed them secretly to proper points for installation and suddenly announced, with the murder of all the United Nations garrisons within the boundaries of Asia, that they were free from the remainder of the world.

  A dozen violent attacks against the rebels ended in defeat for the United Nations. The remaining political entities outside this barrier formed the United Continents under the direction of a major country in North America.

  At first no one supposed that any great harm would come of this. The Asians knew better than to attack such excellent missile weapons as the United Continents had, and the United Continents had learned with cost not to attack the cohesion barriers of the Asians. Earth was in a fine state of deadlock and consequent intr
igue, and stayed that way for many years.

  It was into this strange situation that George Marquis Lorrilard was born. He went to the United Continents Naval Academy, was graduated in the center of his class, was given a minor warship assignment and was forgotten about as a cog in the machinery of government. In due time, unnoticed in general but always admired by his divisions for his athletic skill and competence, he became a lieutenant and was placed in command of an outer-space patrol vessel, the State Sahara.

  Only then did he astonish anyone.

  To find out more about Greed and how you can obtain your copy, go to www.goldenagestories.com.

  Glossary

  STORIES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE reflect the words and expressions used in the 1930s and 1940s, adding unique flavor and authenticity to the tales. While a character’s speech may often reflect regional origins, it also can convey attitudes common in the day. So that readers can better grasp such cultural and historical terms, uncommon words or expressions of the era, the following glossary has been provided.

  alihipidile: made-up name for an animal.

  Alpha Centauri: the triple-star system that is closest to the Earth.

  anguis in herba: (Latin) a snake in the grass; a treacherous or harmful thing that is hidden or seemingly harmless.

  aqua vitae: (Latin) literally “water of life”; used in current English to mean a strong distilled alcohol, especially a strong liquor such as whiskey or brandy.

  assegais: slender iron-tipped hardwood spears used chiefly by African peoples.

  Assyria: an ancient empire and civilization of western Asia, at its height between the ninth and seventh centuries BC. The empire extended from the Mediterranean Sea across the Middle East.

  auto-blinded: to have made oneself unable to notice or understand something.

  bandolier: a broad belt worn over the shoulder by soldiers and having a number of small loops or pockets for holding cartridges.

  banshees: (Irish legend) female spirits whose wailing warns of a death in a house.

  beaters: people who drive animals out from cover.

  bellowing: expanding to draw air in and compressing to force the air out.

  billets: lodgings for soldiers.

  blunderbuss: a short musket (gun) with expanded muzzle to scatter shot, bullets or slugs at close range.

  boon: something to be thankful for; blessing; benefit.

  Carthage: an ancient city in northern Africa.

  cat: Caterpillar bulldozer; a heavy engineering vehicle used to push large quantities of soil, sand, rubble, etc., during construction work. It is made by Caterpillar, Inc., and commonly referred to simply as cat.

  cat men: operators of Caterpillar bulldozers.

  Colosseum: an ancient amphitheatre in Rome.

  corselets: body armor, especially breastplates.

  coup: coup de grâce; a finishing stroke.

  crap: a losing throw in the game of craps, where players wager money against the outcome of one roll, or a series of rolls, of two dice.

  dark star: a theoretical star whose gravity is strong enough to trap light; mostly superseded by the concept of “black hole.”

  dint of, by: by vigorous and persistent means.

  docks: any of various weedy plants that have broad leaves and clusters of small greenish or reddish flowers.

  done me dirt: treated me unfairly or reprehensibly.

  faring forth: traveling away from a particular place.

  figger: figure.

  flashboards: boards fitted at the top of a dam to add to its height and increase the amount of water that can be held back.

  flying squads: trained, mobile groups of police officers capable of moving quickly into action and performing specialized tasks, as during an emergency.

  Franco-Prussian War: (1870–1871) the war between France and Prussia. The conflict was a culmination of years of tension between the two powers, which finally came to a head over the issue of a candidate for the vacant Spanish throne following the deposition of the Queen of Spain. The French had equipped their infantry with the Chassepot, a breech-loading rifle with a maximum effective range of some 750 yards and a rapid reload time. Made famous as the arm of the French forces in this war, the Chassepots were responsible for most of the Prussian and other German casualties during the conflict.

  G: gravity; a unit of acceleration equal to the acceleration of gravity at the Earth’s surface.

  G-2: United States Army Intelligence (a branch of the Army).

  garnishee: to take the money or property of a debtor by legal authority.

  G-men: government men; agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  goon: a professional gangster whose work is beating up or terrorizing people.

  Graf Zeppelin: a large dirigible named after the German pioneer of airships, Ferdinand von Zeppelin. It flew for the first time on September 18, 1928 and was the largest airship at that time at 776 feet (262.5 meters) in length.

  Here’s how: used as a toast.

  hole card: the card dealt face down in the first round of a deal in stud poker.

  howitzer: a cannon that has a comparatively short barrel, used especially for firing shells at a high angle of elevation for a short range, as for reaching a target behind cover or in a trench.

  Lady Luck: luck or good fortune represented as a woman.

  leaded ports: portholes with glass impregnated with a small amount of lead to impede radiation.

  link pin: a thin rod that fastens together separate sections of a tread.

  magnetrons: devices that generate high-frequency electromagnetic waves, as for use in radar applications.

  make mincemeat out of: thrash; beat decisively.

  Mercator: a type of high-quality world map shown on a flat surface that can be used for accurate navigation.

  metal: mettle; spirited determination.

  mitts: hands.

  mix words: variant of “mince words”; to restrain oneself in a conversation and say less than one wants to, out of fear of offending the listener.

  MP: Military Police.

  net-and-trident: a pair of weapons used by gladiators consisting of a net and a three-pronged spear.

  Nubians: people from Nubia, a region in southern Egypt and northern Sudan and a former kingdom from 2000 BC–AD 1400.

  Numidians: people from Numidia, an ancient country in North Africa corresponding roughly to modern Algeria.

  onion: one’s subject or business.

  out at elbows: in financial straits; short of funds.

  Palatine Hill: one of seven hills in Rome; the central hill of the seven on which Rome was built, considered the oldest and the site of many of the imperial palaces.

  palisades: stakes pointed at the top and set firmly in the ground in a close row with others to form a defense.

  phalanx: especially in ancient Greece, a group of soldiers that attacks in close formation, protected by their overlapping shields and projecting spears.

  privy: an outhouse.

  P. T. Barnum: Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810–1891); an American showman who is best remembered for founding the circus that eventually became Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.

  radized: having caused (metal) to absorb doses of radiation.

  Riot Act: an English statute of 1715 providing that if twelve or more persons assemble unlawfully and riotously, to the disturbance of the public peace, and refuse to disperse upon proclamation, they shall be considered guilty of a felony.

  Roman holiday: a violent public spectacle or disturbance in which shame, degradation or physical harm is intentionally inflicted on one person or group by another or others. It comes from the bloody gladiatorial contests staged as entertainment for the ancient Romans.

  Roman Legionnaires: members of the Roman army that was the basic military unit of ancient Rome. The Roman Legionnaires were the best equipped soldiers in the world, with helmets and armor that covered more than seventy percent of their bodies. They also carrie
d a heavy body shield, two types of swords and a spear. They were well protected and their equipment was heavy, but still possessing considerable freedom of movement and lighter than the rest of the armies at the time.

  scareheads: headlines in exceptionally large type.

  Scheherazade: the female narrator of The Arabian Nights, who during one thousand and one adventurous nights saved her life by entertaining her husband, the king, with stories.

  septuagenarian: a person who is seventy years of age.

  shacking up: living or dwelling (in homes).

  shooter: a person who sets off explosives in oil-drilling operations.

  skinflint: one who is very reluctant to spend money; a miser.

  skunked: cheated by someone.

  spiderwork steel: steel; long rods of steel used for constructing antenna towers.

  stiffen your resolution: to strengthen or make firm one’s determination to do something or to carry out a purpose.