Roy Paetzke

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”