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CHAPTER III

Mystery from the Spaceways

The heart of Extra-Terra Bio-Institute was its controlling laboratory system, whose activities ran the entire scale of science. Its staff numbered thousands. Its facilities were ultra-modern. It was the clearing house of all data brought back from the spaceways. On file was every conceivable bit of information relating to extra-terrestrial matters.

The head of ETBI was a cabinet member of the Earth Union Government. Second in command was Dr. Rodney Shelton, youngest and most brilliant of the scientific staff.

His career had been studded with vital researches. Even before coming to ETBI, his graduation thesis as a student had settled once and for all the virus-enigma, unsolved for a century. He proved that the viruses were molecular life-forms, the link between mineral and living states. Thus tagged, all virus diseases were curable, including the common “cold,” by treating them with artificial anti-virus molecules, as though they were simply chemical reagents.

But, joining the staff of ETBI, Shelton had turned his attention to the mysteries of extra-terrestrial biology. He had been with the famed Venus Swampland Expedition, commissioned to study the terrible brain-softening plague that periodically swept out from the swamplands to wipe out whole communities of Earth settlers.

Isolating the germ, Shelton had studied it at great risk alone—at his own insistence. He passed out his notes from a sealed-off cubicle of the ship. He lived in a sealed suit and did not dare eat or drink. In a week, he came out, thin and weak, but happy—with the answer.

The brain-softening bacteria died promptly in blue light, unknown on Venus because of its cloud-packed skies that filtered out all blue radiation. Thereafter, all Earth settlements were simply protected, when the plague reared, by rings of blue searchlights.

On Mercury, Shelton had found a much simpler way of stopping the voracious hordes of omnivorous, two-foot amoeboids than by blasting them to pieces with small cannon. No poison could affect them. Small gelatin capsules containing solid carbon dioxide were strewn in their stampeding path. The giant single-celled monsters absorbed them, dissolved off the gelatin, and swiftly puffed up into porous balloons by the action of released gas. In this form, they were whisked into the sky by the stiff winds, like bubbles, and eventually dashed to smears against rocks and cliffs.

But on Mars, Shelton had met, and conquered, the most baffling problem of them all. What could one do against invisible swarms of spongy germs that roamed the wastes of that planet and soaked up every last particle of water, to convert it into more spongy germs? The least exposure of a water supply would let them in, to fill it with their multiplying legions.

Shelton impregnated the normal water with one per cent of heavy-water, easily manufactured on Earth from deuterium, “heavy” isotopic hydrogen, and oxygen. By Mendelian principles, applicable to all life, whether on Earth, Mars or Andromeda, the hundredth or so generation of the sponge-germs were unable to breed.

Shelton remembered that back in the 1930’s the law had been laid down that heavy water inhibited reproductive processes. The sponge germ ceased to peril the water supplies of Earth colonists.

* * * *

But in the past three years, Shelton’s responsibilities had been shifted entirely to the most important of ETBI’s activities—the bio-conditioning. He was one of the trusted few who knew the chemical formula of adaptene, and was always in complete charge of every new bio-conditioning venture engaged in by ETBI.

Before his transfer to that project, bio-conditioning had been clumsy, taking months. Shelton’s researches enabled the process to be cut down to weeks. He had thereby tripled the colonization rate of the other bodies of the System….

“Well, the conditioning of men for Rhea is about done,” said Shelton, in relief. He and his assistant were in their laboratory, after having seen the excitement of an emergency landing at the port. “Another score for ETBI, and for adaptene. It’s laboratory evolution, in a way.”

“Yes, Dr. Shelton.”

Myra Benning slipped microscope slides into a cleansing bath of alcohol. Surreptitiously, however, she was watching his face. It was an interesting face to watch, with its glow of inspired feelings. It was the face of a leader and organizer, one whose mark would be left in the history of man’s conquest of space. But to Myra Benning, it was also just the face of—a man.

“Let’s see”—Shelton was counting on his fingers—“that’s the eleventh world outside of Earth to which ETBI has sent its graduates. Iapetus will be next, to make it an even dozen. That will be soon now.” His eyes glowed, as one who envisions ever greater horizons. “Exploring and mineral survey have gone on for several years. They’ll want bio-conditioned men soon, when the Navy has established an outpost. It’s like clockwork. World after world.”

The opti-phone bell rang.

Shelton snapped the “on” stud. The bewhiskered, jowled face of Grant Beatty, director of ETBI, flashed on the milky screen. One of the six men who, under the Earth Union’s president, ruled the spaceways, his forceful personality reflected from a habitually grave face. Iron-gray hair framed his piercing eyes and thin, firm lips. But his expression was more than just grave at the moment; it was tense.

“Shelton,” he barked out of the speaker, “drop whatever you’re doing. Something vital has just come up. We’ve got an assignment that sounds more important than anything we’ve tackled before. The space ship Tycho just docked, emergency landing.”

“The exploration ship?” queried Shelton, glancing at his assistant to see her head swing up sharply. “The one that went to Saturn for an official survey of Iapetus ore?”

“That’s it,” corroborated the director. He went on slowly, biting off the words incisively: “It’s back with only two men alive out of ten.”

Myra Benning’s hand went to her throat, but she said nothing. Shelton had to admire the way she waited calmly for the rest, though her own brother might be one of the victims.

Shelton was shaking his head. It always hurt to hear of brave men meeting doom out in the spaceways—young, spirited men who had much to live for. Some of them were important, too; scientists, technicians. Now they were martyrs to mankind’s steady march toward complete dominion of the Solar System.

“Two alive and the rest dead,” Shelton muttered. “On Iapetus—the next colony world on our list. What happened up there on Iapetus?” He shrank from asking which men were dead, with Myra Benning’s horrified eyes on him.

“No, not dead,” boomed Director Beatty, going back to the first thing Shelton had said.

Shelton stared. “But you just said that there were only two alive—”

“Yes, but the others are not dead,” Beatty insisted. “I had a look at the bodies. They aren’t alive; they aren’t dead.” His eyes looked shocked, as though he had seen the incredible. “And that’s our job, Shelton; finding out what it means. Come to the hospital ward at once. The bodies have been brought here.”

“I’ll be over in a moment.” Shelton switched off the phone. “Steady now!” he said to the girl.

He slipped off his stained smock and wrestled into his coat. As he stepped to the door, he found her waiting to go along.

“You’d better stay,” he admonished gently.

“I must go,” she insisted nervously. “No matter what it means, if Hugh’s one of them, I must see him.”

Shelton nodded. They stepped out into the hall and wound their way through the busy corridors, arriving at their destination a few minutes later. The hospital ward, in which ailing men from the bio-conditioning process were looked after, was spacious and modern, second to none on Earth.

Director Beatty greeted Shelton, a scowl of worry on his face. A physician with a stethoscope and puzzled eyes was going over the bodies, lying in a row of beds. One of the two men who had come back alive from Iapetus stood on one side, haggard from days of sleepless driving across space. But his eyes lighted up suddenly.

“Rod! Rodney Shelton!” he exclaimed, striding forward eagerly. “Your old roommate at Edison College. Remember me?”

Shelton stared at the gigantic young man blankly for a moment.

“Mark Traft!” he cried, in recognition, a broad grin spreading over his face.

“Pilot Mark Traft,” informed the tall man. “In the Planetary Survey. I went to the training docks, when we graduated. I remember you went back for research. I’d heard you were here at ETBI, but never had the chance to drop in. You’re a sight for sore eyes, Rod.”

They stared at each other for a moment, their minds crowding with renewed memories of college days.

“Good to see you again, Mark,” said Shelton. “But we’ll talk later. Right now—”

He turned to watch Myra Benning. Her eyes had flicked over the seven still figures. She had stood stiffly, then, breathing hard. Now she ran up and grasped the big pilot’s arm, squeezing with frantic fingers.

“My brother—Hugh Benning,” she cried. “Another man came back alive. Was it Hugh?”

Traft’s face instantly became sorrowful.

“No, Miss Benning,” he said softy. “One man was lost on Iapetus—”

He shifted his feet awkwardly, tried to go on, but the words stuck. The girl’s eyes dilated. Her lips trembled. Shelton wished the news had been broken to her less abruptly, but it was too late now.

“Hugh—” she choked. But suddenly she straightened up, shaking herself slightly. “I’m all right,” she said firmly. “Tell me what happened up there on Iapetus—about Hugh.”

As briefly and sympathetically as he could Traft gave the details to Shelton and the girl.

“Seeing we couldn’t revive them ourselves,” he concluded, “we decided to get the men to ETBI as soon as possible. We refueled at Titan, took on two men as engine crew, and ripped for Earth, triple-acceleration all the way.” He waved a hand. “Here we are. Greeley, my co-pilot, went to report to our superiors. I came here with the bodies. I had a hunch all along they weren’t—dead.”

Shelton stepped to the nearest bedside, touched a hand to the forehead of the still man who lay there.

“Cold,” he whispered. “Cold as death.”

The examining physician straightened.

“Medically,” he pronounced, “they are dead. They don’t breathe, their hearts have stopped, and their blood has cooled. Yet there is no rigor mortis.”

To demonstrate, he raised a limp arm of one of the men and let it fall. There was no stiffness apparent.

“Well, what’s your final diagnosis?” demanded Director Beatty impatiently.

“Death, without rigor mortis,” returned the physician stubbornly. “That is, academically.”

The director grunted. “What would you call it, Shelton?”

“Suspended animation,” Shelton replied reluctantly. “The first clear case in medical history. It means arrested life processes, without decomposition. Zero metabolism.” He looked at the bodies as though still unwilling to believe.

“Suspended animation,” muttered Director Beatty, though he had not been surprised. “All right, revive them,” he ordered the physician. “Get the whole staff on the job, if you have to.”

“I don’t think ordinary methods are going to work,” said Shelton grimly. “However, let them try.”

The ordinary methods did fail. They knew, an hour later, that such methods were futile. Even an injection of adrenalin directly into the heart of one of the men had failed to start the slightest flutter of pulse. Director Beatty became the picture of baffled dismay.

“We’ve got to revive those men,” he ground out finally. “The reputation of ETBI is at stake. You’re the best damned biologist on Earth today, Shelton”—he spoke challengingly—“and we’re up against the best damned problem that’s reared out of the spaceways yet. I’m putting you in complete charge. If it takes a day or a year, get these men up and around.”

“I think adaptene is the answer,” Shelton exclaimed, and went on rapidly to explain: “In a sense, these bodies have been thrown into an environment without air, heat, or any of the normal things. They’re ‘adapted’ to those extreme conditions. We can adapt them right back to ours.”

Director Beatty nodded. “Try it,” he said, and left. Other pressing duties claimed his attention. When he had sent the worn-out Traft for a rest Shelton called the hospital staff and gave them orders. The group galvanized into action. In a few minutes the seven limp forms were in combination fever machines and iron lungs. Small doses of the miracle substance, adaptene, were injected. It remained to be seen whether it could bring metabolism up from a zero point as well as simply shift it in degree.

“This must work,” Shelton said hopefully to Myra. “But it’ll probably be a wait of hours.”

He saw her red-rimmed eyes and suggested she take a rest.

“No.” She shook her head, and went on tonelessly: “There’s more work to do. I’ll help you.”

The puzzle of it all cropped to the fore in Shelton’s mind. “Just what caused the suspended animation?” he murmured. “What queer, unknown gas—at least they spoke of gas. Is it in the Iapetus air? I wish I knew, but Traft forgot to bring back a sample, in all the excitement.” His eyes suddenly lit with a thought. “There’s one man who might know—the Space Scientist.”

He whirled and strode toward the Institute’s main opti-phone exchange room, beckoning the girl to follow.

“The Space Scientist,” she reiterated in astonishment. “Do you know him—talk to him?”

“I did once,” Shelton said shortly.