EARTH'S MAGINOT LINE

Jimmy Lorre saw the Earth spinning away from under him. It was odd, this sensation of having nothing under you, nothing to keep you from falling back upon the world from which the sleek grey space ship had lifted you. Lorre felt uneasy. He had traveled in rockets hundreds of times, of course; but this was his first flight into space.

Rockets had already been in use for nearly a century; but none had ever before ventured into outer space since the first one had met a horrible end in the Heaviside Layer. As a result of that incident, small rockets had been developed for flight between cities, and, unhappily, for war.

Finally a large space cruiser, equipped with the Lorre polari-neutralizer, set out in a second attempt to pierce the H-layer. Appropriately named the New Hope, it had just left Earth on its way to the Moon.

Lorre felt that some weird, alien menace confronted them. The details of the outcome of the first attempted flight to the moon lingered in his mind. He had looked forward to this day with eagerness; yet now he wished that he hadn't come along. Crushed down into the pneumatic cushions by the acceleration, his vision was so restricted that he could see nothing but the Earth falling away from the ship, down, down.

The Lorre polari-neutralizer had been designed to send out a powerful field of polarized force that neutralized the energy charge of the Layer, and so shield the ship from the raging storm of ions that compose the ionosphere. James "Jimmy" Lorre, the inventor, had made sure of that. But the ionoscreen, which was to keep cosmic rays and other harmful radiations from the vessel's occupants beyond the Layer, had been impossible to test. Math, however, had proved that it would function correctly.

"Dr. Lorre!"

The ship had stopped accelerating, so that the pilot might have the fullest co-operation from his reflexes while passing the ionosphere.

"Call me Jimmy," Lorre said succinctly. "Everybody does. What is it?"

The pilot motioned toward the complex mechanism that stood between them and annihilation in the turbulent ionic sea they were swiftly approaching. "I wanted you to be on hand in case anything goes wrong. Even without the polari-neutralizer, the hull will stand up a few minutes, in case a wire comes loose in your machine, or something."

Lorre nodded. The pilot, always a thorough man, was taking no chances.

Hammond, at the controls of the New Hope, watched the chronometer like a hawk. If the shield were applied too soon, the power would not last; if too late, the ship would be destroyed.

He signaled the physicist. Lorre flipped the switch, gaining satisfaction from the humming drone that came from the generators. An instant later, they hit the Layer.

Livid sheets of flame danced outside the portholes as the surging ions fought to break the shield that enveloped the ship with the intrepid band of spacefarers aboard. Could they cheat nature with their science? The hull began to grow hot. Lorre increased the power.

Lurid sheets of flame danced outside the portholes as the surging ions sought to break the shield.

Then they were through! The tremendous velocity gained before cutting the acceleration had carried them through! They were now in the star-specked blackness of outer space, their ionoscreen, which duplicated conditions in the H-layer, surrounding the craft at a safe distance. Apparently it was keeping the cosmic rays out as predicted.

It had been done at last! Space travel was an accomplished thing. Mars, Venus, the Major Planets, all were within man's reach. It was the dawn of a new era!

Hammond, the pilot, turned to congratulate the physicist who had made all this possible. But his grin faded, he raised his eyebrows in astonishment at what he saw. Lorre, having experienced the successful culmination of years of effort, lay on the floor of the control room, apparently fast asleep!

That the polari-neutralizer would be a success, Lorre had felt certain. But he could not control the elation he felt as they passed the outer edge of the Layer. He had made it possible!

Someone whispered. The physicist looked at Hammond. The pilot was staring out the port. Then he heard it again. But this time it was—commanding! Commanding him to lie down!

Lorre did so. He seemed unable to summon the will power to resist. The whisper went on. It seemed to be communicating directly with his mind, without the use of the indirect route through sense organs. When Lorre realized that the whisper began to form coherent words. He became oblivious to all else.

Thus it was that when Hammond tore his gaze from the port, he found the physicist in a comatose condition. Rapidly, he summoned the rest of the crew.

It consisted of—a doctor, a bio-chemist, a metallurgist, and a mechanic. They had been picked out of hundreds of volunteers. Able men, they were ready for any emergency that might arise.

The doctor immediately tried to bring the seemingly unconscious man around. Lorre came to suddenly.

"What's wrong?" he inquired of the doctor, who explained as much as he knew, which was little.

"Of course," said Lorre. "I might have known." Then, "Hammond!"

"Yes?"

"Decelerate immediately. We must return to Earth as soon as possible."

"But the moon?"

"The moon is comparatively unimportant now. Besides, I can tell you exactly what we would find there. I'll explain everything as we go back. Start the generators. We must accumulate power to penetrate the H-layer on our return."

Lorre being the leader, the pilot adjusted the jets to turn.

"Now, would you explain this rather—er—abrupt alteration in our plans, Dr. Lorre?"

"Certainly. Call the rest of the men back."

Hammond did so. The mechanic appeared undisturbed; he wasn't even curious. The bio-chemist and the metallurgist were greatly interested; the doctor wondered whether the success of the polari-neutralizer had shaken the sanity of its inventor.

"The universe," began Dr. Lorre, "is full of mysteries as yet unsolved. One of these is the cosmic rays.

"We know little of their origin or their properties. It seems, however, that they have a marked effect on evolution.

"The Kennelly-Heaviside Layer screens out most of these rays. It is as a result of this that evolution can go slowly forward toward its goal. For should all the cosmic rays reach Earth, life would devolve back into protoplasm!

"In the back of the so-called Horse's Head dark nebula is a dying star. The nebula shields us from the cosmic rays it gives off. But in only a few years our sun will carry us directly in the path of a deluge of these rays against which our ionosphere will be too weak! Man will go back to the caveman days from which he emerged. But he will not stop there. He will go back to primal protoplasm. Then, because the ray barrage will be too strong for it, it will die. All life will go the same way. In less than one million years, the world will be devoid of life!

"There is a way out. We can build a machine to strengthen the Heaviside Layer. It will be merely an ionoscreen around the entire world, to hold back the rays that pass the natural ionosphere. I have been given the details of the machine, and by the time we arrive on Earth I will have them down on paper—"

"But how do you know all this?" the doctor interrupted. He was still in doubt about Lorre's sanity.

"On Mars there is an age old civilization that faces the same peril," was the reply. "For years they have been trying to warn us of what they knew would come. Their telepathy, however, was unable to pierce our H-layer. When we emerged from it, they immediately detected our thought vibrations, which are not stopped by the ionoscreen, and began communication with the most receptive mind aboard. It happened to be mine."

"So when I found you lying in a comatose condition, you were talking to the Martians?" asked Hammond, dazedly.

"That's right. The sooner we can start building the ionoscreen machine as the Martians have already done, the better we'll be off.

"It is likely that you are wondering as to whether I am in full possession of all my mental faculties, doctor. You will find that I am quite sane when the first Earth-Mars trip is made. The Martians are even now preparing to receive visitors from Earth. They have no space ships; their science of mechanics is not as highly developed as ours."

Rocket tubes flaring silently in the void, the New Hope turned its nose Earthward, bearing the timely warning that would save mankind from a terrible fate.