Born of Luna

by John Russell Fearn, Vargo Statten

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

A deadly meteor swarm approaching the Earth activates ancient Lunar technology buried beneath Earth's surface that results in the birth of Raquilo, the last Selenite, who will save some humans from the meteor storm that millions of years ago destroyed the Moon's atmosphere, oceans and inhabitants. Meanwhile, the balance of power on Earth has shifted to Vilgarth, an arms merchant who, with stolen v-ray technology and an alliance with governments in favor of his plan, wages a world war to take over the planet.

Release date: September 30, 2015

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 96

Sample

CLIFF SAUNDERS was motionless and silent, in the grip of a sudden train of thought. Underneath his hand the drawing of a machine lay forgotten, the set-squares and scale-rules of his profession momentarily abandoned. Though he was looking fixedly through the window into the grey light of the November afternoon Cliff did not observe anything. The square buildings of the big engineering firm of Norton and Burns across the busy yards did not register. In fact Cliff Saunders was lost completely—until a voice spoke.

“Cliff, the old man wants to see you in his office.”

“Eh? You—what?” Cliff looked up, startled. He was a keen-featured young man of twenty-seven, with the eyes of both a dreamer and a doer, and the forehead of a mathematician.

“I said——”

“All right, Nick, I heard you. Thanks.” Cliff made a grimace as he got up from his stool. “What kind of a mood is he in?”

“Bad. Liver’s troubling him again, I think.”

Cliff sighed. His fellow draughtsman, Nick Baines, looked at him curiously as he settled to his own work again.

“What’s wrong, Cliff? Why all the day dreaming? Or haven’t you got over just being married?”

“I—I had an idea,” Cliff answered vaguely. “It sort of absorbed me.”

“So I noticed. Been going on a lot lately. I should be careful.”

To this Cliff made no response. Nick was a good fellow and a capable enough engineer, but he had no imagination. He was quite content to work out other men’s ideas until the end of time. Not so Cliff. He believed he had just had an inspiration worth a million of any speculator’s money.

Still wrapped in his own thoughts he left the drawing department and headed through the corridors to the office of the All Highest—and found him brooding at his desk. Edgar Norton was affectionately known as “Nero”—both for his physical resemblance to the gentleman who fiddled, and because he had as little regard for his employees as Nero had for the Christians.

“Yes, sir?” Cliff asked quietly, and halted at the desk.

Bulgy eyes, slightly bloodshot, pinned him.

“How long have you been with us, Saunders?”

“Er—five years, sir,” Cliff answered, a faraway look in his grey eyes.

“Mmmm—five years. And for four of those years you were one of the best men we had. Now you’re the absolute worst—and it won’t do!”

“No, sir,” Cliff agreed dutifully.

“I don’t know whether you mean to be insolent or not,” Edgar Norton said deliberately, “but I do know that you are no use any more to this firm. Ten drawings, and every one with an error! Each drawing yours!”

Cliff began to concentrate, forcing himself to it. A shade of anxiety crossed his face.

“You—you mean, sir, that I have made that many errors?”

“I do, and a firm as important as this can’t afford them, or to keep on paying you. You can leave, Saunders, and take the rest of your month’s salary in lieu.”

“But—but, sir, I—I only just got married, because I was so sure I was safe here.”

“Too sure,” Norton gave a sour smile. “We only pay those workers who give their best, and obviously you are not doing that. I am quite aware that you have just got married, and I’m sorry to have to discharge you—but my business is more important than your marriage, I’m afraid. I’ve warned you before about being so slipshod.”

“Yes, sir, you have,” Cliff admitted despondently.

Norton cleared his throat. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked bluntly. “Are you ill—or what is the reason for your lack of concentration?”

“It’s an idea I’ve got, sir, and it’s such a good one it makes me forget everything else.”

“Indeed? I wonder you have the temerity to stand there and admit such a thing!”

“I think,” Cliff continued, unabashed, “that you might be interested, being a director of this firm. It’s an engineering project and my guess is it might be worth a lot of money, both to the inventor and the manufacturer.”

Norton took a cigar from the box and lighted it slowly while he thought things out. He was not averse to having ideas thrown in his lap, particularly by young men quite inexperienced in the vicious ways of the world.

“Maybe you’d care to explain it,” he suggested at length, nodding to a chair.

“Thanks, sir …” Cliff sat down; then he said simply, “It’s an idea for a secret weapon—better than the atom or hydrogen bomb, and far more destructive. The sort of thing the Government would pay millions to possess.”

“Perhaps,” Norton growled, who had not much faith in the Government. “What is it, man? Come to the point.”

“It’s a radiation, sir. As you know, there are dozens of different radiations—such as light, heat, and so forth, which in a general way may be called agitations in the ether. Well, there is also another type of radiation, in the same field as cosmic rays, which destroys matter and converts it into energy.”

“Mmmm,” Norton said, brooding.

“Most of the stars are created by that radiation,” Cliff added. “Some scientists believe stars are stars because they consume their own atomic energy. That isn’t so at all. They were once solid matter, but a particular wavelength radiating in space touched them and reduced the matter to energy. There is so much matter to be converted, however, the process takes millions of years. Sometimes it happens quickly with a small amount of matter and we get a star which flashes into being and dies out again in a matter of hours … destroyed.”

Edgar Norton was not a scientist. He had come into the business because his father and grandfather had been in it before him. Yet he did not want to look a fool—so he hazarded a question.

“If this radiation can create stars—as you say it can—and can destroy matter, why are we not destroyed? Why is the earth, and other planets, still floating around so solidly? We move in space, don’t we?”

“Yes, sir—but we have atmosphere, and so do most of the other worlds. That acts as a deflector, in the same way as cosmic rays don’t get through to anything like their full intensity. We have exceptions in Mercury and the Moon. In regard to the Moon I believe the craters have been caused by this prevalent radiation generated somewhere in the deeps of space. The Moon has passed the state of visible, flaming energy and is a dead hulk, but still corroding. Mercury, as near as I can work it out, is untouched by the radiation because the sun being so near draws everything, even radiation, to himself. The sun, too, was once solid matter until this radiation touched it. Now it is our flaming day-star.”

“And this radiation is prevalent everywhere in space? Is that what you mean?”

“Well—er—not everywhere, sir. I think it exists more freely in some places than others, whilst some spots are quite free of it. Take the Black Hole of Cygnus: that is a spot where the radiation doesn’t touch.”

“Oh, of course,” Norton agreed, and wondered vaguely where in hell the Black Hole of Cygnus might be.

“There are also other spots,” Cliff mused. “But the point is, this radiation can be duplicated, and that is the idea which has been absorbing me.”

“How the devil can you duplicate it? You can’t even know what it is, man, without going into space to find out. And I’m sure you haven’t done that! This is only 1957, after all.”

“I’ve worked it all out by mathematics, sir. Nothing illogical about that. All other special radiations are worked out in the same manner.”

“Yes, yes, I know but——” Norton shrugged and knocked cigar ash into the glass ash-tray. “I think you’re up a gum tree, young man! No man can possibly duplicate a radiation which exists out in space!”

“Why not?” Cliff asked quietly. “We duplicate X-rays, infra-red, and ultra-violet, don’t we? And they exist in space too, which is where their original conception came from. You see, sir, I——”

“I don’t see, Saunders, and you’re wasting my time and your own. Certainly you haven’t said anything to justify my keeping you on here. See the cashier about your salary, will you?”

Cliff compressed his lips and got to his feet. He said no more, knowing that the boss was in his most obdurate mood. Within ten minutes he had collected his few belongings from the office, taken a rather grim farewell of the puzzled Nick Baines, and collected his salary cheque from the cashier.

In fifteen minutes the clanking local train had brought him to Wilmington, four miles outside the industrial centre where Norton and Burns was situated.

“Early home today, Mr. Saunders,” the grizzled old station-master-cum-ticket collector remarked, as Cliff showed his contract. “Time off for good behaviour, eh?”

Cliff did not feel that the crack was in the best of taste so failed to respond. Muffling his collar against the raw cold of the wintery afternoon he tramped up the station slope and thereafter followed the main street through the tiny little town. He walked for a mile, constantly uphill, the houses of the town receding behind him—until finally he reached his own abode on the summit of the hill.

It was a biggish house but the price for it had been ridiculously low because of its isolation. Now it was mortgaged to the hilt—but Lucy had asked for all the fresh air she could get, so there it was.

Gloomily, Cliff opened the big front gate, tramped up the long pathway, and then fumbled for his keys. Before he could find them Lucy had opened the door for him.

Just for a moment Cliff stood looking at her, touched by an even more troubled thought than his dismissal. Lucy looked as etherial as ever in this drab, cheerless light. She was small in build with nearly flaxen hair, an elfin face, and very large blue eyes. Much more like a doll than a living woman. Her skin was white as alabaster except for the gentle pink in her cheeks. Somehow she stopped just short of being pretty, and Cliff had never been able to discover where the omission occurred.

“Cliff——” She caught at his hands and kissed him in greeting. “I saw you through the window. But—you’re home early?”

“Yes. Yes, dear, I’m afraid I am.”

Cliff followed her into the house and through to the cosy lounge. A comfortable fire was crackling. Lucy looked somewhat guilty.

“I haven’t anything ready for you, Cliff. I never expected you to be——”

“No, of course you didn’t.” Cliff tugged off his coat, hat, and muffler and threw them down carelessly—something he never did as a rule. “Fact is, dear, something’s blown up and I don’t know how to tell you.”

“Oh?” Lucy settled on the big hassock beside the fire and hugged her knees. “What?”

Cliff gave her the facts. He could not do it sitting down. He kept on the move all the while, hands plunged in his jacket pockets. When he had finished he came to a halt to see how Lucy had taken it. She was staring fathoms deep into the blazing fire.

“Perhaps I can find another job,” he said, coming forward and putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. “In . . .