Odyssey of Nine

by John Russell Fearn, Vargo Statten

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

Synopsis

Ward Jackson and his wife make an incredible spaceship journey, exploring every planet in the solar system from Mercury to Pluto, in an attempt to unravel the cosmic mathematical mystery of the number 9 by finding machines and clues buried on each planet by a long-vanished alien race. Jackson believes that the ninth son of a ninth sun should have the inherent gift of leading his race to domination if the continuity was not broken. A rousing interplanetary odyssey based in the odd facts surrounding the number 9 as outlined in the famous Ripley's Omnibus Believe it Or Not.

Release date: March 31, 2015

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 128

Sample

Ward Jackson was the ninth son of a ninth son, a rather singular state of affairs to which he attached but little importance in the early years of his life. But later on, as it dawned upon him that he was ninth and last child in his family, and that he had been born on the 9th day of the 9th month at 9 p.m. in the year 1999, he could be forgiven for wondering if the last of the digits had not perhaps some peculiar affinity for him.

Beyond this personal wonder which gave him a perpetual look of surprise there was nothing extraordinary to observe about him—to commence with. He had a Board school education in a very ordinary English town; he squabbled with his brothers and sisters, made very few friends, and at nineteen was a quite distinguished member of the staff of a big London emporium, to which city he had migrated a year after leaving school.

At times, to those whom he thought might be interested, he tentatively mentioned the extraordinary recurrence of the digit 9 in relation to himself, and was usually rewarded by a shrug of the shoulders and a “So what?” expression.

Until Tilman Jones, a floorwalker of considerable knowledge—thanks to living next door to a public library—had his own observations to make.

“Don’t let it put ideas into your head, Ward,” he said, using a paternal touch for the occasion, “but according to Arthur Keith you should have the power to lead your race to domination, providing——” Here Tilman paused and raised a bony hand dramatically. “Providing you don’t break the continuity which ends on the ninth son of a ninth son.”

Ward Jackson frowned in bewilderment. He was a young man below average height and unusually slender. His eyes were drowsily dark, his hair black, his complexion ivory. There was a decided foreign streak in him, something Eastern, though where it had come from his parents did not know. But then they were not educated in the meaning of a recessive unit which might make itself evident after the passage of hundreds of generations of families and offsprings.

“Lead my race to domination?” Ward repeated. “Which race?”

“I dunno.”

The surroundings were not particularly conducive to carrying the matter further. A washroom is hardly the place to work out one’s ancestry—and in any case Tilman Jones had said his piece and did not consider he ought to talk any more to one so far beneath him on the staff.

“Take a look at what Keith says,” he suggested as he departed to resume his floorwalking. “You’ll find his book on the ‘Antiquity of Man’ in the library.”

So that evening Ward Jackson took home the volume referred to and did not go to bed until he had read it from cover to cover. It was certainly pure theory on the part of the author, but everything he had written tended to show that a ninth son of a ninth son should have the inherent gift of leading his race to domination if the continuity were not broken—which was simply an embellishment of a statement made by a famous artist-traveller named Ripley half a century earlier. But the statement seemed so vague that Ward discarded it.

“Lead my race to domination!” he exclaimed scornfully as he prepared for bed. “About the most unlikely thing ever! Fancy me, one of dozens on a store payroll, leading the British race to domination——I wouldn’t, anyway,” he finished, gazing through the window on to the blaze of early-morning London. “I don’t feel British, and never have.”

This, partly, was his trouble. He had always had this queer conviction of “not belonging,” of being somebody apart from other people—not in any conceited sense, for at this stage of his life he did not believe himself particularly outstanding at anything. Nor was he, as his vocation showed. But deep in the recesses of his mind he was always groping to find an explanation for what he believed was the unexplainable.

“Lead my race to domination,” he repeated, and became lost in thought for a while as he still gazed through the window. In fact, he was so busy with his thoughts he ignored this all-too-familiar view from the tiny room he occupied in this great rooming house of the year 2018.

He did not find the light-drenched canyons of streets at all impressive: he did not even glance at the streaks across the night sky which announced the silent coming and going of aircraft and spaceships. He had grown up in this super-modern world and accepted everything for what it was—which fact only served to make the idea of his leading his race to domination all the more absurd.

In this era there was not a race on the planet which could claim domination over the other. Wars, pacts, and the general vicissitudes of living beings forced to rub shoulders with each other had brought about an uneasy peaceful fellowship in which every race was levelled and striving to one particular goal—not the destruction of a neighbour, but to wrest the ultimate secrets from science’s close-fisted grip. There was so much still to be accomplished, for though the advent of space travel had opened up limitless new horizons there were still the greater deeps to be reached and their mysteries unravelled.

Ward Jackson shook his head and gave a rueful smile as he pulled off his shirt. Remembering his stud he pulled it out and tossed it on the dressing-table. He was struck by an ironic thought. Of all the conquests made by man he still clung to a metal base and insecure shaft to hold his neckwear together!

Disgusted, Ward went to bed, and next morning he found himself urgently buttonholed by Tilman Jones.

“Well, did you read it?” he demanded.

“Yes, I read it.” Ward gave a glance of his mystical eyes. “It didn’t do me much good, though. The thing’s ridiculous——and in any case why should I want to lead the British race to domination?”

“Perhaps it doesn’t have to be the British,” Jones replied, forgetting his job for the moment now he could discuss a theory. “I may as well tell you, Ward, that ever since you came here I have had my eye on you. You’re a type.”

“Type? Is that a compliment or——” Ward flushed for a moment as quick anger rose.

“Neither a compliment nor an insult,” Tilman Jones reflected, and rubbed the end of his nose as he fished around for a better way in which to express himself. “What I mean is, you can lead your race to domination. Keith explains that quite clearly. What makes you pick the British race, anyhow?”

“Because I am British. That’s reason enough, isn’t it?”

“By no means. Ever studied yourself in the mirror? You may have been born in England of British parents, but my guess is that you’re of Eastern descent. Trace your ancestry as far back as you can until you know for sure which race it is you have to lead to domination. I’ll gamble it won’t be the British.”

“For your information,” a voice remarked, “this is an emporium, not a place wherein to discuss politics!”

Tilman Jones swung round in alarm, and Ward glanced up. The departmental manager was only a couple of feet away, magnificently dressed and grey in the face with annoyance.

“I assure you, Mr. Dilby, we were not discussing politics.” Tilman Jones spoke anxiously and tried to appear dignified. “We were——”

“I heard what you were talking about, Jones. Get back on the job immediately!”

“I—er—yes, sir!” Tilman Jones went, coat tails swinging. At that the cold eyes of the departmental manager pinned Ward as he hovered behind the outfitting counter.

“You don’t belong here, Jackson!” the departmental manager said acidly. “Collect your pay in lieu of notice and get out. I consider you’re a disturbing influence on the rest of the staff.”

Ward hesitated, on the verge of arguing the point; then it occurred to him that he did not like the job much, anyway, and so he departed without a word. He collected his wages, then went through the swing doors into the outer world——And thereupon stepped into a swift succession of jobs which took him thrice round the world in as many years.

He was twenty-two now and considerably harder and wiser when he again set foot in London. But he had not forgotten Tilman Jones or his statement, and, what was more to the point, he had done something about it in the interval. Feeling that it was only fair the shopwalker should know of this fact Ward made it his business, on his first night back in the city, to catch him as he left the emporium. He found it quite surprising when Tilman Jones did leave the store with the rest of the staff. It seemed incredible that in the past three busy years the man had done nothing but roam the polished acres.

“You!” Tilman Jones ejaculated blankly as he recognised Ward Jackson in the blue-white glare of the street lamps.

“Right! Let’s go where we can talk. I’ll pay for it. I’m not so short as I used to be.”

They finished up in a busy public automat, and all Jones seemed capable of doing was staring.

“Well, you’ve certainly grown up,” he commented at length. “You talk like a man, act like one, and you’re even browner than I am after a holiday. Been far?”

“Three times round the world.” Ward waited until the meal had been brought, and then he continued: “I’ve been aboard ship mostly. It seemed the only way I could satisfy my longing to travel and also accommodate my purse. I finally found myself out East.”

“Naturally you’d gravitate that way.”

“For some reason I didn’t feel lonely any more once I got to Egypt. It was there that I managed to trace my ancestry through an old Egyptian sorcerer. At least he called himself one, and he certainly looked the part.”

Jones nodded and looked rather blank. The note of command in Ward Jackson’s formerly hesitant voice took a lot or getting used to.

“But how did you find this sorcerer?” Jones asked.

“Matter of fact I don’t quite know.” Ward gave a frown. “I just sort of came across him, as though I’d been led to him. Indeed I think he sought me. He gave me a lot of mumbo-jumbo at first which wasn’t worth remembering, but he did prove that I am an Egyptian by descent, therefore it is the Egyptian race which I have to lead to domination.”

Jones grinned slightly. “The Egyptians are in the World Congress, same as anybody else. They wouldn’t be permitted to dominate any other race, so you can forget that!”

Ward went on with his meal for a moment or two and then looked up sharply.

“I can’t possibly explain to you how deep my roots go. How much the digit 9 influences my life, how much it is still to influence it. I cannot make you feel, as I did, the strange racial memory currents which surged about me when I roamed the territory once controlled by the ancient Egyptians. I cannot make you feel—— But why go on? All I wanted to do was to let you know that the information you gave me when I was at the emporium wasn’t given in vain. . .