Alfred Johannes Olsen

“ Fax Gatola said with mock servility.
“Certainly. Who else deserves to be called ‘The Great Ones’ – who else except Myself and the Supreme Being.”
“At least he gives God second place,” Dunis whispered to the one who sat next to him.
Fortunately for him, Kera did not overhear this disrespectful remark.
“And who is this upstart who so egotistically calls himself The Great?” Kera demanded.
“That I cannot say for certain,” Dunis hedged. However, it is clear that he desires us to send a representative of our planet to a certain crater on the satellite of Planet Three. ”

“ Everything was in readiness for the embarkation, and Gatola was just about to give the word to close the heavily insulated hatch, when Bix Dunis rushed into the control chamber and panted, “I must talk to you, Fax. Something terrifically menacing has just transpired – so menacing in fact that it will make it imperative for you to change your plans.” ”

“ Kera asked.
“Because life – at least the sort of life which exists here on Radak, needs air and water. Even a superficial examination of Planet Three’s moon through an ordinary telescope reveals that the satellite in question has no atmosphere. And if there is any moisture there at all it must be frozen solid during the long, frigid nights and boiled to vapor during the terrifically hot days.”
“That’s true enough,” Gatola, the inventor interposed. “But isn’t it conceivable that some other form of life could exist on this satellite – some species of beings which do not require water and air?” ”

“ My newly perfected space-flyer is much more efficient than Wozag’s crude device; and – what is far more important to me – it is inifinately safer to the persons who use it.”
“Tell us about it,” Zoy Kera commanded.
“Gladly. In the first place, instead of being cylindrical in shape, my ether-ship is in the form of a regular tetrakaidecagon.”
“I was never especially brilliant in mathematics,” the dictator confessed. “Suppose you explain what a tetra – whatever you call it – looks like.”
“With pleasure. But, wait a moment. We are fortunate in having with us an eminent mathematician. ”

“ So absorbed was he in the tense work of controlling his craft that he forgot all about Hodar, until he heard a low cough and turned to his assistant crouching beside him. In his hand he was holding a goblet containing a white fluid.
“Here my friend,” the old man said as he proffered the cup to him, “You have worked for a long while without food or drink. Take this draught of processed milk. You need it to strengthen you for the task of setting the craft down on the satellite.”
“Thank you, Jek,” Gatola smiled. “I am glad you have decided to remain my friend. ”

“ With consummate skill Gatola guided the space-ship until it was hovering over the crater. He regulated the speed so accurately that the craft kept in perfect pace with the satellite as it rolled through space. ”

“ But surely there must be others who are –“ interrupting himself Kera went on, “You seem to have forgotten, Gatola, that Hodar is a rival of yours, and an unforgivably jealous one at that. He too has been laboring on a craft with which he hoped to excel you in navigating interplanetary space. ”

“ Since you are our leading inventor and authority on interstellar travel it ought not take you long to determine the merits of this particular invention.”
Gatola waddled over to the cylinder and examined it. Then he glanced over the plans which Bix Dunis handed to him.
“Well,” the dictator growled impatiently. “What is your verdict?”
“Crude,” was the reply. “Childishly crude. According to this design the space ship which this Dos-Tev would have us build is extremely primitive. ”

“ Following his orders, the convict was stripped of all his equipment and his fur was searched thoroughly for knives or ray-pistols immediately prior to his being admitted to the space-ship.
Despite these precautions, Hodar, with consummate craft, succeeded in smuggling aboard something that was far more dangerous that any of the Radak weapons. Inside one of his broad nostrils, concealed by the thick growth of hair, the criminal had secreted a moisture-proof envelope full of konide, one of the more deadly poisons known. There was enough of the powder to annihilate a hundred men. ”

“ Like men, they walked erect, although their short stubby legs seemed grotesquely disproportionate with their slender arms, which were so long that they almost touched the ground. These amazing arms were attached to the sides of the barrel-like torsos by means of triangular membranes which were stretched taut whenever the arms were extended at right angles to the bodies. ”

“ By directing these beams at various heavenly bodies, such as the sun, the various planets and the stars outside the Solar System, I can produce any degree of attraction or repulsion and in any desired direction. You understand, of course, that the actual path of the flyer is a resultant of the various co-ordinate forces which are brought to bear upon it in the manner I have just described. ”

“ I shall give immediate orders to release Jek Hodar from the torture chamber.”
And thus it came about that two inhabitants of Planet Four – one a man of high moral principles, of probity and loyalty and on the other an infamous, treacherous criminal, prepared to hurl themselves into the void in the wan hope of reaching the distant satellite which had been chosen as an interplanetary rendezvous. ”

“ Nature had apparently provided them with these efficient ‘purelators’ in order that they could inhale huge quantities of air into their voluminous lungs and at the same time exclude the choking dust with which the atmosphere of Mars is laden. ”