[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Thrilling Wonder Stories February 1948.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
CHAPTER I
Trouble in the Sky
The U.S. Signal Corps announced the discovery of a new satellite ofEarth in the latter part of July, and newspapers everywhere broke outin a rash of pseudo-scientific comment. The new satellite had beenpicked up by Signal Corps radars, in the course of experiments towork out a technic for detecting guided missiles at extreme range,while they were still rising in their high-arched flight beyondthe atmosphere. The radars picked up indications of an object ofappreciable size at a distance of four thousand miles, which—themoon-echo aside—was a record for radar detection.
Immediately the observation was made it was repeated, and repeatedagain and again, for verification. When the confirmatory fixes werecomputed, a course and speed for the unseen object proved it to haveexact orbital speed and direction. It was circling the earth betweenthree and four thousand miles up, and made a complete circuit of theglobe in 2 hours, 15 minutes, 32 seconds.
On the same day this discovery was released to the newspapers, Dr.David Murfree—formerly of the Bureau of Standards—mailed a checkto Bud Gregory on the shores of Puget Sound. Also on the same day hereceived the papers of incorporation of a company to be called OceanProducts, Inc. He was in the peculiar position of having to get rich onBud Gregory's brains because Bud wouldn't, and somebody had to. Thatsame day, while Murfree was busy on the Atlantic Coast, Bud Gregorywent fishing with two of his tow-headed children on the other side ofthe continent.
Two weeks later—in the early part of August—a second new satelliteof Earth was discovered. It was closer to Earth than the first—barely1500 miles up—and it made a circuit in 40 minutes 14 seconds. Thefirst and farther new satellite was under continuous radar observation,now, and the fact that it was a tiny moon of Earth was completelyverified, though it had not been sighted by any telescope. This newer,second satellite, of course, moved much too fast for any astronomer tohope to pick it up either visually or on a photographic plate.
On the day of the second satellite's announcement, Murfree assignedhalf the stock in Ocean Products, Inc., to a trust-fund for Bud Gregoryand his family. That day, Bud Gregory stayed home and dozed beside aportable radio. It was raining too hard for him to go fishing.
The third and fourth new satellites—periods of 1 hr. 19 min., 12sec., and 3 hr. 5 min., 42 sec. respectively—were discovered onlytwo days apart. The fifth was found two days later, and the sixth andseventh were spotted within an hour of each other, when they were inconjunction and only five hundred miles apart, 7500 and 8000 miles up.
Murfree was very busy around this time. He had a gadget that BudGregory had made, and it couldn't be patented, and it couldn't betalked about, but it needed to be used. So he was getting OceanProducts, Inc., a mail address in New York and a stretch of oceanfrontage on the Maryland coastline. He was having painful conferenceswith high-priced lawyers—whose point of view was as remote from thatof a scientist as possible—and with low-priced electrical-installationmen. He was run ragged. But Bud Gregory was sitting in the sun out onthe Pacific coast, in blissful somnolence and doing nothing whatever.
Nobody suspected anything menacing in the exis