CHAPTER I
Lieutenant McGuire threw open his coat with its winged insignia of the air force and leaned back in his chair to read more comfortably the newspaper article.
A strange light blinks on Venus, and over old Earth hovers a mysterious visitant – dread harbinger of interplanetary war.
He glanced at Captain Blake across the table. The captain was deep in a game of solitaire, but he looked up at McGuire's audible chuckle.
"Gay old girl!" said Lieutenant McGuire and smoothed the paper across his knees. "She's getting flirtatious."
The captain swore softly as he gathered up his cards. "Not interested," he announced; "too hot to-night. Keep her away."
"Oh, she's far enough away," McGuire responded; "about seventy million miles. Don't get excited."
"What are you talking about?" The captain shuffled his cards irritably.
"Venus. She's winking at us, the old reprobate. One of these star-gazers up on Mount Lawson saw the flashes a week or so ago. If you'll cut out your solitaire and listen, I'll read you something to improve your mind." He ignored the other's disrespectful remark and held the paper closer to see the paragraphs.
"Is Venus Signalling?" inquired the caption which Lieutenant McGuire read. "Professor Sykes of Mt. Lawson Observatory Reports Flashes.
"The planet Venus, now a brilliant spectacle in the evening sky, is behaving strangely according to a report from the local observatory on Mount Lawson. This sister star, most like Earth of all the planets, is now at its eastern elongation, showing like a half-moon in the big telescopes on Mt. Lawson. Shrouded in impenetrable clouds, its surface has never been seen, but something is happening there. Professor Sykes reports seeing a distinct flash of light upon the terminator, or margin of light. It lasted for several seconds and was not repeated.
"No explanation of the phenomenon is offered by scientists, as conditions on the planet's surface are unknown. Is there life there? Are the people of Venus trying to communicate? One guess is as good as another. But it is interesting to recall that our scientists recently proposed to send a similar signal from Earth to Mars by firing a tremendous flare of magnesium.
"Venus is now approaching the earth; she comes the nearest of all planets. Have the Venusians penetrated their cloak of cloud masses with a visible light? The planet will be watched with increased interest as it swings toward us in space, in hope of there being a repetition of the unexplained flash."
"There," said Lieutenant McGuire," – doesn't that elevate your mind? Take it off this infernally hot night? Carry you out through the cool reaches of interplanetary space? If there is anything else you want to know, just ask me."
"Yes," Captain Blake agree, "there is. I want to know how the game came out back in New York – and you don't know that. Let's go over and ask the radio man. He probably has the dope."
"Good idea," said McGuire; "maybe he has picked up a message from Venus; we'll make a date." He looked vainly for the brilliant star as they walked out into the night. There were clouds of fog from the nearby Pacific drifting high overhead. Here and there stars showed momentarily, then were blotted from sight.
The operator in the radio room handed the captain a paper with the day's scores from the eastern games. But Lieutenant McGuire, despite his ready amusement at the idea, found his thoughts clinging to the words he had read. "Was the planet communicating?" he pictured the great globe – another Earth – slipping silently through space, coming nearer and nearer.
Did they have radio? he wondered. Would they send recognizable signals – words – or some mathematical sequence to prove their reality? He turned to the radio operator on duty.
"Have you picked up anything peculiar," he asked, and laughed inwardly at himself for the asking. "Any new dots and dashes? The scientists say that Venus is calling. You'll have to be learning a new code."
The man glanced at him strangely and looked quickly away.
"No, sir," he said. And added after a pause: "No new dots and dashes."
"Don't take that stuff too seriously, Mac," the captain remonstrated. "The day of miracles is past; we don't want to commit you to the psychopathic ward. Now here is something real: the Giants won, and I had ten dollars on them. How shall we celebrate?"
The radio man was listening intently as they started to leave. His voice was hesitating as he stopped them; he seemed reluctant to put his thoughts into words.
"Just a minute, sir," he said to Captain Blake.
"Well?" the captain asked. And again the man waited before he replied. Then —
"Lieutenant McGuire asked me," he began, "if I had heard any strange dots and dashes. I have not; but … well, the fact is, sir, that I have been getting some mighty queer sounds for the past few nights. They've got me guessing.
"If you wouldn't mind waiting. Captain; they're about due now – " He listened again to some signal inaudible to the others, then hooked up two extra head-sets for the officers.
"It's on now," he said. "If you don't mind – "
McGuire grinned at the captain as they took up the ear-phones. "Power of suggestion," he whispered, but the smile was erased from his lips as he listened. For in his ear was sounding a weird and wailing note.
No dots or dashes, as the operator had said, but the signal was strong. It rose and fell and wavered into shrill tremolos, a ghostly, unearthly sound, and it kept on and on in a shrill despairing wail. Abruptly it stopped.
The captain would have removed the receiver from his ear, but the operator stopped him. "Listen," he said, "to the answer."
There was silence, broken only by an occasional hiss and crackle of some far distant mountain storm. Then, faint as a whisper, came an answering, whistling breath.
It, too, trembled and quavered. It went up – up – to the limit of hearing; then slid down the scale to catch and tremble and again ascend in endless unvarying ups and downs of sound. It was another unbroken, unceasing, but always changing vibration.
"What in thunder is that?" Captain Blake demanded.
"Communication of some sort, I should say," McGuire said slowly, and he caught the operator's eyes upon him in silent agreement.
"No letters," Blake objected; "no breaks; just that screech." He listened again. "Darned if it doesn't almost seem to say something," he admitted.
"When did you first hear this?" he demanded of the radio man.
"Night before last, sir. I did not report it. It seemed too – too – "
"Quite so," said Captain Blake in understanding, "but it is some form of broadcasting on a variable wave; though how a thing like that can make sense – "
"They talk back and forth," said the operator; "all night, most. Notice the loud one and the faint one; two stations sending and answering."
Captain Blake waved him to silence. "Wait – wait!" he ordered. "It's growing louder!"
In the ears of the listening men the noise dropped to a loud grumble; rose to a piercing shriek; wavered and leaped rapidly from note to note. It was increasing; rushing upon them with unbearable sound. The sense of something approaching, driving toward them swiftly, was strong upon Lieutenant McGuire. He tore the head-phones from his ears and rushed to the door. The captain was beside him. Whoever – whatever – was sending that mysterious signal was coming near – but was that nearness a matter of miles or of thousands of miles?
They stared at the stormy night sky above. A moon was glowing faintly behind scudding clouds, and the gray-black of flying shadows formed an opening as they watched, a wind-blown opening like a doorway to the infinity beyond, where, blocking out the stars, was a something that brought a