Earth 2

by John Russell Fearn, Vargo Statten

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

Synopsis

Into a world armed to the teeth there suddenly comes a strange gospel of disarmament. Briefed to investigate the intrigue is Sidney Boyd of MI5, and from a murdered diplomat his adventures take him to the fantastic Earth Two, an exact duplicate of our own planet in so far as living beings are con­cerned, and it falls to him-with the help of Orwena Exburg of Earth Two-to try and smash the deadly plan which is being matured against the peaceful nations of the world. Boyd and Orwena solve the mystery of Earth Two after making a landing on the moon and discovering something about it never before suspected by Earth scientists...

Release date: March 31, 2015

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 96

Sample

IT was in 1960 when every nation of the world had reached saturation point in the matter of armaments. Though each one was deadly secretive as to the extent of its weapons, it was more or less common knowledge that each was approximately balanced. In a sense, the irresistible force had met the immovable object and, for the moment anyway, there was a stalemate. The Eastern and Western worlds were frozenly polite towards each other, each trying to assess the other’s powers, wandering around each other like a collection of stiff-legged, snarling dogs.

It was the fact of this saturation point in armaments which made it all the more surprising when Britain’s Prime Minister, Sir Marcus Alroyd, put forth the first tentative suggestion in Parliament that, as a goodwill gesture, Britain should completely disarm and so bring the grim tension to an end. Upon which the Opposition Party immediately declared—and with considerable truth—that it would probably bring Britain to an end as well. All the enemy was waiting for was a definite crack in the armour. The moment one nation had less than its potential enemy the long-threatened World War IV would commence.

Sir Marcus accepted all this with stoic calm and merely re-emphasised his point. According to him, the lead had to come from somewhere, so it might as well come from Britain. The fact that hardly anybody, even in his own Party, agreed with him still did not deter him. For many times after the initial suggestion he kept on plugging it home, and of course the daily Press took it up as well.

A puzzled and definitely uneasy world awaited for what would happen next. Astonishing it was indeed when the Daily Survey, usually opposed to Sir Marcus’s Party, came out with a leader offering him wholesale support. In fact, the Daily Survey went further. Since it controlled a whole chain of periodicals and newspapers, it spread its campaign for the “Alroyd Disarmament Plan” to all these organs as well, and immense was their combined effect on public opinion. Gradually the scheme for disarmament began to gain ground.

One of the most uneasy men in the midst of this racial suicide—for such it appeared to be—was Maxwell Jowett, the head of MI5. He, perhaps more than any other man living, working in conjunction with Military and International Intelligence, knew to just what extent the rest of the world was armed. Britain, without weapons, would just vanish like a snuffed candle flame.

“I frankly do not understand it, gentlemen,” he declared to a gathering of his most expert “shadow men.” “We have always known Sir Marcus Alroyd to be a champion of armed strength as the only security in a hag-ridden world, yet now he has completely reversed his tactics for no apparent reason. It would be bad enough in itself, but since he is carrying everybody else along with him there is no telling where it may end. Have any of you any information that may throw light on his sudden change of course?”

There was silence for a moment, then Sidney Boyd started speaking. He was probably one of MI5’s best scientific operators, a quiet-voiced man in the mid-forties with a singular gift for piecing together solid facts out of seemingly irrelevant data.

“Seems to me, sir, that we haven’t only Sir Marcus to worry about, either. The head of the Daily Survey chain of newspapers, together with quite a few famous men and women, are all shouting the P.M.’s disarmament plan from the housetops. In all, I’d say there must be about twenty well-known people—who have profound influence on the masses—who are all for Alroyd’s idea.”

“Yes, so I believe.” The head of MI5 gave a grim nod. “It is partly because of that that I asked you here. I maintain that the P.M. is not the kind of man to suddenly change his policy without a very powerful reason, and since he isn’t influenced by any political factor it brings us face to face with another and decidedly startling possibility.”

The assembled men waited for the next. And the head of MI5 continued: “I hardly need to state that we are living in a highly organised, scientific age where hypnotism and control of the individual’s will have been brought to a fine art—mainly, I admit, for beneficial reasons. But, if used in a different way, those arts might very easily sway the minds of those responsible for moulding public thought.”

“Which is just another way of suggesting that the P.M. and sundry other people have been hypnotised into behaving the way they have?” Sidney Boyd asked, then he shook his head. “No, sir, that certainly is not the answer. On the last occasion when Sir Marcus spoke in Parliament I was in the public gallery, and there couldn’t have been a man more in possession of himself. He is speaking his own ideas and hypnotism has not a thing to do with it.”

Maxwell Jowett sighed and relaxed. “Then I freely admit I don’t know what the answer is, because I am perfectly sure that none of the people concerned would be tempted for a moment by bribes from our enemies. What has caused this sudden clamour for disarmament? That is our problem. We know—and so do many responsible heads—that to divest ourselves of weapons at this crucial point in the world’s history is to invite destruction. Yet to judge from the latest information this disarmament has already begun.”

“Correct,” one of the assembled men agreed. “And our most powerful weapons—the atomic piles—are going first! America and our many friends are appalled at what Sir Marcus calls our ‘magnificent gesture’, and well they might be.”

Silence, and the one most lost in thought was Sidney Boyd. Finally he seemed to come to a conclusion.

“You spoke of the scientific age we live in, sir…. I think you’re wrong in the hypnotism guess, but there may be other scientific methods at work. I suggest that we watch each of these ‘disarmament apostles’ night and day, study their movements, find out what contacts they make, generally compile a dossier on each one of them. That way we may hit upon some clue. Certainly the business seems unnatural somewhere.”

Jowett shrugged. “Do exactly as you wish, Sidney. You have carte blanche as usual. I feel that we are directly responsible for public safety and we’d fail in our duty if we didn’t make some effort to sort out this extraordinary business….”

So Sidney Boyd went to work, entirely unobtrusive as usual, and since he was in charge of this particular investigation he gave orders to the rest of the MI5 personnel to report to him the moment the vaguest suggestion of the unusual presented itself. A somewhat vague way of starting out to solve the mystery, certainly, but at the present stage there was nothing else that could be done.

Days became weeks, and even Boyd, usually utterly phlegmatic, was becoming worried. His own and personal studies of the men and women who at mass meetings urged disarmament, had not revealed the slightest unnatural trait about them. They meant what they said and were entirely filled with their own ardour.

The one on whom Boyd exclusively centred his attention was Rupert Carson, one of the P.M.’s political party who, up to now, had had little to say about the disarmament policy. But all of a sudden he seemed to have realised he ought to support his Party chief, for he whipped up a big meeting in London’s Central Hall and held forth at great length upon Britain’s magnificent gesture.

Boyd watched him intently, even through opera-glasses, and arrived at no satisfactory conclusion, any more than he had on previous occasions. Disgruntled, and wondering if he ought not to try a new line of approach, he returned to his office at the Yard to think things out.

And here, for the first time, a chance to make a move dropped right in his lap. It was contained in a short, confidential report from one of the other MI5 men busy on the investigation. Boyd picked the report up from his desk and frowned over it:

10-18 a.m., Tuesday, May 2. Rupert Carson, M.P. found in critical condition in Daffodil Wood. Now in St. Jude’s Hospital. Life despaired of. Notify instructions to F87—MI5 Confidential.

“Carson? Carson?” Boyd repeated half aloud, frowning. “But how the devil can it be?”

He glanced at his watch—it was 5.15—and then looked across at Sergeant Davis quietly busy at his own desk.

“When did this note come in, Dick?”

The sergeant got up, glanced at the note, then said: “It was twenty past ten this morning, sir. I didn’t know where to contact you, unfortunately. Seems it might be important.”

“Important! Damn it, man, it’s miraculous! All this afternoon I’ve been listening to Rupert Carson spieling about disarmament in the Central Hall, yet according to this he’s lying nearly dead—maybe dead entirely by now—in hospital!”

Sergeant Davis scratched his ear. “Must be his twin, sir.”

“Or something like it—” Boyd reached down his hat, jerked open the office door and was gone. In a matter of under ten minutes a fast squad car had whirled him to St. Jude’s Hospital, and there he spent half an hour doing his best to gather information from a man who was obviously nearly dead, a man who was the exact counterpart of the Rupert Carson who had done so much talking during the afternoon.

His notes complete, Boyd could only leave the matter to the surgeon in charge and then returned to headquarters, sending out an immediate call for F87 to report immediately. The moment F87 presented himself he and Boyd retired to Maxwell Jowett’s office by prearrangement.

“We’re certainly on to something,” Boyd said without any waste of time. “Rupert Carson has a perfect twin. This evening in the hospital I took Carson’s fingerprints, and later I’ll check them with his double and see what we get out of it. Carson was barely able to tell his story, but it seems that what happened was this: One evening recently whilst taking a stroll before bedtime he crossed through Daffodil Wood, which is close to his country home. It’s a deserted stretch around there, more or less open country. Apparently Carson took that walk every fine evening, so the fact was generally known. In the wood he was set upon and relentlessly beaten up. He glimpsed his attackers—heavily masked men—and he dimly remembers that he was flung into a prepared grave and had the soil thrown in on top of him. Only he wasn’t dead. Somehow he got out, and since then has been in a kind of daze. He did not go back home—in fact, he didn’t know where home was—but a farmer and his wife about a mile from Daffodil Wood took him in and looked after him.

“After that,” Boyd finished, “he left the farmer’s home without the farmer or his wife knowing. He wandered back to Daffodil Wood, and it was there that the farmer, worried over his disappearance, found him and immediately called an ambulance.”

“Mmm,” Jowett mused. “Didn’t the farmer call a doctor, and the police?”

“He did, yes. The doctor patched Carson up as best he could, and the police took notes. The point is: Carson was too dazed to remember his name, and his face at that time was so battered he wasn’t recognisable, so to the police he was just an unknown man wh. . .