Chapter I: Front Matter

The Scientific Pioneer Returns

By Nelson S. Bond

Time was no barrier to Lancelot
Biggs when he found out Horse-sense
Hank alone could solve his problem.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories November 1940.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

This sounds silly. At half past three on a Tuesday afternoon, in broad daylight, Professor Hallowell of the Midland University physics department left Jurnegan Hall, walked down a campus path clogged to the gutters with students--and disappeared into thin air.

This sounds even sillier. At nine-fifteen the next Friday morning, Travis Tomkins, chief technician of Midland's new observatory, stepped to the platform of Old Main to speak before an attentive crowd of twelve hundred undergraduates--and vanished before their eyes!

But this sounds silliest. H. Logan MacDowell, fat, fifty, feverish, and president of our institute of (alleged) learning, came to _me_ about it! He came on the run. That is, he came at a brisk, lurching shamble. Which is, to him, the equivalent of a Cunningham four-minute mile. He collapsed on my studio couch, gasped and panted like the White King for a minute, then wheezed out a strangled plea.

"Blakeson, you--you've got to do something!"

I looked at his gaping mouth and bulging eyes, and nodded.

"Right!" I remembered. "I've got to rewind my bass rod and see that the reel is oiled. They'll be running in a week or so."

"No, you impertinent young snippet! I mean, you've got to do something about these mysterious disappearances."

I laughed right out loud. I bared my arms frankly.

I said, "Grab a look, Prexy! Nothing up the right sleeve; nothing up the left sleeve. I didn't snatch your pedagogues. After all, just because certain members of the faculty find it expedient to take a powder--"

"A what?"

"Powder," I repeated. "Can't you understand plain English? To lift one's feet. Scram. Blow. Take it on the lam. Sweet whistleberries, Doc, I'm not something from the 'FOLLOW THAT MAN!' advertisements. I'm just the publicity expert for this football-team-with-a-campus. If you want to learn what happened to Hallowell and Tomkins, why don't you get a dick?"

His jowls sagged to his breastbone. He said in an anguished tone,

"I suppose that means a detective? I did hire one."

"Well? And what did he find out? Aside from the well-known facts that Hallowell was carrying the torch for a red-headed senior, and Tomkins was up to his zipper in debt? Did he dig up any clues? Footprints? Blunt instruments, or ashes with rare cigarettes dangling on the end of them?"

"He didn't," said H. Logan in a hollow voice, "find anything, Blakeson. _He_ disappeared, too!"

* * * * *

I said, "Oh-oh!" Which was inadequate, but it was all I could think of at the moment. "That's bad. It must be contagious. But where do I fit into the picture? Why ask me to do something?"

H. Logan wrestled with his scruples for a long and difficult moment. Then, suddenly,

"Cleaver!" he blurted. "Where is that man?"

Merely saying the name cost him an effort. And why not? Hank Cleaver was the one soul whose amiable meanderings, crossing the life-path of H. Logan MacDowell, had interrupted the smooth flow of traffic along that broad highway, torn up the roadbed, and sprinkled tar and gravel along the right-of-way.

The common-sense genius of Hank Cleaver had made MacDowell look like a cross between a baboon and a stuffed shirt, with the baboon getting the worst of the bargain.

Then, to cap the climax, Hank had handed Prexy's daughter the jilt, leaving sweet Helen high and dry at the altar when he returned to his beloved cabbage patch on his farm.

To say that MacDowell was unfond of Cleaver would be like saying that nice people disapprove of _Herr_ Hitler.

About the campus it was commonly rumored that the president of Midland had a little China doll into which, each midnight, he jabbed many red hot needles.

The plaything wore coveralls and bulldog shoes, just like Hank Cleaver!

I said, "So you're going to call in 'Horse-sense' Hank."[1]

[Footnote 1: Horse-sense Hank Cleaver, one of the best-known characters in modern science fiction. Hank, a dirt farmer never subjected to education, has an amazing ability to fix things of a mechanical nature when they go wrong, make infinitely accurate mathematical calculations and, above all, foretell the future in his own homely and intimate fashion.--Ed.]

"Don't talk about him!" growled MacDowell savagely. "Find him! If we don't solve this mystery soon, we're going to have F.B.I. men romping all over our campus. The reputation of glorious Midland will be ruined. Our noble banners, heretofore untouched by the faintest breath of scandal--"

"Okay!" I said hastily. "Save that for the Alumni Banquet. I'll see what I can do, Doc."

He left, making noises like a sizzling steak. And I got on the phone.

But the results were strictly stinko. I grabbed a blank on my first call. The local operator at Westville intoned,

"No, puh-lease! Sor-ree, puh-lease! There is no telephone listed under the name of 'Gleeber'--"

"Back up," I snorted, "and start over. Look, Sis! 'C' as in cuckoo; 'l' as in lunkhead, 'e' as in--"

"Oh, is that you, Mr. Blakeson?" she chirruped. "I knew you by the description." Ouch! "I'm sorry I can't connect you with Mr. Cleaver. Do you want to talk to Mr. Hawkins?"

"Yeah," I said. "Gimme."

Hawkins was the amateur star-gazer working in Westville as a lay member of the Midland observatory staff. He owed his reputation to Hank and his income to me.

But he turned out to be a perfect bust, and I don't mean the Venus de Milo.

He said, "Hank Cleaver? No, Jim, I haven't seen him for--oh, several days. I don't know where he is. But why do you want him? What's the matter? Is anything wrong?"

"Is anything," I countered, "right? Look, Hawkins, take a run out to his farm. Find Hank and tell him I've got to see him immedi--Who's there?"

"Nobody," said Hawkins querulously, "but our party-line subscribers. They're always listening in. What's ailing you, Jim?"

"I wasn't talking to you. There's somebody at the door of my apartment. Who's there?" I bawled again.

No answer. So I said to Hawkins,

"Well--do what I say. Find Cleaver. Tell him I've got to see him immediately, if not sooner. And let me know the minute you find him. So long--Oh, _wait_ a minute, can't you?"

I hung up and stormed to the door, my foot itching to bury itself in the southern exposure of a salesman facing north. I flung it open, yelled,

"No, I don't want some! Go peddle your damn junk somewhere else--"

And then my jaw hit the top button of my vest.

"Hank!"

"Hyah, Jim!" said Horse-sense Hank.

* * * * *

Big as life and twice as natural. There's only one Horse-sense Hank Cleaver. When they poured him, they laughed so hard they dropped the mold and broke it. Tall and gangly, so thin of cheek that the cud which constantly caresses his bicuspids sticks out like a cue-ball; tow-colored ravelings of hair waving experimentally in all directions; raw-boned of wrist; eyes mild and incurious as those of a heifer--that is my pal, Hank Cleaver.

I clapped him on the back and dragged him, by main force, into my apartment.

"Golly, guy, I'm glad to see you! You're looking a million. Do you know, I've been slaving like a census-taker to find you? I've called Westville, and--"

"I figgered," said Hank mildly, "as how you might be."

The wind whooshed out of my sails.

"You," I gulped, "did?"

"Mmm-hmm. Heard a feller say as how there'd been funny goin's-on down thisaway. Thought to myself, 'Well, now, Hank, 'pears like fust thing you know, ol' Jim'll be needin' a mite o' help, so you better hump along an' give him a lift. So I come, and--" He beamed. "Here I am!"

"Yes," I said weakly. "Here you are."

Dammit, I don't know why I should have been surprised. Especially after having lived under the same roof as this gawky genius for three solid months. But as ever, it utterly confounded me to realize that Hank's thought processes were so simple, so altogether down-to-earth and natural, that he invariably did the right thing at the right time.

I said, "And a mighty good thing you came, too. But your turnips, Hank? How--"

He shook his head dolefully. Turnip growing was Hank's one and only obsession.

"Turnips," he grimaced, "is hell. It don't matter how you plant 'em, or where, or when, or what you do--they don't never act like you'd expect 'em to. I plant 'em wide, I plant 'em close; I plant 'em in cuts an' slips an' seeds; I plant 'em yeller, white an' mottled. I water 'em an' potash 'em an' treat 'em like babies--an' I _still_ can't make 'em behave!"

He wedged a bulldog-tipped toe into the rug and looked at me from under his bushy brows.

"Helen?" he asked. "How's Helen?"

"Iroquois!" I told him grimly.

"Come again?"

"After your scalp. Didn't you ever hear the adage about Satan's old homestead having no fury like a woman left out on the limb? If you bump into Helen MacDowell, pal, you better fly, not run, to the nearest cavern."

Hank cracked his knuckles in misery.

"Couldn't do nothin' else, Jim. Couldn't marry her. 'T'warn't logical."[2]

[Footnote 2: In "The Scientific Pioneer," AMAZING STORIES for March, 1940 Horse-sense Hank refused to marry Helen MacDowell because, with his uncanny power to foretell the future, Hank knew their baby would be a chorus girl when it grew up. Hank is allergic to chorines.--ED.]

"So," I reminded him, "aren't females. But never mind that, Hank. Let's get down to brass tacks. The reason I wanted to see you--"

"I know. About the way them men's been disappearin'," he said. He rose and walked to my radio set. "'Pears like you oughta have this turned on. With all the trouble, seems like you'd be listenin' for news bulletins."

"It's busted," I said. "It hasn't worked for weeks."

* * * * *

"No?" He shifted it around, peered into the maze of coils, tubes, wires and utter incomprehensibles that comprise a modern radio set.

"Hmm. Never see'd the innards o' one o' these things afore. Interestin', ain't it?"

His lean fingers began weaving among the gleaming entrails. A tiny crease appeared over his right eye. He muttered as he pushed and jiggled and explored.

"This one goes there; that one goes _there_. 'Pears like--Well, I'll be durned!"

Something clicked, and his fingers made a twisting motion. He grinned at me.

"How d'you make 'er talk, Jim?"

"She doesn't. She's a deaf mute. But that vernier on the left--"

He turned it. My long-silent radio went, "_Phweeee-gwobble-gwobble!_"--and became coherent. Strains of hot jive assaulted my eardrums. I moaned.

"Hank, do you know everything? The repairman who looked at it said it would never work again. He said--"

"He jest wanted to sell you a new one," consoled my friend. "I kinda figgered as how adjustin' that little hunk o' metal would fix it. You see--"

But I never got to see. For at that moment my eyes went wobbly all of a sudden. Out of nowhere came a brilliant light, flooding the room with blinding intensity. There was no sound; just that sharp, bright glare--and my arms tingled with a sort of electric vibration.

And as I blinked, the light coalesced into a form! It was, roughly, the form of a man--and from where its head should be there came a strange, strained, hollow voice.

"_Ombiggs!_"

Then the light flickered, and was gone, and with it was gone the voice and the last vestige of my self-control. I let loose one squawk--out loud!--and dived for the darkness and comparative security of the region under the couch!

Not so Hank. He stood stockstill in the middle of the floor. I yelled at him,

"Hank, did _you_ do that? Did you touch something on the radio?"

There was a faint, puzzled look on his face.

"Nope, Jim. I didn't do nothin'. Did you see him, too?"

"I saw him. Whoever he was. But who--how?"

"I dunno." Slowly. "Leastwise, the only thing I can think of is so durn unlikely--Hey, listen!"

The radio music had stopped suddenly. The voice of the announcer was clear, crisp, ominous.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt this program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin. _Flash!_ Midland University campus. Dr. H. Logan MacDowell, president of this institution, vanished suddenly five minutes ago from the midst of a group of friends gathered at his home to discuss two similar occurrences at Midland within the past week.

"Police efforts to solve the mystery were hampered by the ensuing panic. A diabolic plot against the persons of eminent American educators is feared by observers--"

The rest was lost to us. Frenzied footsteps beat a tappity-tappity path to the door of my apartment, and nervous hands beat wooden panels. A sweet, familiar voice, now high-pitched in fright, cried,

"Jim! Jim Blakeson! Quick--"

The door and sheer courage were all that sustained her. As I opened the first, the second gave out. And Helen MacDowell moaned gently and collapsed into my arms!