Chapter XXIII: Too Much Static

Thus ends the second story of Myles Cabot, the radio man.

The first was written by his own hand, and was shot from Venus to the earth, swathed in the fur of the fire-worm, and concealed in the heart of a streamline projectile. The second he told to me in person from time to time during his stay on my Massachusetts farm on his return from Venus.

The tale was a long time in telling, for Myles, in his assumed name of course, at once matriculated at Harvard to study electricity under Kennelly and Hammond. Although he spent nearly every week-end at my farm, he devoted most of his spare time even here to reading assorted books on nearly every form of practical science, and to the installation of a radio set for the purpose of communicating with his friends and family on Venus, and so as to be prepared to transmit himself back eventually. Hence the two huge steel towers on Cow Hill, which have recently excited the wonder and curiosity of my fellow-townsmen.

Of course, there were many questions which we asked him, when his story was completed. My little daughter Jacqueline was particularly resourceful in this connection.

Almost the moment he finished, she inquired: “And what became of your beautiful pet woofus? Did he die?”

Cabot smiled. Like most Bostonians, he was always very adept with children.

“You never could guess,” he replied, “so I will tell you. After the flight of the ants from the stadium, my woofus was found, still alive, in one of the passageways beneath the seats, where he had evidently dragged his poor mangled body and hidden himself. His life was spared by some one who recognized him as the beast who had rescued me on the day of the games. Word was brought me, and I at once went to him with Emsul. At my command, the woofus submitted to treatment, and soon recovered. He became a great pet of Lilla and little Kew. Always he lies on guard by the crib while the baby sleeps. And the baby’s favorite game when awake is to play horsey astride of his back.”

“How cunning!” Jacqueline murmured. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a pet woofus to take care of Stuart?” Stuart being my own youngest.

But Mrs. Farley was a bit incredulous.

“Mr. Cabot,” she asked, “how could Baby Kew know anything about playing horse, seeing as there are no horses on Poros?”

Myles laughed good-naturedly.

“I said ‘horse’,” he explained, “merely to give an earthly allusion. What the little king thinks he is riding on is a whistling bee.”

This suggested another question.

“What of Portheris and his swarm?” I inquired. “Has it never occurred to you that these Hymernians, as you call them, are a race of intelligent beings almost on a par with the Cupians and the Formians, and that, therefore, there are still _two_ races of intelligent beings on the Planet Poros? How about your assertion, made in the council hall of the palace at Kuana, that ‘there is no room on any given planet for more than one race of intelligent beings’?”

Cabot tried to laugh it off, but I could see that the suggestion worried him.

“The Hymernians are not exactly human,” he objected.

“Neither were the ants,” I countered.

After which he remained for some time in abstracted silence, evidently turning over the possibilities in his mind.

Finally he came out with: “Portheris I can trust. And his followers will be all right, so long as my people keep them supplied with plenty of green cows to eat. Toron, the regent, and Kamel, our leader in the Assembly, realize the need of that.”

* * * * *

At this point little Jacqueline had a suggestion:

“Suppose Prince Yuri didn’t die in his flight across the boiling seas. Suppose he comes back and organizes the bees against your people. What then?”

“That is the least of my worries,” Myles answered, smiling. “No one could live in that heat. No, I am confident that Yuri is dead, or I never would have dared to make this trip back to earth.”

But, I fear, all the same, that we sowed the seeds of some serious worries in the mind of our guest.

Myles Cabot’s story was finished, except for his answers to various questions which we asked him from time to time. For instance, how it was possible for my friend to have worn a set of such short wave length on his person, without body capacity playing hob with his adjustment. I had not been able to give them a satisfactory answer. So now I put that question up to Cabot.

“Very simple,” said he, laughing, “for, as my apparatus was fixed firmly upon me, my body capacity was invariable, and so could be reckoned with like any other constant. But some radio fan is likely to refuse to accept that statement, and to come back with the suggestion that when I moved my hand to adjust the controls, I would bring into play a wonderfully efficient variable capacity, consisting of my hand and my abdomen as two connected plates.”

“Well, wouldn’t he be right?” I asked. “Doesn’t that completely floor you? It sounds reasonable enough, with what little I know of radio.”

Cabot laughed again, and replied: “If that could floor me, it would mean that I never could have talked to Cupians, to ant men, and to whistling bees on Poros. But it is true that I did experience considerable difficulty from that quarter. Nevertheless I eliminated all the trouble by enclosing, in a copper sheath, my belt, and the batteries, bulbs and tuning means which it carried; and by running my lead wires through a copper tube. This had the bad feature of slightly increasing the capacity of my apparatus, but it eliminated entirely all outside interference. Only when I put my hands near my antennae was my receptivity disturbed.”

As they would say on Poros, that was an antennaeful!

Of course, Mrs. Farley, womanlike, had to ask him if his radio set, which he always wore on Poros, was not awfully uncomfortable.

“Not at all!” he replied. “I see that you wear glasses. Do they not bother you?”

“No,” she said. “At first they did, but now I really never notice I have them on.”

“And I’ll venture to state,” he asserted, “that they are as natural to you as a part of your own body; that you never bother about them, except to adjust them or to clean them occasionally; and that, even then, you do it unconsciously and instinctively?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Well, that is just the way my artificial speech organs are to me.”

Shortly after, or perhaps it was during, his narration of his adventures, it occurred to me to ask him about the device which had shot him from Poros back to earth.

“How were you able to transmit yourself through space?” I inquired.

“That is a secret known only to Prince Toron, Oya Buh and myself. I doubt if the world is ready for it. And yet, it is very simple. Invention merely consists in realizing a need, and then in devising means to fulfill that need.”

“Humph! Absurdly simple, isn’t it?” I interjected sarcastically, for I was peeved at his superior tone.

“It really is,” he replied, a bit hurt, “and furthermore, the biggest part of invention consists in merely realizing the need. Once this is done, the means of filling the need can usually be found, staring one in the face, just waiting to be used.”

“And what simple means stared you in the face when you realized the need of projecting yourself back to earth?” asked Mrs. Farley, doubtless hoping to steer him gently around to a description of his device.

This was exactly the result of her question. The answer was full of intense scientific interest. For the next ten or twelve minutes, Myles Cabot regaled us with a detailed technical explanation of his apparatus, finally ending up with: “I hope you understand this somewhat sketchy and involved exposition.”

We didn’t, but we said we did. In those days I knew little of radio. But in the months which followed the reappearance of Myles Cabot, I learned many things of which the world as yet little dreams, but which I have not his permission to disclose.

The details of his apparatus for transmitting objects through space were not, however, again imparted, and so I am unable to describe it here.

Between the various members of the family, we asked him many questions about the present status of the principal characters of his story.

Poblath, the philosopher, had become mangool of Kuana again, and was thinking of publishing his proverbs in book form. His dark and beautiful wife, Bthuh, was still lady-in-waiting to the Princess Lilla. Emsul, the veterinary, and Mitchfix, the trophil engine expert, were given associate professorships in their respective subjects at the Royal University of Kuana. Colonel Wotsn was made chief of the palace guards, in recognition of his assuming command of the palace the day it was seized, and of his subsequent rescue of Myles Cabot. Buh Tedn recovered from his wounds and resumed his duties at the University. Hah Babbuh was admitted to the nobility as a Sarkar, and was made field marshal, the rank which he had virtually occupied all during the war. Kamel, now a Sarkar, too, and no longer a pacifist and radical, became the leader of the court party in the Assembly. And, as already stated, the loyal Prince Toron assumed the regency during Myles Cabot’s visit to the earth.

One more point. I asked Myles why he had not brought his wonderful portable radio set down with him, to show to us.

“You forget,” was his reply, “that, for some unexplained reason, my apparatus will not transmit metals through space. Do you not remember all the steel buttons, gartersnaps and other metallic objects which were left behind in my Beacon Street laboratory that day when I disappeared from the earth?”

True! Now, that he mentioned it, I did remember. It would never be possible to bring any such Porovian souvenirs down to our own planet.

And that will be about all of Poros for the present. Let us now turn our attention to Myles Cabot on earth.

His life with us was very regular. From Monday until Friday of every week he attended Harvard. His week-ends he devoted to study and, with some slight assistance from myself and family and farmhands, to erecting the two huge steel towers on Cow Hill, and to installing his apparatus in a shack which we built at their base. This apparatus comprised a long-range long-wave-length sending and receiving set, and a matter-transmitting set.

Finally both were completed. One Sunday night in October, at the end of an unusually sultry day for that time of year, Cabot came down to supper full of suppressed excitement.

“I have nearly gotten Luno Castle on the air,” he announced, “but there is too much static to-night. Poor dear Lilla, she must be worried about me, for not a word have I sent her to let her know of my safe arrival. But I will get her tonight, if the static will only let up for a few minutes.”

“Why haven’t you used the G. E. set in Lynn?” I asked.

“I had thought of that,” Myles replied. “In fact I planned to do so, before I left Poros. But unfortunately they have recently dismantled their set, for the purpose of rebuilding it, and I could not very well ask them to hurry, without revealing my identity, which would never do, for that would get me so much publicity that my dear cousins would undoubtedly have me locked up in the asylum on the strength of my absurd belief that I have been on Venus. If they did that, then how could I ever get back to that planet again? My cousins would just as leave get hold of my property through a conservatorship, as by inheriting it. That lets Lynn out! But my set here is now complete, and is the equal of the G. E. installation; so I’ll talk to my princess tonight, if the static will only let up.”

He seemed very happy.

* * * * *

After the evening meal was over, he lit a lantern and started back to his laboratory. As we accompanied him to the door, he pointed to the evening sky.

“Late tonight, long after midnight,” said he, “there will appear above that horizon the star which holds all that is dear to me in this universe. My wife, my child, my people, and my home. Good night. Do not sit up for me. I may be very late.”

It was a sultry night. Not a breath was stirring. Storm clouds hung dark in the west with heat-lightning playing intermittently across their face. An occasional October asteroid flitted fireflylike through the sky. The weather was too oppressive to think of going to bed, so we sat up and waited for Myles Cabot. It got very late. But still he did not come.

Finally, along toward morning, the storm broke. I was for going up to Cow Hill to see how Myles was getting along, but Mrs. Farley restrained me.

“He has oilskins in the laboratory, if he wishes to come down,” she said. “In the meantime, leave him alone. He is phoning to his sweetheart, and ought not to be disturbed. When you were courting me, you never used to phone to me in public.”

“Nor in a thunderstorm either,” was my reply.

The rain fell in torrents, and the lightning was very vivid, though I suppose that the storm was a mere trifle compared with those which Cabot describes as occurring on Poros. Finally the weather began to clear; but not without a Parthian shot, which fell so close that the lightning and the thunder-clap seemed simultaneous. When the next flash came, the momentary light revealed the fact that only one of the two towers remained standing on Cow Hill.

Myles might be in trouble! Seizing my sou’wester and a lantern, I hurried out into the night. The rain had now stopped. The sky had begun to clear. As I neared the wireless station, I could see that the stricken tower had fallen across one end of the laboratory, caving it in. This was the end which held most of the apparatus, so I quickened my pace and flung open the door.

But Myles Cabot was not there. One glance satisfied me on that score. Probably he had passed me, without my noticing him, my gaze having been fixed intently on the hill.

Next I explored the room to ascertain the extent of the damage. The matter-transmitting apparatus was hopelessly wrecked; the radio set partially so. The head phones were lying on his desk, and by their side a pencil and pad. The pad was all scribbled over with letters, as though Myles had been trying to take down a message.

These letters made no sense at all, until the end of the sheet, where suddenly they stood forth with unexpected vividness and distinctness “S.O.S. Lilla.”

Only that, and nothing more.

This led me to hunt for further clues, and I found just what I expected. For, amid the ruins of the matter-transmitting apparatus, there lay a pile of metallic objects; a pocket knife, suspender buttons, garter clasps and such, as on that first day five years and a half ago, when Myles Cabot had disappeared from his laboratory in Boston.

We never saw or heard from him again.

But we have often wondered, Mrs. Farley, Jacqueline and I, just what was the dire trouble that led the Princess Lilla to send through space that frantic call for help, and whether Myles got back to Venus in time to save her.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed.

Inconsistency in hyphenation has been retained.