Z Formations

by John Russell Fearn, Bryan Shaw

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

Synopsis

Using the secret motive power of a lost a lost flying saucer, physicist Micael Arnott, three companions and an escaped convict are flung into the void at eight times the speed of light to eventually land, after the oblivion of acceleration, upon a world that is both extraordinary and terrifying. Their machine disappears and they themselves also vanish one by one, Michael Arnott going first when he is on the verge of explaining the mystery of this far-flung world. That the planet is inhabited seems obvious from queerly designed spaceships glimpsed at intervals, all of them blazoned with a "Z", which is not so much an alphabet letter as a symbol of a master-race of scientists. In their efforts to solve the riddle of the world and system to which they have been hurled, the perplexed travellers gradually realise they are not only involved in an odyssey of space, but in a problem of Time as well. They are forced to the conclusion that, just as the first supersonic airmen paid a penalty of mental blackout for breaking the barrier of sound, so there is also a penalty for exceeding Fitzgerald's Law - namely that 186,000 miles per second is the ultimate possible speed.

Release date: September 30, 2015

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 121

Sample

There were four people in the library of Phineas T. Morgan’s palatial home—Phineas T. himself, one of the wealthiest industrialists in England; Betty Grange, his secretary and a good deal else besides; Michael Arnott, research scientist, and Fay Marden, his fiancée. The meeting was important, and secret, otherwise Phineas T. would not have called it at his home; everything could have been done from his gigantic business edifice in the heart of London.

The room was warm and softly lighted; the air smelled of cigar smoke. So far everything was going splendidly and the heavy-jowled, bald-headed Phineas T. was in the best of humours.

“So you believe you have it, Arnott?” he asked at length.

“I’m certain of it, P.T. I haven’t spent five years working on the problem—with your generous financial help—just to amuse myself. Magnetic power is here, and it is ours.”

The tycoon smiled reflectively and pondered the end of his glowing cigar. Michael Arnott, thirty years of age, ginger-haired, vital, and loose-limbed, waited for something to move on the face of the deep. The two young women—Betty Grange, small-built, blonde, more pretty than secretarial, and dark-headed, smooth featured Fay Marden—glanced at one another and likewise waited.

“This,” Phineas T. said presently, “is going to make the organisers of the space companies revise their ideas! In fact it should put them completely in the discard.”

“No doubt of it,” Arnott agreed. “Rocket propulsion for space flight is now as back-dated as the horse-drawn tram. For that reason they might as well never start at all.”

“They haven’t yet,” the tycoon said, and grinned.

And because he grinned Arnott and the two women smiled. After all, Phineas T. held the moneybags, so everybody else must be dutifully obedient.

“I thought Michael was never coming home again,” Fay Marden remarked, as again there was a meditative silence. “Nearly five years and hardly any news! I know Central Africa is a pretty cloistered sort of region, but——”

“I couldn’t say anything for fear of giving myself away,” Arnott interrupted. “I’m back now, so what does it matter?”

“Five years studying a flying saucer,” P.T.’s secretary commented, and gave a little whistle. “Didn’t you find it terribly dull, Mr. Arnott?”

“A little lonely perhaps, Miss Grange, but never dull. I was kept alive by scientific interest from the moment Mr. Morgan here said he would finance me if I could reach and investigate the flying saucer which had landed in Central Africa and not been located by the scientific busybodies.”

“So that was what happened!” Fay Marden was looking vaguely surprised. “You never gave me any details, Michael: you just said you had a scientific assignment and that if you vanished for a year or two would I remain true to you until you came back … I’m still very much in the dark.”

“Not to be wondered at,” Phineas T. smiled. “Go on, Arnott, you may as well explain to your fiancée. I gather she’s as wrapped up in this as you are, so let her have the facts.”

“Thanks for the permission, P.T.” Michael turned to the girl quickly. “It’s this way, Fay. Five years ago a flying saucer, the only one to be seen in that year—nineteen seventy five—was seen to land in Central Africa, apparently out of control. As you may remember, some twenty years ago quite a lot of these things were sighted and some were actually located. But their secrets were gathered by Government and Army scientists and never revealed to the world. Why, we don’t know. Vested interests, maybe. However, on this occasion the Central Africa saucer was not investigated, chiefly perhaps because it was so little publicised that the powers-that-be probably thought the report was unfounded anyway. Mr. Morgan here, though, had other ideas. He knew, like many high-up people, that saucers which had been found and examined were known to possess some unique type of motive force which made them able to travel at prodigious speed …* Clear so far?”

“Clear enough,” Fay acceded. “Carry on.”

“At that time, five years ago I mean, Mr. Morgan was on the verge of becoming a founder director of a space line, the first exploratory journeys to be made to the Moon, Mars, and Venus. The accepted type of space machines were going to be used—jet machines, and it was admitted that five to seven years would have to elapse before things got on to a practical footing, which brings us to the present day. Mr. Morgan withdrew his support from this space corporation on the grounds he had other interests. The other interest was this flying saucer in Central Africa.”

“I’m no genius,” Fay remarked. “Where’s the connection?”

“Mr. Morgan reasoned that if the secrets of this fallen flying saucer could be discovered it would make jet space machines antiquated before they even started! It would also mean he could organise his own space company and be the president of it, instead of just being one man in a board of directors, as would have been the case with the orthodox space line organisation.”

“I never could work with anybody else,” Phineas T. put in, still smiling broadly.

“So you were commissioned, Michael, to go to Central Africa and——”

“Learn what he could,” the tycoon explained. “Just that, Miss Marden. I had heard of Mr. Arnott as a very capable research scientist and electronic engineer. He seemed a likely proposition. I dispatched him to Central Africa, gave him carte blanche in finances, and now he has turned up with the goods! We can form a corporation using space machines so stupendously fast that the other company, about to launch itself, will have to dance to our tune or else not start at all. It’s monopoly, and that’s what I love. If you have the monopoly you can crack the whip every time.”

“And I suppose I am not allowed to ask what Michael discovered?” Fay questioned.

P.T. shrugged. “Frankly, I think you should know the facts. I am hoping that the four of us will form the company I have in mind, with myself at the head. My secretary here will still be the secretary, Mr. Arnott the technical chief, and you, Miss Marden, a founder stockholder. I am given to understand that you and Mr. Arnott will shortly be married, therefore, as I do not believe married couples should have any secrets from each other—of this nature anyhow, which is really business—I think you should know all the details.”

“I’ve already stated them!” Michael exclaimed, astonished. “Fay, you don’t mean to say you didn’t grasp what I was talking about?”

“Not very well. Would it matter if you explained again?”

“I think it would be a good idea,” the tycoon said. “I’m no scientist myself and your sort of facts take a long time to sink in, Arnott. Try again, will you? Betty, make a check on your notes, please.”

Betty Grange gave a little sigh and drew her well-filled notebook from the occasional table at her elbow. Then she listened attentively as Michael Arnott explained for the second time.

“There’s no doubt, from my discoveries, that the flying saucers are about half a century ahead of the jet machine. Where the flying saucers hail from is not our concern: it’s their motive power which matters. With that in our hands we shall be able, if it came to it, to match speed with speed should flying saucers suddenly become a menace to us … However, to get to the point. The flying saucer which I examined used magnetic lines of force for its motive power, not jets. It was made to move from one magnetic line of force to another. There are about one thousand two hundred and fifty-seven lines of force to the square centimetre, and no two cross each other. The inventor of the flying saucer, however, had discovered a way to make these magnetic lines of force cross under control. The result is that the machine tries to get from its existing line of force to the next one, to bring itself into balance. In other words it tries to fly away from the position it finds itself in when propulsive power is created by the enforced crossing of lines of force.”

Fay was listening, Betty was scribbling shorthand mechanically, and Phineas T. was biting deep into his cigar. Michael Arnott glanced around on the faces and then continued:

“Once the machine is out of the atmosphere—getting there by moving from one line of force to another—weight and resistance disappear. Nothing is present except the magnetic lines of force. They remain undisturbed until they reach the magnetic lines of force of another planet. Since these magnetic lines of force are identical they act similar to the two north poles of any magnet. In other words, like poles repel—which is one reason why planets are held in place by the law of magnetic repulsion. These magnetic lines of force are everywhere, and utilising them, forcing them to obey the equipment which I found in that saucer, means that any space vehicle—preferably saucer-shaped since this is the easiest design for sliding from one magnetic force line to another, means that speeds undreamed of by any jet engineer can be achieved. I discovered the saucer’s power-plant capable of generating a magnetic flux which means that in empty space a speed of perhaps a million miles a second could be reached.”

“And in atmosphere?” Phineas T. questioned, raising an eyebrow.

“Possibly two hundred thousand miles an hour.”

“But it’s impossible!” Fay protested. “For one thing there is somebody’s law of light——”

“Fitzgerald?” Michael suggested.

“Yes, Fitzgerald’s Contraction. There’s that for one thing, and for another no flesh and blood could stand a velocity like that. It would tear the human structure to bits … Did you find any traces of living—or dead—people in this saucer you examined?”

Michael shook his head. “No, but I found plenty to show that that particular vessel had been driven by remote control. The fact remains those are the speeds which are possible. One does not have to use the maximum since anything from zero can be produced, but the advantage over the ordinary jet propulsion idea is obvious. It is simply a matter of a power-plant which produces a magnetic flux. By this means the vessel entire is impelled from one line to the other, each succeeding line having sufficient magnetism to impel the vessel to the next line, and so forth. Up, down, sideways, backwards, the lines are always there.”

“But a million miles a second!” Fay was still incredulous. “That I cannot credit.”

“It is something we have to investigate,” Michael admitted. “My idea, now that I have all the facts on the magnetic power plant, is to build a test machine and we’ll see what it can do. If, as seems obvious, it is streets ahead of the jet, then we form a company using only the magnetic type of machines.”

“And get all the business,” Phineas T. said. “I’m taking you at your word on all this, Arnott, because for obvious reasons I am not trusting outside scientists to check your figures and diagrams. We’ll have the test ship built secretly and then try it out. You are in full charge of the building, of course.”

“Fair enough, sir,” Arnott conceded.

“And how long do you imagine it will take to build the vessel?” the tycoon asked.

“If we start right away, six months should see us ready. That will bring us to Christmas.”

“That’s good enough. I don’t think the jet space corporation will be launched by then—and even if it is it will soon fall into disuse if we go one better. All right then, Arnott, I will have one of my aircraft factory annexes turned over exclusively to this job—and remember, all of you, not one word to an outsider as to the nature of the project. If the jet boys get one hint of our plans we may run into difficulty.”

By mid-December the test machine was finished, and it lay under heavy guard in the annex to one of Phineas T.’s many factories up and down the country. This particular factory was probably one of the most isolated, sixteen miles from the nearest town, and the only place of comparable size to the factory was the penitentiary four miles distant.

To this remote spot, on the 15th December, 1980, Phineas T.’s limousine travelled swiftly through the dank mistiness of the night. Such weather had been specially chosen to mask all signs of departure. Clear weather might have meant that the astronomical stations would pick up the machine’s experimental flight into the outer void.

In the big car, faintly illumined by the roof light, the four potential travellers sat in silence. There were Phineas T. himself, Michael Arnott, and the two womenfolk. Through the months of activity and secret excitement in which they had all indulged whilst the machine had been built, it had all seemed a magnificent project. Now the time had come to do something no man had ever yet done—fly into the void—matters had a very different aspect. Theory and paper proof showed that everything would be all right, but just the same. …

“There has to be a first time for everything, I suppose,” Phineas T. commented presently, voicing all their thoughts. “The jet boys have made their experiments, and come back to tell the tale. Been two hundred miles up and returned fit as fiddles.”

“Two hundred miles isn’t much compared to what we hope to do,” the secretary said nervously. “To Mars and back in a few hours is a tall order, Mr. Morgan.”

“I’m aware of it, and you still have time to retract if you wish. Nobody here will think any the less of you.”

Betty Grange shook her head. “No. I’ll go through with it, Mr. Morgan. Besides, you’re g. . .