Rodney Shelton grinned mirthlessly. “It amounts to about that. He’s the most mysterious figure living today. No one seems to know just who he is, or how it started, but he lives out in space, in a ship elaborately equipped. He has a complete laboratory in it, they say!” He shook his head wonderingly. “He’s been in space for twenty years, alone! He has never been known to land on any planet for supplies, but he must have some means of picking up fuel, oxygen and food, probably through confederates.”
“What does he do out in space, alone, year after year? I should think he’d go mad.” The girl shuddered.
“He’s a hermit by nature, I suppose,” Shelton explained. “He’s compiling data for a tremendous new concept of the Universe. He does no harm. Years ago the Space Rangers tried to track him down, but never caught him. They’ve left him strictly alone since then. His ship, with two large white crosses on it, has been sighted everywhere, from Mercury to Saturn. At intervals, he contacts Earth scientists and asks for certain information to further his work on his great theory, whatever it is. But if you want to contact him, he’s liable to ignore your call. He’s called me once, to ask about a biological point, though how that could help him, I don’t know.”
“Why are you calling him?” asked the girl.
“A hunch more or less,” confessed Shelton. “He has on tap a lot of firsthand information about the Solar System. He may know something significant about Iapetus.”
The operator turned. “Here’s your party, Dr. Shelton—the Space Scientist.” He looked rather startled, at having contacted this mysterious, almost mythical character. “You can take the call in private booth Three.”
Shelton strode to the booth, motioning Myra Benning to follow. It was something to keep her mind off the thought of her brother’s sad fate.
He closed the door behind them, in the roomy booth, and snapped the switch. The opti-screen came to life with a subdued hum. Spectrum colors flitted across the fluorescent round plate and finally intertwined into the head and shoulders of the Space Scientist.
Myra Benning caught her breath. The face was hidden. The entire head was enclosed in an opaque globe of what seemed to be semi-porous cloth. No features were distinguishable behind the mask.
“He always wears that hood, at least while televising,” whispered Shelton. “No one has ever seen his face.” He did not realize that the sensitive instrument in the enclosed booth was picking up his whisper.
“And no one shall ever see my face,” came in harsh, stiffly accented tones from the masked image. “I have made a vow never to let Earth see my face again. Twenty years ago, on Earth, in a laboratory… Well, no matter.” A strange laugh came from behind the head. “But you wouldn’t want to see my face. It isn’t a pretty sight.”
Shelton glanced at the girl significantly. This confirmed rumors that an unfortunate accident in a laboratory had seared the Space Scientist’s face horribly, and had embittered him. It had finally driven him to exile himself in space, where no one would see his disfigurement. Shelton felt pity for the man.
“I’m sorry,” he said simply, then went on hurriedly, after an awkward pause: “I’ve contacted you, sir, to ask for any information you may have about Iapetus.”
“Why do you want to know about Iapetus?” the Space Scientist asked coldly.
“Seven men have come back from there in a state of suspended animation, apparently from breathing Iapetus air,” Shelton explained. He went on to give the details.
The masked scientist seemed to listen attentively, but at the end he said laxly:
“I am not interested in these affairs. I am not interested in any earthly matters. I have divorced myself completely from that pettiness. Men are fools. Life is futile and meaningless. Only mind is important, and the contemplation of the great mysteries of the cosmos.”
The globed head moved forward and the voice lowered with tension. “I am at the verge of a tremendous new concept of the Universe. It will embrace all things in one master formula. That has been my dream for twenty years. It will be a significant achievement. It will in one sweeping stroke give meaning to all things.” He ended almost in a shout.
“But sir, about Iapetus—” began Shelton.
“I don’t care about Iapetus,” retorted the masked man scornfully. “I have no concern with your petty troubles. I’m not a citizen of Earth, furthermore. I am my own master, with all space as my domain.” His arm moved as though to snap off the connection.
“Wait!” snapped Shelton angrily. “You may be independent of earthly ties, but you’re still a human being. As such, you must have some regard for earthly things.”
The Space Scientist’s arm drew back. “Still a human being.” His mirthless laugh sounded again. “Well spoken! Who are you again?”
“Dr. Rodney Shelton, of ETBI.”
“Ah, yes,” said the hidden lips, reflectively. “I recall contacting you once. You answered my questions. So in return if I can help you, I suppose I should. But be quick about it.”
“Have you had occasion to test the Iapetus air recently?” Shelton queried.
“Yes. Just a minute and I’ll get my record.” The Space Scientist’s form moved aside, out of the screen’s range.
Shelton’s eyes stared wonderingly into what he could see of the cabin of the Space Scientist’s mysterious ship. His vision went down a short corridor, into a laboratory. A bewildering variety of apparatus was discernible, most of it blurred from off-focus so that he couldn’t guess its nature. Yet he could sense the completeness of equipment and advanced nature of the man’s experiments. Another of the many unconfirmed rumors about the Space Scientist was that he had discovered amazing new things that Earth scientists would pledge their souls to know.
Myra Benning shivered. “Somehow, he’s so cold and implacable,” she whispered. “He doesn’t seem human any more. He’s been warped by his long life in space to something different from you and me.”
“Nonsense,” Shelton laughed shortly. “On the contrary, he is still human, in nature as well as body. More human than he knows himself. He proved it by yielding to my little speech.”
He broke off as they heard footsteps approaching the screen. The Space Scientist’s masked face appeared.
“I had occasion to land on Iapetus, in the course of my planetary studies,” he said. “I analyzed its atmosphere. Gases present in Iapetus’ atmosphere are oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, helium, neon and traces of the other noble gases. If you want the percentages—”
“No,” declined Shelton. “When did you make the test?”
“Once ten years ago, and also just a month ago. The results were the same both times.”
“One more question,” pursued Shelton. “Do you think it possible for an alien gas to be present, so unstable that it cannot be detected?”
“Impossible,” the Space Scientist said confidently. “Particularly with my technique. I use a cold-light spectroscope.” A boastful note crept into his voice. “Earth’s scientists don’t know of that method. It examines substances at the low, stable temperature of liquid helium.”
Shelton stared. That was incredible and he almost said so. No one had ever made spectroscopic tests without heat. But then he remembered to whom he was talking—a genius, mad or not, who had labored at his space science for two decades. Space was cold. Perhaps his researches had naturally veered toward low temperature methods.
“I see,” Shelton said. “That’s all I wanted to ask you, sir. Thanks and good-by.”
He was reaching a hand to switch off, but the Space Scientist’s voice interposed. “What are you going to do about