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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cosmic Express, by John Stewart Williamson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Cosmic Express
+
+Author: John Stewart Williamson
+
+Release Date: July 15, 2008 [EBook #26066]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COSMIC EXPRESS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ December 1961 and was
+    first published in _Amazing Stories_ November 1930. Extensive
+    research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on
+    this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical
+    errors have been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+
+A Classic Reprint from AMAZING STORIES, November, 1930
+
+_Copyright 1931, by Experimenter Publications Inc._
+
+
+_The Cosmic Express_
+
+By JACK WILLIAMSON
+
+
+
+
+Introduction by Sam Moskowitz
+
+
+_The year 1928 was a great year of discovery for_ AMAZING STORIES. _They
+were uncovering new talent at such a great rate, (Harl Vincent, David H.
+Keller, E. E. Smith, Philip Francis Nowlan, Fletcher Pratt and Miles J.
+Breuer), that Jack Williamson barely managed to become one of a
+distinguished group of discoveries by stealing the cover of the December
+issue for his first story_ The Metal Man.
+
+_A disciple of A. Merritt, he attempted to imitate in style, mood and
+subject the magic of that late lamented master of fantasy. The imitation
+found great favor from the readership and almost instantly Jack
+Williamson became an important name on the contents page of_ AMAZING
+STORIES. _He followed his initial success with two short novels_, The
+Green Girl _in_ AMAZING STORIES _and_ The Alien Intelligence _in_
+SCIENCE WONDER STORIES, _another Gernsback publication. Both of these
+stories were close copies of A. Merritt, whose style and method Jack
+Williamson parlayed into popularity for eight years._
+
+_Yet the strange thing about it was that Jack Williamson was one of the
+most versatile science fiction authors ever to sit down at the
+typewriter. When the vogue for science-fantasy altered to super science,
+he created the memorable super lock-picker Giles Habilula as the major
+attraction in a rousing trio of space operas_, The Legion of Space, The
+Cometeers _and_ One Against the Legion. _When grim realism was the order
+of the day, he produced_ Crucible of Power _and when they wanted
+extrapolated theory in present tense, he assumed the disguise of Will
+Stewart and popularized the concept of contra terrene matter in science
+fiction with_ Seetee Ship _and_ Seetee Shock. _Finally, when only
+psychological studies of the future would do, he produced_ "With Folded
+Hands ..." "... And Searching Mind."
+
+The Cosmic Express _is of special interest because it was written during
+Williamson's A. Merritt "kick," when he was writing little else but, and
+it gave the earliest indication of a more general capability. The
+lightness of the handling is especially modern, barely avoiding the
+farcical by the validity of the notion that wireless transmission of
+matter is the next big transportation frontier to be conquered. It is
+especially important because it stylistically forecast a later trend to
+accept the background for granted, regardless of the quantity of
+wonders, and proceed with the story. With only a few thousand
+scanning-disk television sets in existence at the time of the writing,
+the surmise that this media would be a natural for westerns was
+particularly astute._
+
+_Jack Williamson was born in 1908 in the Arizona territory when covered
+wagons were the primary form of transportation and apaches still raided
+the settlers. His father was a cattle man, but for young Jack, the ranch
+was anything but glamorous. "My days were filled," he remembers, "with
+monotonous rounds of what seemed an endless, heart-breaking war with
+drought and frost and dust-storms, poison-weeds and hail, for the sake
+of survival on the_ Llano Estacado." _The discovery of_ AMAZING STORIES
+_was the escape he sought and his goal was to be a science fiction
+writer. He labored to this end and the first he knew that a story of his
+had been accepted was when he bought the December, 1929 issue of_
+AMAZING STORIES. _Since then, he has written millions of words of
+science fiction and has gone on record as follows: "I feel that
+science-fiction is the folklore of the new world of science, and the
+expression of man's reaction to a technological environment. By which I
+mean that it is the most interesting and stimulating form of literature
+today."_
+
+
+
+
+Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding tumbled out of the rumpled bed-clothing, a
+striking slender figure in purple-striped pajamas. He smiled fondly
+across to the other of the twin beds, where Nada, his pretty bride, lay
+quiet beneath light silk covers. With a groan, he stood up and began a
+series of fantastic bending exercises. But after a few half-hearted
+movements, he gave it up, and walked through an open door into a small
+bright room, its walls covered with bookcases and also with scientific
+appliances that would have been strange to the man of four or five
+centuries before, when the Age of Aviation was beginning.
+
+Yawning, Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding stood before the great open window,
+staring out. Below him was a wide, park-like space, green with emerald
+lawns, and bright with flowering plants. Two hundred yards across it
+rose an immense pyramidal building--an artistic structure, gleaming with
+white marble and bright metal, striped with the verdure of terraced
+roof-gardens, its slender peak rising to help support the gray,
+steel-ribbed glass roof above. Beyond, the park stretched away in
+illimitable vistas, broken with the graceful columned buildings that
+held up the great glass roof.
+
+[Illustration: Suddenly there was a sharp tingling sensation where they
+touched the polished surface.]
+
+Above the glass, over this New York of 2432 A. D., a freezing blizzard
+was sweeping. But small concern was that to the lightly clad man at the
+window, who was inhaling deeply the fragrant air from the plants
+below--air kept, winter and summer, exactly at 20° C.
+
+With another yawn, Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding turned back to the room,
+which was bright with the rich golden light that poured in from the
+suspended globes of the cold ato-light that illuminated the snow-covered
+city. With a distasteful grimace, he seated himself before a broad,
+paper-littered desk, sat a few minutes leaning back, with his hands
+clasped behind his head. At last he straightened reluctantly, slid a
+small typewriter out of its drawer, and began pecking at it impatiently.
+
+For Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding was an author. There was a whole shelf of
+his books on the wall, in bright jackets, red and blue and green, that
+brought a thrill of pleasure to the young novelist's heart when he
+looked up from his clattering machine.
+
+He wrote "thrilling action romances," as his enthusiastic publishers and
+television directors said, "of ages past, when men were men. Red-blooded
+heroes responding vigorously to the stirring passions of primordial
+life!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was impartial as to the source of his thrills--provided they were
+distant enough from modern civilization. His hero was likely to be an
+ape-man roaring through the jungle, with a bloody rock in one hand and a
+beautiful girl in the other. Or a cowboy, "hard-riding, hard-shooting,"
+the vanishing hero of the ancient ranches. Or a man marooned with a
+lovely woman on a desert South Sea island. His heroes were invariably
+strong, fearless, resourceful fellows, who could handle a club on equal
+terms with a cave-man, or call science to aid them in defending a
+beautiful mate from the terrors of a desolate wilderness.
+
+And a hundred million read Eric's novels, and watched the dramatization
+of them on the television screens. They thrilled at the simple, romantic
+lives his heroes led, paid him handsome royalties, and subconsciously
+shared his opinion that civilization had taken all the best from the
+life of man.
+
+Eric had settled down to the artistic satisfaction of describing the
+sensuous delight of his hero in the roasted marrow-bones of a dead
+mammoth, when the pretty woman in the other room stirred, and presently
+came tripping into the study, gay and vivacious, and--as her husband of
+a few months most justly thought--altogether beautiful in a bright silk
+dressing gown.
+
+Recklessly, he slammed the machine back into its place, and resolved to
+forget that his next "red-blooded action thriller" was due in the
+publisher's office at the end of the month. He sprang up to kiss his
+wife, held her embraced for a long happy moment. And then they went hand
+in hand, to the side of the room and punched a series of buttons on a
+panel--a simple way of ordering breakfast sent up the automatic shaft
+from the kitchens below.
+
+Nada Stokes-Harding was also an author. She wrote poems--"back to nature
+stuff"--simple lyrics of the sea, of sunsets, of bird songs, of bright
+flowers and warm winds, of thrilling communion with Nature, and growing
+things. Men read her poems and called her a genius. Even though the
+whole world had grown up into a city, the birds were extinct, there were
+no wild flowers, and no one had time to bother about sunsets.
+
+"Eric, darling," she said, "isn't it terrible to be cooped up here in
+this little flat, away from the things we both love?"
+
+"Yes, dear. Civilization has ruined the world. If we could only have
+lived a thousand years ago, when life was simple and natural, when men
+hunted and killed their meat, instead of drinking synthetic stuff, when
+men still had the joys of conflict, instead of living under glass, like
+hot-house flowers."
+
+"If we could only go somewhere--"
+
+"There isn't anywhere to go. I write about the West, Africa, South Sea
+Islands. But they were all filled up two hundred years ago. Pleasure
+resorts, sanatoriums, cities, factories."
+
+"If only we lived on Venus! I was listening to a lecture on the
+television, last night. The speaker said that the Planet Venus is
+younger than the Earth, that it has not cooled so much. It has a thick,
+cloudy atmosphere, and low, rainy forests. There's simple, elemental
+life there--like Earth had before civilization ruined it."
+
+"Yes, Kinsley, with his new infra-red ray telescope, that penetrates the
+cloud layers of the planet, proved that Venus rotates in about the same
+period as Earth; and it must be much like Earth was a million years
+ago."
+
+"Eric, I wonder if we could go there! It would be so thrilling to begin
+life like the characters in your stories, to get away from this hateful
+civilization, and live natural lives. Maybe a rocket--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The young author's eyes were glowing. He skipped across the floor,
+seized Nada, kissed her ecstatically. "Splendid! Think of hunting in the
+virgin forest, and bringing the game home to you! But I'm afraid there
+is no way.--Wait! The Cosmic Express."
+
+"The Cosmic Express?"
+
+"A new invention. Just perfected a few weeks ago, I understand. By
+Ludwig Von der Valls, the German physicist."
+
+"I've quit bothering about science. It has ruined nature, filled the
+world with silly, artificial people, doing silly, artificial things."
+
+"But this is quite remarkable, dear. A new way to travel--by ether!"
+
+"By ether!"
+
+"Yes. You know of course that energy and matter are interchangeable
+terms; both are simply etheric vibration, of different sorts."
+
+"Of course. That's elementary." She smiled proudly. "I can give you
+examples, even of the change. The disintegration of the radium atom,
+making helium and lead and _energy_. And Millikan's old proof that his
+Cosmic Ray is generated when particles of electricity are united to form
+an atom."
+
+"Fine! I thought you said you weren't a scientist." He glowed with
+pride. "But the method, in the new Cosmic Express, is simply to convert
+the matter to be carried into power, send it out as a radiant beam and
+focus the beam to convert it back into atoms at the destination."
+
+"But the amount of energy must be terrific--"
+
+"It is. You know short waves carry more energy than long ones. The
+Express Ray is an electromagnetic vibration of frequency far higher than
+that of even the Cosmic Ray, and correspondingly more powerful and more
+penetrating."
+
+The girl frowned, running slim fingers through golden-brown hair. "But I
+don't see how they get any recognizable object, not even how they get
+the radiation turned back into matter."
+
+"The beam is focused, just like the light that passes through a camera
+lens. The photographic lens, using light rays, picks up a picture and
+reproduces it again on the plate--just the same as the Express Ray picks
+up an object and sets it down on the other side of the world.
+
+"An analogy from television might help. You know that by means of the
+scanning disc, the picture is transformed into mere rapid fluctuations
+in the brightness of a beam of light. In a parallel manner, the focal
+plane of the Express Ray moves slowly through the object, progressively,
+dissolving layers of the thickness of a single atom, which are
+accurately reproduced at the other focus of the instrument--which might
+be in Venus!
+
+"But the analogy of the lens is the better of the two. For no receiving
+instrument is required, as in television. The object is built up of an
+infinite series of plane layers, at the focus of the ray, no matter
+where that may be. Such a thing would be impossible with radio apparatus
+because even with the best beam transmission, all but a tiny fraction of
+the power is lost, and power is required to rebuild the atoms. Do you
+understand, dear?"
+
+"Not altogether. But I should worry! Here comes breakfast. Let me butter
+your toast."
+
+A bell had rung at the shaft. She ran to it, and returned with a great
+silver tray, laden with dainty dishes, which she set on a little side
+table. They sat down opposite each other, and ate, getting as much
+satisfaction from contemplation of each other's faces as from the
+excellent food. When they had finished, she carried the tray to the
+shaft, slid it in a slot, and touched a button--thus disposing of the
+culinary cares of the morning.
+
+She ran back to Eric, who was once more staring distastefully at his
+typewriter.
+
+"Oh, darling! I'm thrilled to death about the Cosmic Express! If we
+could go to Venus, to a new life on a new world, and get away from all
+this hateful conventional society--"
+
+"We can go to their office--it's only five minutes. The chap that
+operates the machine for the company is a pal of mine. He's not supposed
+to take passengers except between the offices they have scattered about
+the world. But I know his weak point--"
+
+Eric laughed, fumbled with a hidden spring under his desk. A small
+polished object, gleaming silvery, slid down into his hand.
+
+"Old friendship, _plus_ this, would make him--like spinach."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Five minutes later Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding and his pretty wife were in
+street clothes, light silk tunics of loose, flowing lines--little
+clothing being required in the artificially warmed city. They entered an
+elevator and dropped thirty stories to the ground floor of the great
+building.
+
+There they entered a cylindrical car, with rows of seats down the sides.
+Not greatly different from an ancient subway car, except that it was
+air-tight, and was hurled by magnetic attraction and repulsion through a
+tube exhausted of air, at a speed that would have made an old subway
+rider gasp with amazement.
+
+In five more minutes their car had whipped up to the base of another
+building, in the business section, where there was no room for parks
+between the mighty structures that held the unbroken glass roofs two
+hundred stories above the concrete pavement.
+
+An elevator brought them up a hundred and fifty stories. Eric led Nada
+down a long, carpeted corridor to a wide glass door, which bore the
+words:
+
+                             COSMIC EXPRESS
+
+stenciled in gold capitals across it.
+
+As they approached, a lean man, carrying a black bag, darted out of an
+elevator shaft opposite the door, ran across the corridor, and entered.
+They pushed in after him.
+
+They were in a little room, cut in two by a high brass grill. In front
+of it was a long bench against the wall, that reminded one of the
+waiting room in an old railroad depot. In the grill was a little window,
+with a lazy, brown-eyed youth leaning on the shelf behind it. Beyond him
+was a great, glittering piece of mechanism, half hidden by the brass. A
+little door gave access to the machine from the space before the grill.
+
+The thin man in black, whom Eric now recognized as a prominent French
+heart-specialist, was dancing before the window, waving his bag
+frantically, raving at the sleepy boy.
+
+"Queek! I have tell you zee truth! I have zee most urgent necessity to
+go queekly. A patient I have in Paree, zat ees in zee most creetical
+condition!"
+
+"Hold your horses just a minute, Mister. We got a client in the machine
+now. Russian diplomat from Moscow to Rio de Janeiro.... Two hundred
+seventy dollars and eighty cents, please.... Your turn next. Remember
+this is just an experimental service. Regular installations all over the
+world in a year.... Ready now. Come on in."
+
+The youth took the money, pressed a button. The door sprang open in the
+grill, and the frantic physician leaped through it.
+
+"Lie down on the crystal, face up," the young man ordered. "Hands at
+your sides, don't breathe. Ready!"
+
+He manipulated his dials and switches, and pressed another button.
+
+"Why, hello, Eric, old man!" he cried. "That's the lady you were telling
+me about? Congratulations!" A bell jangled before him on the panel.
+"Just a minute. I've got a call."
+
+He punched the board again. Little bulbs lit and glowed for a second.
+The youth turned toward the half-hidden machine, spoke courteously.
+
+"All right, madam. Walk out. Hope you found the transit pleasant."
+
+"But my Violet! My precious Violet!" a shrill female voice came from
+the machine. "Sir, what have you done with my darling Violet?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know, madam. You lost it off your hat?"
+
+"None of your impertinence, sir! I want my dog."
+
+"Ah, a dog. Must have jumped off the crystal. You can have him sent on
+for three hundred and--"
+
+"Young man, if any harm comes to my Violet--I'll--I'll--I'll appeal to
+the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals!"
+
+"Very good, madam. We appreciate your patronage."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The door flew open again. A very fat woman, puffing angrily, face highly
+colored, clothing shimmering with artificial gems, waddled pompously out
+of the door through which the frantic French doctor had so recently
+vanished. She rolled heavily across the room, and out into the corridor.
+Shrill words floated back:
+
+"I'm going to see my lawyer! My precious Violet--"
+
+The sallow youth winked. "And now what can I do for you, Eric?"
+
+"We want to go to Venus, if that ray of yours can put us there."
+
+"To Venus? Impossible. My orders are to use the Express merely between
+the sixteen designated stations, at New York, San Francisco, Tokyo,
+London, Paris--"
+
+"See here, Charley," with a cautious glance toward the door, Eric held
+up the silver flask. "For old time's sake, and for this--"
+
+The boy seemed dazed at sight of the bright flask. Then, with a single
+swift motion, he snatched it out of Eric's hand, and bent to conceal it
+below his instrument panel.
+
+"Sure, old boy. I'd send you to heaven for that, if you'd give me the
+micrometer readings to set the ray with. But I tell you, this is
+dangerous. I've got a sort of television attachment, for focusing the
+ray. I can turn that on Venus--I've been amusing myself, watching the
+life there, already. Terrible place. Savage. I can pick a place on high
+land to set you down. But I can't be responsible for what happens
+afterward."
+
+"Simple, primitive life is what we're looking for. And now what do I owe
+you--"
+
+"Oh, that's all right. Between friends. Provided that stuff's genuine!
+Walk in and lie down on the crystal block. Hands at your sides. Don't
+move."
+
+The little door had swung open again, and Eric led Nada through. They
+stepped into a little cell, completely surrounded with mirrors and vast
+prisms and lenses and electron tubes. In the center was a slab of
+transparent crystal, eight feet square and two inches thick, with an
+intricate mass of machinery below it.
+
+Eric helped Nada to a place on the crystal, lay down at her side.
+
+"I think the Express Ray is focused just at the surface of the crystal,
+from below," he said. "It dissolves our substance, to be transmitted by
+the beam. It would look as if we were melting into the crystal."
+
+"Ready," called the youth. "Think I've got it for you. Sort of a high
+island in the jungle. Nothing bad in sight now. But, I say--how're you
+coming back? I haven't got time to watch you."
+
+"Go ahead. We aren't coming back."
+
+"Gee! What is it? Elopement? I thought you were married already. Or is
+it business difficulties? The Bears did make an awful raid last night.
+But you better let me set you down in Hong Kong."
+
+A bell jangled. "So long," the youth called.
+
+Nada and Eric felt themselves enveloped in fire. Sheets of white flame
+seemed to lap up about them from the crystal block. Suddenly there was a
+sharp tingling sensation where they touched the polished surface. Then
+blackness, blankness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next thing they knew, the fires were gone from about them. They were
+lying in something extremely soft and fluid; and warm rain was beating
+in their faces. Eric sat up, found himself in a mud-puddle. Beside him
+was Nada, opening her eyes and struggling up, her bright garments
+stained with black mud.
+
+All about rose a thick jungle, dark and gloomy--and very wet. Palm-like,
+the gigantic trees were, or fern-like, flinging clouds of feathery green
+foliage high against a somber sky of unbroken gloom.
+
+They stood up, triumphant.
+
+"At last!" Nada cried. "We're free! Free of that hateful old
+civilization! We're back to Nature!"
+
+"Yes, we're on our feet now, not parasites on the machines."
+
+"It's wonderful to have a fine, strong man like you to trust in, Eric.
+You're just like one of the heroes in your books!"
+
+"You're the perfect companion, Nada.... But now we must be practical. We
+must build a fire, find weapons, set up a shelter of some kind. I guess
+it will be night, pretty soon. And Charley said something about savage
+animals he had seen in the television.
+
+"We'll find a nice dry cave, and have a fire in front of the door. And
+skins of animals to sleep on. And pottery vessels to cook in. And you
+will find seeds and grown grain."
+
+"But first we must find a flint-bed. We need flint for tools, and to
+strike sparks to make a fire with. We will probably come across a chunk
+of virgin copper, too--it's found native."
+
+Presently they set off through the jungle. The mud seemed to be very
+abundant, and of a most sticky consistence. They sank into it ankle deep
+at every step, and vast masses of it clung to their feet. A mile they
+struggled on, without finding where a provident nature had left them
+even a single fragment of quartz, to say nothing of a mass of pure
+copper.
+
+"A darned shame," Eric grumbled, "to come forty million miles, and meet
+such a reception as this!"
+
+Nada stopped. "Eric," she said, "I'm tired. And I don't believe there's
+any rock here, anyway. You'll have to use wooden tools, sharpened in the
+fire."
+
+"Probably you're right. This soil seemed to be of alluvial origin.
+Shouldn't be surprised if the native rock is some hundreds of feet
+underground. Your idea is better."
+
+"You can make a fire by rubbing sticks together, can't you?"
+
+"It can be done, I'm sure. I've never tried it, myself. We need some dry
+sticks, first."
+
+They resumed the weary march, with a good fraction of the new planet
+adhering to their feet. Rain was still falling from the dark heavens in
+a steady, warm downpour. Dry wood seemed scarce as the proverbial hen's
+teeth.
+
+"You didn't bring any matches, dear?"
+
+"Matches! Of course not! We're going back to Nature."
+
+"I hope we get a fire pretty soon."
+
+"If dry wood were gold dust, we couldn't buy a hot dog."
+
+"Eric, that reminds me that I'm hungry."
+
+He confessed to a few pangs of his own. They turned their attention to
+looking for banana trees, and coconut palms, but they did not seem to
+abound in the Venerian jungle. Even small animals that might have been
+slain with a broken branch had contrary ideas about the matter.
+
+At last, from sheer weariness, they stopped, and gathered branches to
+make a sloping shelter by a vast fallen tree-trunk.
+
+"This will keep out the rain--maybe--" Eric said hopefully. "And
+tomorrow, when it has quit raining--I'm sure we'll do better."
+
+They crept in, as gloomy night fell without. They lay in each other's
+arms, the body warmth oddly comforting. Nada cried a little.
+
+"Buck up," Eric advised her. "We're back to nature--where we've always
+wanted to be."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With the darkness, the temperature fell somewhat, and a high wind rose,
+whipping cold rain into the little shelter, and threatening to demolish
+it. Swarms of mosquito-like insects, seemingly not inconvenienced in the
+least by the inclement elements, swarmed about them in clouds.
+
+Then came a sound from the dismal stormy night, a hoarse, bellowing
+roar, raucous, terrifying.
+
+Nada clung against Eric. "What is it, dear?" she chattered.
+
+"Must be a reptile. Dinosaur, or something of the sort. This world seems
+to be in about the same state as the Earth when they flourished
+there.... But maybe it won't find us."
+
+The roar was repeated, nearer. The earth trembled beneath a mighty
+tread.
+
+"Eric," a thin voice trembled. "Don't you think--it might have been
+better-- You know the old life was not so bad, after all."
+
+"I was just thinking of our rooms, nice and warm and bright, with hot
+foods coming up the shaft whenever we pushed the button, and the gay
+crowds in the park, and my old typewriter."
+
+"Eric?" she called softly.
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"Don't you wish--we had known better?"
+
+"I do." If he winced at the "we" the girl did not notice.
+
+The roaring outside was closer. And suddenly it was answered by another
+raucous bellow, at considerable distance, that echoed strangely through
+the forest. The fearful sounds were repeated, alternately. And always
+the more distant seemed nearer, until the two sounds were together.
+
+And then an infernal din broke out in the darkness. Bellows. Screams.
+Deafening shrieks. Mighty splashes, as if struggling Titans had upset
+oceans. Thunderous crashes, as if they were demolishing forests.
+
+Eric and Nada clung to each other, in doubt whether to stay or to fly
+through the storm. Gradually the sound of the conflict came nearer,
+until the earth shook beneath them, and they were afraid to move.
+
+Suddenly the great fallen tree against which they had erected the flimsy
+shelter was rolled back, evidently by a chance blow from the invisible
+monsters. The pitiful roof collapsed on the bedraggled humans. Nada
+burst into tears.
+
+"Oh, if only--if only--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suddenly flame lapped up about them, the same white fire they had seen
+as they lay on the crystal block. Dizziness, insensibility overcame
+them. A few moments later, they were lying on the transparent table in
+the Cosmic Express office, with all those great mirrors and prisms and
+lenses about them.
+
+A bustling, red-faced official appeared through the door in the grill,
+fairly bubbling apologies.
+
+"So sorry--an accident--inconceivable. I can't see how he got it! We got
+you back as soon as we could find a focus. I sincerely hope you haven't
+been injured."
+
+"Why--what--what--"
+
+"Why I happened in, found our operator drunk. I've no idea where he got
+the stuff. He muttered something about Venus. I consulted the
+auto-register, and found two more passengers registered here than had
+been recorded at our other stations. I looked up the duplicate beam
+coordinates, and found that it had been set on Venus. I got men on the
+television at once, and we happened to find you.
+
+"I can't imagine how it happened. I've had the fellow locked up, and
+the 'dry-laws' are on the job. I hope you won't hold us for excessive
+damages."
+
+"No, I ask nothing except that you don't press charges against the boy.
+I don't want him to suffer for it in any way. My wife and I will be
+perfectly satisfied to get back to our apartment."
+
+"I don't wonder. You look like you've been through--I don't know what.
+But I'll have you there in five minutes. My private car--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding, noted author of primitive life and love, ate a
+hearty meal with his pretty spouse, after they had washed off the grime
+of another planet. He spent the next twelve hours in bed.
+
+At the end of the month he delivered his promised story to his
+publishers, a thrilling tale of a man marooned on Venus, with a
+beautiful girl. The hero made stone tools, erected a dwelling for
+himself and his mate, hunted food for her, defended her from the mammoth
+saurian monsters of the Venerian jungles.
+
+The book was a huge success.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Cosmic Express, by John Stewart Williamson
+
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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Cosmic Express, by Jack Williamson
+    </title>
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+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cosmic Express, by John Stewart Williamson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Cosmic Express
+
+Author: John Stewart Williamson
+
+Release Date: July 15, 2008 [EBook #26066]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COSMIC EXPRESS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="trn"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b>
+This etext was produced from <i>Amazing Stories</i> December 1961 and
+was first published in <i>Amazing Stories</i> November 1930. Extensive
+research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on
+this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
+typographical errors have been corrected without note.</div>
+
+<div class="bk1"><b>A Classic Reprint from AMAZING STORIES, November, 1930</b><br />
+<small><i>Copyright 1931, by Experimenter Publications Inc.</i></small></div>
+
+<h1><big><i>The Cosmic Express</i></big></h1>
+
+<h2>By JACK WILLIAMSON</h2>
+
+<h2>Introduction by Sam Moskowitz</h2>
+
+<p class="cap"><i><span class="dcap">The</span> year 1928 was a great
+year of discovery for</i> <span class="smcap">AMAZING
+STORIES</span>. <i>They were uncovering
+new talent at such a great rate,
+(Harl Vincent, David H. Keller,
+E. E. Smith, Philip Francis Nowlan,
+Fletcher Pratt and Miles J.
+Breuer), that Jack Williamson
+barely managed to become one of
+a distinguished group of discoveries
+by stealing the cover of the
+December issue for his first story</i>
+The Metal Man.</p>
+
+<p><i>A disciple of A. Merritt, he attempted
+to imitate in style, mood
+and subject the magic of that
+late lamented master of fantasy.
+The imitation found great favor
+from the readership and almost
+instantly Jack Williamson became
+an important name on the
+contents page of</i> <span class="smcap">AMAZING STORIES</span>.
+<i>He followed his initial success
+with two short novels</i>, The
+Green Girl <i>in</i> <span class="smcap">AMAZING STORIES</span>
+<i>and</i> The Alien Intelligence <i>in</i>
+<span class="smcap">SCIENCE WONDER STORIES</span>, <i>another
+Gernsback publication. Both of
+these stories were close copies of
+A. Merritt, whose style and method
+Jack Williamson parlayed into
+popularity for eight years.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Yet the strange thing about it
+was that Jack Williamson was
+one of the most versatile science
+fiction authors ever to sit down
+at the typewriter. When the
+vogue for science-fantasy altered
+to super science, he created the
+memorable super lock-picker
+Giles Habilula as the major attraction
+in a rousing trio of space
+operas</i>, The Legion of Space, The
+Cometeers <i>and</i> One Against the
+Legion. <i>When grim realism was
+the order of the day, he produced</i>
+Crucible of Power <i>and when they
+wanted extrapolated theory in
+present tense, he assumed the
+disguise of Will Stewart and
+popularized the concept of contra
+terrene matter in science fiction
+with</i> Seetee Ship <i>and</i> Seetee
+Shock. <i>Finally, when only psychological
+studies of the future
+would do, he produced</i> "With
+Folded Hands ..." "... And
+Searching Mind."</p>
+
+<p>The Cosmic Express <i>is of special
+interest because it was written
+during Williamson's A. Merritt
+"kick," when he was writing
+little else but, and it gave the
+earliest indication of a more general
+capability. The lightness of
+the handling is especially modern,
+barely avoiding the farcical
+by the validity of the notion that
+wireless transmission of matter
+is the next big transportation
+frontier to be conquered. It is
+especially important because it
+stylistically forecast a later trend
+to accept the background for
+granted, regardless of the quantity
+of wonders, and proceed with
+the story. With only a few thousand
+scanning-disk television sets
+in existence at the time of the
+writing, the surmise that this
+media would be a natural for
+westerns was particularly astute.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Jack Williamson was born in
+1908 in the Arizona territory
+when covered wagons were the
+primary form of transportation
+and apaches still raided the settlers.
+His father was a cattle
+man, but for young Jack, the
+ranch was anything but glamorous.
+"My days were filled," he remembers,
+"with monotonous
+rounds of what seemed an endless,
+heart-breaking war with
+drought and frost and dust-storms,
+poison-weeds and hail,
+for the sake of survival on the</i>
+Llano Estacado." <i>The discovery
+of</i> <span class="smcap">AMAZING STORIES</span> <i>was the escape
+he sought and his goal was
+to be a science fiction writer. He
+labored to this end and the first
+he knew that a story of his had
+been accepted was when he
+bought the December, 1929 issue
+of</i> <span class="smcap">AMAZING STORIES</span>. <i>Since then,
+he has written millions of words
+of science fiction and has gone on
+record as follows: "I feel that
+science-fiction is the folklore of
+the new world of science, and
+the expression of man's reaction
+to a technological environment.
+By which I mean that it is the
+most interesting and stimulating
+form of literature today."</i></p>
+
+<hr class="tb1" />
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding</span>
+tumbled out of the
+rumpled bed-clothing, a striking
+slender figure in purple-striped
+pajamas. He smiled fondly across
+to the other of the twin beds,
+where Nada, his pretty bride,
+lay quiet beneath light silk covers.
+With a groan, he stood up
+and began a series of fantastic
+bending exercises. But after a
+few half-hearted movements, he
+gave it up, and walked through
+an open door into a small bright
+room, its walls covered with bookcases
+and also with scientific appliances
+that would have been
+strange to the man of four or
+five centuries before, when the
+Age of Aviation was beginning.</p>
+
+<div class="figr">
+<img src="images/001.png" width="199" height="177" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/002.png" width="394" height="306" alt="" title="" />
+<b><small>Suddenly there was a sharp tingling
+sensation where they touched
+the polished surface.</small></b></div>
+
+<p>Yawning, Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding
+stood before the great
+open window, staring out. Below
+him was a wide, park-like space,
+green with emerald lawns, and
+bright with flowering plants.
+Two hundred yards across it rose
+an immense pyramidal building&mdash;an
+artistic structure, gleaming
+with white marble and bright
+metal, striped with the verdure
+of terraced roof-gardens,
+its slender peak rising to
+help support the gray, steel-ribbed
+glass roof above. Beyond,
+the park stretched away in
+illimitable vistas, broken with
+the graceful columned buildings
+that held up the great glass roof.</p>
+
+<p>Above the glass, over this New
+York of 2432 A. D., a freezing
+blizzard was sweeping. But small
+concern was that to the lightly
+clad man at the window, who was
+inhaling deeply the fragrant air
+from the plants below&mdash;air kept,
+winter and summer, exactly at
+20&deg; C.</p>
+
+<p>With another yawn, Mr. Eric
+Stokes-Harding turned back to
+the room, which was bright with
+the rich golden light that poured
+in from the suspended globes of
+the cold ato-light that illuminated
+the snow-covered city.
+With a distasteful grimace, he
+seated himself before a broad,
+paper-littered desk, sat a few
+minutes leaning back, with his
+hands clasped behind his head.
+At last he straightened reluctantly,
+slid a small typewriter
+out of its drawer, and began
+pecking at it impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>For Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding
+was an author. There was a whole
+shelf of his books on the wall, in
+bright jackets, red and blue and
+green, that brought a thrill of
+pleasure to the young novelist's
+heart when he looked up from his
+clattering machine.</p>
+
+<p>He wrote "thrilling action romances,"
+as his enthusiastic publishers
+and television directors
+said, "of ages past, when men
+were men. Red-blooded heroes responding
+vigorously to the stirring
+passions of primordial life!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">He</span> was impartial as to the
+source of his thrills&mdash;provided
+they were distant enough
+from modern civilization. His
+hero was likely to be an ape-man
+roaring through the jungle, with
+a bloody rock in one hand and
+a beautiful girl in the other.
+Or a cowboy, "hard-riding, hard-shooting,"
+the vanishing hero of
+the ancient ranches. Or a man
+marooned with a lovely woman
+on a desert South Sea island.
+His heroes were invariably
+strong, fearless, resourceful fellows,
+who could handle a club on
+equal terms with a cave-man, or
+call science to aid them in defending
+a beautiful mate from
+the terrors of a desolate wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>And a hundred million read
+Eric's novels, and watched the
+dramatization of them on the
+television screens. They thrilled
+at the simple, romantic lives his
+heroes led, paid him handsome
+royalties, and subconsciously
+shared his opinion that civilization
+had taken all the best from
+the life of man.</p>
+
+<p>Eric had settled down to the
+artistic satisfaction of describing
+the sensuous delight of his
+hero in the roasted marrow-bones
+of a dead mammoth, when
+the pretty woman in the other
+room stirred, and presently came
+tripping into the study, gay and
+vivacious, and&mdash;as her husband
+of a few months most justly
+thought&mdash;altogether beautiful in
+a bright silk dressing gown.</p>
+
+<p>Recklessly, he slammed the
+machine back into its place, and
+resolved to forget that his next
+"red-blooded action thriller" was
+due in the publisher's office at the
+end of the month. He sprang up
+to kiss his wife, held her embraced
+for a long happy moment.
+And then they went hand in
+hand, to the side of the room and
+punched a series of buttons on a
+panel&mdash;a simple way of ordering
+breakfast sent up the automatic
+shaft from the kitchens below.</p>
+
+<p>Nada Stokes-Harding was also
+an author. She wrote poems&mdash;"back
+to nature stuff"&mdash;simple
+lyrics of the sea, of sunsets, of
+bird songs, of bright flowers and
+warm winds, of thrilling communion
+with Nature, and growing
+things. Men read her poems
+and called her a genius. Even
+though the whole world had
+grown up into a city, the birds
+were extinct, there were no wild
+flowers, and no one had time to
+bother about sunsets.</p>
+
+<p>"Eric, darling," she said, "isn't
+it terrible to be cooped up here
+in this little flat, away from the
+things we both love?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear. Civilization has
+ruined the world. If we could only
+have lived a thousand years ago,
+when life was simple and natural,
+when men hunted and killed their
+meat, instead of drinking synthetic
+stuff, when men still had
+the joys of conflict, instead of
+living under glass, like hot-house
+flowers."</p>
+
+<p>"If we could only go somewhere&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't anywhere to go. I
+write about the West, Africa,
+South Sea Islands. But they
+were all filled up two hundred
+years ago. Pleasure resorts, sanatoriums,
+cities, factories."</p>
+
+<p>"If only we lived on Venus!
+I was listening to a lecture on
+the television, last night. The
+speaker said that the Planet
+Venus is younger than the Earth,
+that it has not cooled so much. It
+has a thick, cloudy atmosphere,
+and low, rainy forests. There's
+simple, elemental life there&mdash;like
+Earth had before civilization
+ruined it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Kinsley, with his new infra-red
+ray telescope, that penetrates
+the cloud layers of the
+planet, proved that Venus rotates
+in about the same period as
+Earth; and it must be much like
+Earth was a million years ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Eric, I wonder if we could go
+there! It would be so thrilling to
+begin life like the characters in
+your stories, to get away from
+this hateful civilization, and live
+natural lives. Maybe a rocket&mdash;"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> young author's eyes were
+glowing. He skipped across the
+floor, seized Nada, kissed her
+ecstatically. "Splendid! Think of
+hunting in the virgin forest, and
+bringing the game home to you!
+But I'm afraid there is no way.&mdash;Wait!
+The Cosmic Express."</p>
+
+<p>"The Cosmic Express?"</p>
+
+<p>"A new invention. Just perfected
+a few weeks ago, I understand.
+By Ludwig Von der Valls,
+the German physicist."</p>
+
+<p>"I've quit bothering about science.
+It has ruined nature, filled
+the world with silly, artificial
+people, doing silly, artificial
+things."</p>
+
+<p>"But this is quite remarkable,
+dear. A new way to travel&mdash;by
+ether!"</p>
+
+<p>"By ether!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You know of course that
+energy and matter are interchangeable
+terms; both are simply
+etheric vibration, of different
+sorts."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. That's elementary."
+She smiled proudly. "I can
+give you examples, even of the
+change. The disintegration of the
+radium atom, making helium
+and lead and <i>energy</i>. And Millikan's
+old proof that his Cosmic
+Ray is generated when particles
+of electricity are united to form
+an atom."</p>
+
+<p>"Fine! I thought you said you
+weren't a scientist." He glowed
+with pride. "But the method, in
+the new Cosmic Express, is simply
+to convert the matter to be
+carried into power, send it out
+as a radiant beam and focus the
+beam to convert it back into
+atoms at the destination."</p>
+
+<p>"But the amount of energy
+must be terrific&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is. You know short waves
+carry more energy than long
+ones. The Express Ray is an
+electromagnetic vibration of frequency
+far higher than that of
+even the Cosmic Ray, and correspondingly
+more powerful and
+more penetrating."</p>
+
+<p>The girl frowned, running slim
+fingers through golden-brown
+hair. "But I don't see how they
+get any recognizable object, not
+even how they get the radiation
+turned back into matter."</p>
+
+<p>"The beam is focused, just like
+the light that passes through a
+camera lens. The photographic
+lens, using light rays, picks up a
+picture and reproduces it again
+on the plate&mdash;just the same as
+the Express Ray picks up an
+object and sets it down on the
+other side of the world.</p>
+
+<p>"An analogy from television
+might help. You know that by
+means of the scanning disc, the
+picture is transformed into mere
+rapid fluctuations in the brightness
+of a beam of light. In a
+parallel manner, the focal plane
+of the Express Ray moves slowly
+through the object, progressively,
+dissolving layers of the
+thickness of a single atom, which
+are accurately reproduced at the
+other focus of the instrument&mdash;which
+might be in Venus!</p>
+
+<p>"But the analogy of the lens
+is the better of the two. For no
+receiving instrument is required,
+as in television. The object is
+built up of an infinite series of
+plane layers, at the focus of the
+ray, no matter where that may
+be. Such a thing would be impossible
+with radio apparatus
+because even with the best beam
+transmission, all but a tiny fraction
+of the power is lost, and
+power is required to rebuild the
+atoms. Do you understand,
+dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not altogether. But I should
+worry! Here comes breakfast.
+Let me butter your toast."</p>
+
+<p>A bell had rung at the shaft.
+She ran to it, and returned with
+a great silver tray, laden with
+dainty dishes, which she set on a
+little side table. They sat down
+opposite each other, and ate, getting
+as much satisfaction from
+contemplation of each other's
+faces as from the excellent food.
+When they had finished, she carried
+the tray to the shaft, slid
+it in a slot, and touched a button&mdash;thus
+disposing of the culinary
+cares of the morning.</p>
+
+<p>She ran back to Eric, who was
+once more staring distastefully
+at his typewriter.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, darling! I'm thrilled to
+death about the Cosmic Express!
+If we could go to Venus, to a new
+life on a new world, and get
+away from all this hateful conventional
+society&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We can go to their office&mdash;it's
+only five minutes. The chap
+that operates the machine for
+the company is a pal of mine.
+He's not supposed to take passengers
+except between the offices
+they have scattered about the
+world. But I know his weak
+point&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Eric laughed, fumbled with a
+hidden spring under his desk. A
+small polished object, gleaming
+silvery, slid down into his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Old friendship, <i>plus</i> this,
+would make him&mdash;like spinach."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Five</span> minutes later Mr. Eric
+Stokes-Harding and his pretty
+wife were in street clothes,
+light silk tunics of loose, flowing
+lines&mdash;little clothing being required
+in the artificially warmed
+city. They entered an elevator
+and dropped thirty stories to the
+ground floor of the great building.</p>
+
+<p>There they entered a cylindrical
+car, with rows of seats down
+the sides. Not greatly different
+from an ancient subway car, except
+that it was air-tight, and
+was hurled by magnetic attraction
+and repulsion through a
+tube exhausted of air, at a speed
+that would have made an old
+subway rider gasp with amazement.</p>
+
+<p>In five more minutes their car
+had whipped up to the base of
+another building, in the business
+section, where there was no room
+for parks between the mighty
+structures that held the unbroken
+glass roofs two hundred stories
+above the concrete pavement.</p>
+
+<p>An elevator brought them up a
+hundred and fifty stories. Eric
+led Nada down a long, carpeted
+corridor to a wide glass door,
+which bore the words:</p>
+
+<div class="center"><b>COSMIC EXPRESS</b></div>
+
+<p class="noin">stenciled in gold capitals across
+it.</p>
+
+<p>As they approached, a lean
+man, carrying a black bag, darted
+out of an elevator shaft opposite
+the door, ran across the corridor,
+and entered. They pushed in after
+him.</p>
+
+<p>They were in a little room,
+cut in two by a high brass grill.
+In front of it was a long bench
+against the wall, that reminded
+one of the waiting room in an old
+railroad depot. In the grill was a
+little window, with a lazy, brown-eyed
+youth leaning on the shelf
+behind it. Beyond him was a
+great, glittering piece of mechanism,
+half hidden by the brass.
+A little door gave access to the
+machine from the space before
+the grill.</p>
+
+<p>The thin man in black, whom
+Eric now recognized as a prominent
+French heart-specialist, was
+dancing before the window, waving
+his bag frantically, raving at
+the sleepy boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Queek! I have tell you zee
+truth! I have zee most urgent
+necessity to go queekly. A patient
+I have in Paree, zat ees in
+zee most creetical condition!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold your horses just a minute,
+Mister. We got a client in
+the machine now. Russian diplomat
+from Moscow to Rio de
+Janeiro.... Two hundred seventy
+dollars and eighty cents,
+please.... Your turn next. Remember
+this is just an experimental
+service. Regular installations
+all over the world in a year....
+Ready now. Come on in."</p>
+
+<p>The youth took the money,
+pressed a button. The door
+sprang open in the grill, and the
+frantic physician leaped through
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Lie down on the crystal, face
+up," the young man ordered.
+"Hands at your sides, don't
+breathe. Ready!"</p>
+
+<p>He manipulated his dials and
+switches, and pressed another
+button.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, hello, Eric, old man!"
+he cried. "That's the lady you
+were telling me about? Congratulations!"
+A bell jangled before
+him on the panel. "Just a minute.
+I've got a call."</p>
+
+<p>He punched the board again.
+Little bulbs lit and glowed for a
+second. The youth turned toward
+the half-hidden machine, spoke
+courteously.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, madam. Walk out.
+Hope you found the transit pleasant."</p>
+
+<p>"But my Violet! My precious
+Violet!" a shrill female voice
+came from the machine. "Sir,
+what have you done with my
+darling Violet?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I don't know, madam.
+You lost it off your hat?"</p>
+
+<p>"None of your impertinence,
+sir! I want my dog."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, a dog. Must have jumped
+off the crystal. You can have
+him sent on for three hundred
+and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Young man, if any harm
+comes to my Violet&mdash;I'll&mdash;I'll&mdash;I'll
+appeal to the Society for the
+Prevention of Cruelty to Animals!"</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, madam. We appreciate
+your patronage."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> door flew open again.
+A very fat woman, puffing
+angrily, face highly colored,
+clothing shimmering with artificial
+gems, waddled pompously
+out of the door through which
+the frantic French doctor had
+so recently vanished. She rolled
+heavily across the room, and out
+into the corridor. Shrill words
+floated back:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to see my lawyer!
+My precious Violet&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The sallow youth winked.
+"And now what can I do for you,
+Eric?"</p>
+
+<p>"We want to go to Venus, if
+that ray of yours can put us
+there."</p>
+
+<p>"To Venus? Impossible. My
+orders are to use the Express
+merely between the sixteen designated
+stations, at New York,
+San Francisco, Tokyo, London,
+Paris&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"See here, Charley," with a
+cautious glance toward the door,
+Eric held up the silver flask.
+"For old time's sake, and for
+this&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The boy seemed dazed at sight
+of the bright flask. Then, with a
+single swift motion, he snatched
+it out of Eric's hand, and bent
+to conceal it below his instrument
+panel.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, old boy. I'd send you to
+heaven for that, if you'd give me
+the micrometer readings to set
+the ray with. But I tell you, this
+is dangerous. I've got a sort of
+television attachment, for focusing
+the ray. I can turn that on
+Venus&mdash;I've been amusing myself,
+watching the life there, already.
+Terrible place. Savage. I
+can pick a place on high land to
+set you down. But I can't be responsible
+for what happens afterward."</p>
+
+<p>"Simple, primitive life is what
+we're looking for. And now what
+do I owe you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's all right. Between
+friends. Provided that stuff's
+genuine! Walk in and lie down on
+the crystal block. Hands at your
+sides. Don't move."</p>
+
+<p>The little door had swung
+open again, and Eric led Nada
+through. They stepped into a little
+cell, completely surrounded
+with mirrors and vast prisms
+and lenses and electron tubes. In
+the center was a slab of transparent
+crystal, eight feet square
+and two inches thick, with an
+intricate mass of machinery below
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Eric helped Nada to a place
+on the crystal, lay down at her
+side.</p>
+
+<p>"I think the Express Ray is
+focused just at the surface of the
+crystal, from below," he said. "It
+dissolves our substance, to be
+transmitted by the beam. It
+would look as if we were melting
+into the crystal."</p>
+
+<p>"Ready," called the youth.
+"Think I've got it for you. Sort
+of a high island in the jungle.
+Nothing bad in sight now. But,
+I say&mdash;how're you coming back?
+I haven't got time to watch you."</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead. We aren't coming
+back."</p>
+
+<p>"Gee! What is it? Elopement?
+I thought you were married already.
+Or is it business difficulties?
+The Bears did make an awful
+raid last night. But you better
+let me set you down in Hong
+Kong."</p>
+
+<p>A bell jangled. "So long," the
+youth called.</p>
+
+<p>Nada and Eric felt themselves
+enveloped in fire. Sheets of white
+flame seemed to lap up about
+them from the crystal block. Suddenly
+there was a sharp tingling
+sensation where they touched
+the polished surface. Then blackness,
+blankness.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> next thing they knew, the
+fires were gone from about
+them. They were lying in something
+extremely soft and fluid;
+and warm rain was beating in
+their faces. Eric sat up, found
+himself in a mud-puddle. Beside
+him was Nada, opening her eyes
+and struggling up, her bright
+garments stained with black
+mud.</p>
+
+<p>All about rose a thick jungle,
+dark and gloomy&mdash;and very wet.
+Palm-like, the gigantic trees
+were, or fern-like, flinging clouds
+of feathery green foliage high
+against a somber sky of unbroken
+gloom.</p>
+
+<p>They stood up, triumphant.</p>
+
+<p>"At last!" Nada cried. "We're
+free! Free of that hateful old
+civilization! We're back to Nature!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we're on our feet now,
+not parasites on the machines."</p>
+
+<p>"It's wonderful to have a fine,
+strong man like you to trust in,
+Eric. You're just like one of the
+heroes in your books!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're the perfect companion,
+Nada.... But now we
+must be practical. We must
+build a fire, find weapons, set up
+a shelter of some kind. I guess it
+will be night, pretty soon. And
+Charley said something about
+savage animals he had seen in
+the television.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll find a nice dry cave,
+and have a fire in front of the
+door. And skins of animals to
+sleep on. And pottery vessels to
+cook in. And you will find seeds
+and grown grain."</p>
+
+<p>"But first we must find a flint-bed.
+We need flint for tools, and
+to strike sparks to make a fire
+with. We will probably come
+across a chunk of virgin copper,
+too&mdash;it's found native."</p>
+
+<p>Presently they set off through
+the jungle. The mud seemed to
+be very abundant, and of a most
+sticky consistence. They sank
+into it ankle deep at every step,
+and vast masses of it clung to
+their feet. A mile they struggled
+on, without finding where a provident
+nature had left them even
+a single fragment of quartz, to
+say nothing of a mass of pure
+copper.</p>
+
+<p>"A darned shame," Eric grumbled,
+"to come forty million
+miles, and meet such a reception
+as this!"</p>
+
+<p>Nada stopped. "Eric," she
+said, "I'm tired. And I don't believe
+there's any rock here, anyway.
+You'll have to use wooden
+tools, sharpened in the fire."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably you're right. This
+soil seemed to be of alluvial origin.
+Shouldn't be surprised if
+the native rock is some hundreds
+of feet underground. Your
+idea is better."</p>
+
+<p>"You can make a fire by rubbing
+sticks together, can't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"It can be done, I'm sure. I've
+never tried it, myself. We need
+some dry sticks, first."</p>
+
+<p>They resumed the weary
+march, with a good fraction of
+the new planet adhering to their
+feet. Rain was still falling from
+the dark heavens in a steady,
+warm downpour. Dry wood
+seemed scarce as the proverbial
+hen's teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't bring any matches,
+dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Matches! Of course not!
+We're going back to Nature."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope we get a fire pretty
+soon."</p>
+
+<p>"If dry wood were gold dust,
+we couldn't buy a hot dog."</p>
+
+<p>"Eric, that reminds me that
+I'm hungry."</p>
+
+<p>He confessed to a few pangs of
+his own. They turned their attention
+to looking for banana
+trees, and coconut palms, but
+they did not seem to abound in
+the Venerian jungle. Even small
+animals that might have been
+slain with a broken branch had
+contrary ideas about the matter.</p>
+
+<p>At last, from sheer weariness,
+they stopped, and gathered
+branches to make a sloping shelter
+by a vast fallen tree-trunk.</p>
+
+<p>"This will keep out the rain&mdash;maybe&mdash;"
+Eric said hopefully.
+"And tomorrow, when it has quit
+raining&mdash;I'm sure we'll do better."</p>
+
+<p>They crept in, as gloomy night
+fell without. They lay in each
+other's arms, the body warmth
+oddly comforting. Nada cried a
+little.</p>
+
+<p>"Buck up," Eric advised her.
+"We're back to nature&mdash;where
+we've always wanted to be."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">With</span> the darkness, the temperature
+fell somewhat, and
+a high wind rose, whipping cold
+rain into the little shelter, and
+threatening to demolish it.
+Swarms of mosquito-like insects,
+seemingly not inconvenienced in
+the least by the inclement elements,
+swarmed about them in
+clouds.</p>
+
+<p>Then came a sound from the
+dismal stormy night, a hoarse,
+bellowing roar, raucous, terrifying.</p>
+
+<p>Nada clung against Eric.
+"What is it, dear?" she chattered.</p>
+
+<p>"Must be a reptile. Dinosaur,
+or something of the sort. This
+world seems to be in about the
+same state as the Earth when
+they flourished there.... But
+maybe it won't find us."</p>
+
+<p>The roar was repeated, nearer.
+The earth trembled beneath a
+mighty tread.</p>
+
+<p>"Eric," a thin voice trembled.
+"Don't you think&mdash;it might have
+been better&mdash; You know the old
+life was not so bad, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"I was just thinking of our
+rooms, nice and warm and
+bright, with hot foods coming up
+the shaft whenever we pushed
+the button, and the gay crowds
+in the park, and my old typewriter."</p>
+
+<p>"Eric?" she called softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you wish&mdash;we had
+known better?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do." If he winced at the
+"we" the girl did not notice.</p>
+
+<p>The roaring outside was closer.
+And suddenly it was answered
+by another raucous bellow, at
+considerable distance, that echoed
+strangely through the forest.
+The fearful sounds were repeated,
+alternately. And always
+the more distant seemed nearer,
+until the two sounds were together.</p>
+
+<p>And then an infernal din
+broke out in the darkness. Bellows.
+Screams. Deafening
+shrieks. Mighty splashes, as if
+struggling Titans had upset
+oceans. Thunderous crashes, as
+if they were demolishing forests.</p>
+
+<p>Eric and Nada clung to each
+other, in doubt whether to stay
+or to fly through the storm.
+Gradually the sound of the conflict
+came nearer, until the earth
+shook beneath them, and they
+were afraid to move.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the great fallen tree
+against which they had erected
+the flimsy shelter was rolled
+back, evidently by a chance blow
+from the invisible monsters. The
+pitiful roof collapsed on the bedraggled
+humans. Nada burst
+into tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if only&mdash;if only&mdash;"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Suddenly</span> flame lapped up
+about them, the same white
+fire they had seen as they lay on
+the crystal block. Dizziness, insensibility
+overcame them. A few
+moments later, they were lying
+on the transparent table in the
+Cosmic Express office, with all
+those great mirrors and prisms
+and lenses about them.</p>
+
+<p>A bustling, red-faced official
+appeared through the door in the
+grill, fairly bubbling apologies.</p>
+
+<p>"So sorry&mdash;an accident&mdash;inconceivable.
+I can't see how he
+got it! We got you back as soon
+as we could find a focus. I sincerely
+hope you haven't been injured."</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;what&mdash;what&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why I happened in, found
+our operator drunk. I've no idea
+where he got the stuff. He muttered
+something about Venus. I
+consulted the auto-register, and
+found two more passengers registered
+here than had been recorded
+at our other stations. I
+looked up the duplicate beam coordinates,
+and found that it had
+been set on Venus. I got men on
+the television at once, and we
+happened to find you.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't imagine how it happened.
+I've had the fellow locked
+up, and the 'dry-laws' are on the
+job. I hope you won't hold us for
+excessive damages."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I ask nothing except that
+you don't press charges against
+the boy. I don't want him to suffer
+for it in any way. My wife and
+I will be perfectly satisfied to get
+back to our apartment."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't wonder. You look like
+you've been through&mdash;I don't
+know what. But I'll have you
+there in five minutes. My private car&mdash;"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb2" />
+
+<p>Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding, noted
+author of primitive life and love,
+ate a hearty meal with his pretty
+spouse, after they had washed
+off the grime of another planet.
+He spent the next twelve hours
+in bed.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the month he
+delivered his promised story to
+his publishers, a thrilling tale of
+a man marooned on Venus, with
+a beautiful girl. The hero made
+stone tools, erected a dwelling
+for himself and his mate, hunted
+food for her, defended her from
+the mammoth saurian monsters
+of the Venerian jungles.</p>
+
+<p>The book was a huge success.</p>
+
+<div class="theend"><b>THE END</b></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Cosmic Express, by John Stewart Williamson
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cosmic Express, by John Stewart Williamson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Cosmic Express
+
+Author: John Stewart Williamson
+
+Release Date: July 15, 2008 [EBook #26066]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COSMIC EXPRESS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ December 1961 and was
+    first published in _Amazing Stories_ November 1930. Extensive
+    research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on
+    this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical
+    errors have been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+
+A Classic Reprint from AMAZING STORIES, November, 1930
+
+_Copyright 1931, by Experimenter Publications Inc._
+
+
+_The Cosmic Express_
+
+By JACK WILLIAMSON
+
+
+
+
+Introduction by Sam Moskowitz
+
+
+_The year 1928 was a great year of discovery for_ AMAZING STORIES. _They
+were uncovering new talent at such a great rate, (Harl Vincent, David H.
+Keller, E. E. Smith, Philip Francis Nowlan, Fletcher Pratt and Miles J.
+Breuer), that Jack Williamson barely managed to become one of a
+distinguished group of discoveries by stealing the cover of the December
+issue for his first story_ The Metal Man.
+
+_A disciple of A. Merritt, he attempted to imitate in style, mood and
+subject the magic of that late lamented master of fantasy. The imitation
+found great favor from the readership and almost instantly Jack
+Williamson became an important name on the contents page of_ AMAZING
+STORIES. _He followed his initial success with two short novels_, The
+Green Girl _in_ AMAZING STORIES _and_ The Alien Intelligence _in_
+SCIENCE WONDER STORIES, _another Gernsback publication. Both of these
+stories were close copies of A. Merritt, whose style and method Jack
+Williamson parlayed into popularity for eight years._
+
+_Yet the strange thing about it was that Jack Williamson was one of the
+most versatile science fiction authors ever to sit down at the
+typewriter. When the vogue for science-fantasy altered to super science,
+he created the memorable super lock-picker Giles Habilula as the major
+attraction in a rousing trio of space operas_, The Legion of Space, The
+Cometeers _and_ One Against the Legion. _When grim realism was the order
+of the day, he produced_ Crucible of Power _and when they wanted
+extrapolated theory in present tense, he assumed the disguise of Will
+Stewart and popularized the concept of contra terrene matter in science
+fiction with_ Seetee Ship _and_ Seetee Shock. _Finally, when only
+psychological studies of the future would do, he produced_ "With Folded
+Hands ..." "... And Searching Mind."
+
+The Cosmic Express _is of special interest because it was written during
+Williamson's A. Merritt "kick," when he was writing little else but, and
+it gave the earliest indication of a more general capability. The
+lightness of the handling is especially modern, barely avoiding the
+farcical by the validity of the notion that wireless transmission of
+matter is the next big transportation frontier to be conquered. It is
+especially important because it stylistically forecast a later trend to
+accept the background for granted, regardless of the quantity of
+wonders, and proceed with the story. With only a few thousand
+scanning-disk television sets in existence at the time of the writing,
+the surmise that this media would be a natural for westerns was
+particularly astute._
+
+_Jack Williamson was born in 1908 in the Arizona territory when covered
+wagons were the primary form of transportation and apaches still raided
+the settlers. His father was a cattle man, but for young Jack, the ranch
+was anything but glamorous. "My days were filled," he remembers, "with
+monotonous rounds of what seemed an endless, heart-breaking war with
+drought and frost and dust-storms, poison-weeds and hail, for the sake
+of survival on the_ Llano Estacado." _The discovery of_ AMAZING STORIES
+_was the escape he sought and his goal was to be a science fiction
+writer. He labored to this end and the first he knew that a story of his
+had been accepted was when he bought the December, 1929 issue of_
+AMAZING STORIES. _Since then, he has written millions of words of
+science fiction and has gone on record as follows: "I feel that
+science-fiction is the folklore of the new world of science, and the
+expression of man's reaction to a technological environment. By which I
+mean that it is the most interesting and stimulating form of literature
+today."_
+
+
+
+
+Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding tumbled out of the rumpled bed-clothing, a
+striking slender figure in purple-striped pajamas. He smiled fondly
+across to the other of the twin beds, where Nada, his pretty bride, lay
+quiet beneath light silk covers. With a groan, he stood up and began a
+series of fantastic bending exercises. But after a few half-hearted
+movements, he gave it up, and walked through an open door into a small
+bright room, its walls covered with bookcases and also with scientific
+appliances that would have been strange to the man of four or five
+centuries before, when the Age of Aviation was beginning.
+
+Yawning, Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding stood before the great open window,
+staring out. Below him was a wide, park-like space, green with emerald
+lawns, and bright with flowering plants. Two hundred yards across it
+rose an immense pyramidal building--an artistic structure, gleaming with
+white marble and bright metal, striped with the verdure of terraced
+roof-gardens, its slender peak rising to help support the gray,
+steel-ribbed glass roof above. Beyond, the park stretched away in
+illimitable vistas, broken with the graceful columned buildings that
+held up the great glass roof.
+
+[Illustration: Suddenly there was a sharp tingling sensation where they
+touched the polished surface.]
+
+Above the glass, over this New York of 2432 A. D., a freezing blizzard
+was sweeping. But small concern was that to the lightly clad man at the
+window, who was inhaling deeply the fragrant air from the plants
+below--air kept, winter and summer, exactly at 20 deg. C.
+
+With another yawn, Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding turned back to the room,
+which was bright with the rich golden light that poured in from the
+suspended globes of the cold ato-light that illuminated the snow-covered
+city. With a distasteful grimace, he seated himself before a broad,
+paper-littered desk, sat a few minutes leaning back, with his hands
+clasped behind his head. At last he straightened reluctantly, slid a
+small typewriter out of its drawer, and began pecking at it impatiently.
+
+For Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding was an author. There was a whole shelf of
+his books on the wall, in bright jackets, red and blue and green, that
+brought a thrill of pleasure to the young novelist's heart when he
+looked up from his clattering machine.
+
+He wrote "thrilling action romances," as his enthusiastic publishers and
+television directors said, "of ages past, when men were men. Red-blooded
+heroes responding vigorously to the stirring passions of primordial
+life!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was impartial as to the source of his thrills--provided they were
+distant enough from modern civilization. His hero was likely to be an
+ape-man roaring through the jungle, with a bloody rock in one hand and a
+beautiful girl in the other. Or a cowboy, "hard-riding, hard-shooting,"
+the vanishing hero of the ancient ranches. Or a man marooned with a
+lovely woman on a desert South Sea island. His heroes were invariably
+strong, fearless, resourceful fellows, who could handle a club on equal
+terms with a cave-man, or call science to aid them in defending a
+beautiful mate from the terrors of a desolate wilderness.
+
+And a hundred million read Eric's novels, and watched the dramatization
+of them on the television screens. They thrilled at the simple, romantic
+lives his heroes led, paid him handsome royalties, and subconsciously
+shared his opinion that civilization had taken all the best from the
+life of man.
+
+Eric had settled down to the artistic satisfaction of describing the
+sensuous delight of his hero in the roasted marrow-bones of a dead
+mammoth, when the pretty woman in the other room stirred, and presently
+came tripping into the study, gay and vivacious, and--as her husband of
+a few months most justly thought--altogether beautiful in a bright silk
+dressing gown.
+
+Recklessly, he slammed the machine back into its place, and resolved to
+forget that his next "red-blooded action thriller" was due in the
+publisher's office at the end of the month. He sprang up to kiss his
+wife, held her embraced for a long happy moment. And then they went hand
+in hand, to the side of the room and punched a series of buttons on a
+panel--a simple way of ordering breakfast sent up the automatic shaft
+from the kitchens below.
+
+Nada Stokes-Harding was also an author. She wrote poems--"back to nature
+stuff"--simple lyrics of the sea, of sunsets, of bird songs, of bright
+flowers and warm winds, of thrilling communion with Nature, and growing
+things. Men read her poems and called her a genius. Even though the
+whole world had grown up into a city, the birds were extinct, there were
+no wild flowers, and no one had time to bother about sunsets.
+
+"Eric, darling," she said, "isn't it terrible to be cooped up here in
+this little flat, away from the things we both love?"
+
+"Yes, dear. Civilization has ruined the world. If we could only have
+lived a thousand years ago, when life was simple and natural, when men
+hunted and killed their meat, instead of drinking synthetic stuff, when
+men still had the joys of conflict, instead of living under glass, like
+hot-house flowers."
+
+"If we could only go somewhere--"
+
+"There isn't anywhere to go. I write about the West, Africa, South Sea
+Islands. But they were all filled up two hundred years ago. Pleasure
+resorts, sanatoriums, cities, factories."
+
+"If only we lived on Venus! I was listening to a lecture on the
+television, last night. The speaker said that the Planet Venus is
+younger than the Earth, that it has not cooled so much. It has a thick,
+cloudy atmosphere, and low, rainy forests. There's simple, elemental
+life there--like Earth had before civilization ruined it."
+
+"Yes, Kinsley, with his new infra-red ray telescope, that penetrates the
+cloud layers of the planet, proved that Venus rotates in about the same
+period as Earth; and it must be much like Earth was a million years
+ago."
+
+"Eric, I wonder if we could go there! It would be so thrilling to begin
+life like the characters in your stories, to get away from this hateful
+civilization, and live natural lives. Maybe a rocket--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The young author's eyes were glowing. He skipped across the floor,
+seized Nada, kissed her ecstatically. "Splendid! Think of hunting in the
+virgin forest, and bringing the game home to you! But I'm afraid there
+is no way.--Wait! The Cosmic Express."
+
+"The Cosmic Express?"
+
+"A new invention. Just perfected a few weeks ago, I understand. By
+Ludwig Von der Valls, the German physicist."
+
+"I've quit bothering about science. It has ruined nature, filled the
+world with silly, artificial people, doing silly, artificial things."
+
+"But this is quite remarkable, dear. A new way to travel--by ether!"
+
+"By ether!"
+
+"Yes. You know of course that energy and matter are interchangeable
+terms; both are simply etheric vibration, of different sorts."
+
+"Of course. That's elementary." She smiled proudly. "I can give you
+examples, even of the change. The disintegration of the radium atom,
+making helium and lead and _energy_. And Millikan's old proof that his
+Cosmic Ray is generated when particles of electricity are united to form
+an atom."
+
+"Fine! I thought you said you weren't a scientist." He glowed with
+pride. "But the method, in the new Cosmic Express, is simply to convert
+the matter to be carried into power, send it out as a radiant beam and
+focus the beam to convert it back into atoms at the destination."
+
+"But the amount of energy must be terrific--"
+
+"It is. You know short waves carry more energy than long ones. The
+Express Ray is an electromagnetic vibration of frequency far higher than
+that of even the Cosmic Ray, and correspondingly more powerful and more
+penetrating."
+
+The girl frowned, running slim fingers through golden-brown hair. "But I
+don't see how they get any recognizable object, not even how they get
+the radiation turned back into matter."
+
+"The beam is focused, just like the light that passes through a camera
+lens. The photographic lens, using light rays, picks up a picture and
+reproduces it again on the plate--just the same as the Express Ray picks
+up an object and sets it down on the other side of the world.
+
+"An analogy from television might help. You know that by means of the
+scanning disc, the picture is transformed into mere rapid fluctuations
+in the brightness of a beam of light. In a parallel manner, the focal
+plane of the Express Ray moves slowly through the object, progressively,
+dissolving layers of the thickness of a single atom, which are
+accurately reproduced at the other focus of the instrument--which might
+be in Venus!
+
+"But the analogy of the lens is the better of the two. For no receiving
+instrument is required, as in television. The object is built up of an
+infinite series of plane layers, at the focus of the ray, no matter
+where that may be. Such a thing would be impossible with radio apparatus
+because even with the best beam transmission, all but a tiny fraction of
+the power is lost, and power is required to rebuild the atoms. Do you
+understand, dear?"
+
+"Not altogether. But I should worry! Here comes breakfast. Let me butter
+your toast."
+
+A bell had rung at the shaft. She ran to it, and returned with a great
+silver tray, laden with dainty dishes, which she set on a little side
+table. They sat down opposite each other, and ate, getting as much
+satisfaction from contemplation of each other's faces as from the
+excellent food. When they had finished, she carried the tray to the
+shaft, slid it in a slot, and touched a button--thus disposing of the
+culinary cares of the morning.
+
+She ran back to Eric, who was once more staring distastefully at his
+typewriter.
+
+"Oh, darling! I'm thrilled to death about the Cosmic Express! If we
+could go to Venus, to a new life on a new world, and get away from all
+this hateful conventional society--"
+
+"We can go to their office--it's only five minutes. The chap that
+operates the machine for the company is a pal of mine. He's not supposed
+to take passengers except between the offices they have scattered about
+the world. But I know his weak point--"
+
+Eric laughed, fumbled with a hidden spring under his desk. A small
+polished object, gleaming silvery, slid down into his hand.
+
+"Old friendship, _plus_ this, would make him--like spinach."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Five minutes later Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding and his pretty wife were in
+street clothes, light silk tunics of loose, flowing lines--little
+clothing being required in the artificially warmed city. They entered an
+elevator and dropped thirty stories to the ground floor of the great
+building.
+
+There they entered a cylindrical car, with rows of seats down the sides.
+Not greatly different from an ancient subway car, except that it was
+air-tight, and was hurled by magnetic attraction and repulsion through a
+tube exhausted of air, at a speed that would have made an old subway
+rider gasp with amazement.
+
+In five more minutes their car had whipped up to the base of another
+building, in the business section, where there was no room for parks
+between the mighty structures that held the unbroken glass roofs two
+hundred stories above the concrete pavement.
+
+An elevator brought them up a hundred and fifty stories. Eric led Nada
+down a long, carpeted corridor to a wide glass door, which bore the
+words:
+
+                             COSMIC EXPRESS
+
+stenciled in gold capitals across it.
+
+As they approached, a lean man, carrying a black bag, darted out of an
+elevator shaft opposite the door, ran across the corridor, and entered.
+They pushed in after him.
+
+They were in a little room, cut in two by a high brass grill. In front
+of it was a long bench against the wall, that reminded one of the
+waiting room in an old railroad depot. In the grill was a little window,
+with a lazy, brown-eyed youth leaning on the shelf behind it. Beyond him
+was a great, glittering piece of mechanism, half hidden by the brass. A
+little door gave access to the machine from the space before the grill.
+
+The thin man in black, whom Eric now recognized as a prominent French
+heart-specialist, was dancing before the window, waving his bag
+frantically, raving at the sleepy boy.
+
+"Queek! I have tell you zee truth! I have zee most urgent necessity to
+go queekly. A patient I have in Paree, zat ees in zee most creetical
+condition!"
+
+"Hold your horses just a minute, Mister. We got a client in the machine
+now. Russian diplomat from Moscow to Rio de Janeiro.... Two hundred
+seventy dollars and eighty cents, please.... Your turn next. Remember
+this is just an experimental service. Regular installations all over the
+world in a year.... Ready now. Come on in."
+
+The youth took the money, pressed a button. The door sprang open in the
+grill, and the frantic physician leaped through it.
+
+"Lie down on the crystal, face up," the young man ordered. "Hands at
+your sides, don't breathe. Ready!"
+
+He manipulated his dials and switches, and pressed another button.
+
+"Why, hello, Eric, old man!" he cried. "That's the lady you were telling
+me about? Congratulations!" A bell jangled before him on the panel.
+"Just a minute. I've got a call."
+
+He punched the board again. Little bulbs lit and glowed for a second.
+The youth turned toward the half-hidden machine, spoke courteously.
+
+"All right, madam. Walk out. Hope you found the transit pleasant."
+
+"But my Violet! My precious Violet!" a shrill female voice came from
+the machine. "Sir, what have you done with my darling Violet?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know, madam. You lost it off your hat?"
+
+"None of your impertinence, sir! I want my dog."
+
+"Ah, a dog. Must have jumped off the crystal. You can have him sent on
+for three hundred and--"
+
+"Young man, if any harm comes to my Violet--I'll--I'll--I'll appeal to
+the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals!"
+
+"Very good, madam. We appreciate your patronage."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The door flew open again. A very fat woman, puffing angrily, face highly
+colored, clothing shimmering with artificial gems, waddled pompously out
+of the door through which the frantic French doctor had so recently
+vanished. She rolled heavily across the room, and out into the corridor.
+Shrill words floated back:
+
+"I'm going to see my lawyer! My precious Violet--"
+
+The sallow youth winked. "And now what can I do for you, Eric?"
+
+"We want to go to Venus, if that ray of yours can put us there."
+
+"To Venus? Impossible. My orders are to use the Express merely between
+the sixteen designated stations, at New York, San Francisco, Tokyo,
+London, Paris--"
+
+"See here, Charley," with a cautious glance toward the door, Eric held
+up the silver flask. "For old time's sake, and for this--"
+
+The boy seemed dazed at sight of the bright flask. Then, with a single
+swift motion, he snatched it out of Eric's hand, and bent to conceal it
+below his instrument panel.
+
+"Sure, old boy. I'd send you to heaven for that, if you'd give me the
+micrometer readings to set the ray with. But I tell you, this is
+dangerous. I've got a sort of television attachment, for focusing the
+ray. I can turn that on Venus--I've been amusing myself, watching the
+life there, already. Terrible place. Savage. I can pick a place on high
+land to set you down. But I can't be responsible for what happens
+afterward."
+
+"Simple, primitive life is what we're looking for. And now what do I owe
+you--"
+
+"Oh, that's all right. Between friends. Provided that stuff's genuine!
+Walk in and lie down on the crystal block. Hands at your sides. Don't
+move."
+
+The little door had swung open again, and Eric led Nada through. They
+stepped into a little cell, completely surrounded with mirrors and vast
+prisms and lenses and electron tubes. In the center was a slab of
+transparent crystal, eight feet square and two inches thick, with an
+intricate mass of machinery below it.
+
+Eric helped Nada to a place on the crystal, lay down at her side.
+
+"I think the Express Ray is focused just at the surface of the crystal,
+from below," he said. "It dissolves our substance, to be transmitted by
+the beam. It would look as if we were melting into the crystal."
+
+"Ready," called the youth. "Think I've got it for you. Sort of a high
+island in the jungle. Nothing bad in sight now. But, I say--how're you
+coming back? I haven't got time to watch you."
+
+"Go ahead. We aren't coming back."
+
+"Gee! What is it? Elopement? I thought you were married already. Or is
+it business difficulties? The Bears did make an awful raid last night.
+But you better let me set you down in Hong Kong."
+
+A bell jangled. "So long," the youth called.
+
+Nada and Eric felt themselves enveloped in fire. Sheets of white flame
+seemed to lap up about them from the crystal block. Suddenly there was a
+sharp tingling sensation where they touched the polished surface. Then
+blackness, blankness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next thing they knew, the fires were gone from about them. They were
+lying in something extremely soft and fluid; and warm rain was beating
+in their faces. Eric sat up, found himself in a mud-puddle. Beside him
+was Nada, opening her eyes and struggling up, her bright garments
+stained with black mud.
+
+All about rose a thick jungle, dark and gloomy--and very wet. Palm-like,
+the gigantic trees were, or fern-like, flinging clouds of feathery green
+foliage high against a somber sky of unbroken gloom.
+
+They stood up, triumphant.
+
+"At last!" Nada cried. "We're free! Free of that hateful old
+civilization! We're back to Nature!"
+
+"Yes, we're on our feet now, not parasites on the machines."
+
+"It's wonderful to have a fine, strong man like you to trust in, Eric.
+You're just like one of the heroes in your books!"
+
+"You're the perfect companion, Nada.... But now we must be practical. We
+must build a fire, find weapons, set up a shelter of some kind. I guess
+it will be night, pretty soon. And Charley said something about savage
+animals he had seen in the television.
+
+"We'll find a nice dry cave, and have a fire in front of the door. And
+skins of animals to sleep on. And pottery vessels to cook in. And you
+will find seeds and grown grain."
+
+"But first we must find a flint-bed. We need flint for tools, and to
+strike sparks to make a fire with. We will probably come across a chunk
+of virgin copper, too--it's found native."
+
+Presently they set off through the jungle. The mud seemed to be very
+abundant, and of a most sticky consistence. They sank into it ankle deep
+at every step, and vast masses of it clung to their feet. A mile they
+struggled on, without finding where a provident nature had left them
+even a single fragment of quartz, to say nothing of a mass of pure
+copper.
+
+"A darned shame," Eric grumbled, "to come forty million miles, and meet
+such a reception as this!"
+
+Nada stopped. "Eric," she said, "I'm tired. And I don't believe there's
+any rock here, anyway. You'll have to use wooden tools, sharpened in the
+fire."
+
+"Probably you're right. This soil seemed to be of alluvial origin.
+Shouldn't be surprised if the native rock is some hundreds of feet
+underground. Your idea is better."
+
+"You can make a fire by rubbing sticks together, can't you?"
+
+"It can be done, I'm sure. I've never tried it, myself. We need some dry
+sticks, first."
+
+They resumed the weary march, with a good fraction of the new planet
+adhering to their feet. Rain was still falling from the dark heavens in
+a steady, warm downpour. Dry wood seemed scarce as the proverbial hen's
+teeth.
+
+"You didn't bring any matches, dear?"
+
+"Matches! Of course not! We're going back to Nature."
+
+"I hope we get a fire pretty soon."
+
+"If dry wood were gold dust, we couldn't buy a hot dog."
+
+"Eric, that reminds me that I'm hungry."
+
+He confessed to a few pangs of his own. They turned their attention to
+looking for banana trees, and coconut palms, but they did not seem to
+abound in the Venerian jungle. Even small animals that might have been
+slain with a broken branch had contrary ideas about the matter.
+
+At last, from sheer weariness, they stopped, and gathered branches to
+make a sloping shelter by a vast fallen tree-trunk.
+
+"This will keep out the rain--maybe--" Eric said hopefully. "And
+tomorrow, when it has quit raining--I'm sure we'll do better."
+
+They crept in, as gloomy night fell without. They lay in each other's
+arms, the body warmth oddly comforting. Nada cried a little.
+
+"Buck up," Eric advised her. "We're back to nature--where we've always
+wanted to be."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With the darkness, the temperature fell somewhat, and a high wind rose,
+whipping cold rain into the little shelter, and threatening to demolish
+it. Swarms of mosquito-like insects, seemingly not inconvenienced in the
+least by the inclement elements, swarmed about them in clouds.
+
+Then came a sound from the dismal stormy night, a hoarse, bellowing
+roar, raucous, terrifying.
+
+Nada clung against Eric. "What is it, dear?" she chattered.
+
+"Must be a reptile. Dinosaur, or something of the sort. This world seems
+to be in about the same state as the Earth when they flourished
+there.... But maybe it won't find us."
+
+The roar was repeated, nearer. The earth trembled beneath a mighty
+tread.
+
+"Eric," a thin voice trembled. "Don't you think--it might have been
+better-- You know the old life was not so bad, after all."
+
+"I was just thinking of our rooms, nice and warm and bright, with hot
+foods coming up the shaft whenever we pushed the button, and the gay
+crowds in the park, and my old typewriter."
+
+"Eric?" she called softly.
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"Don't you wish--we had known better?"
+
+"I do." If he winced at the "we" the girl did not notice.
+
+The roaring outside was closer. And suddenly it was answered by another
+raucous bellow, at considerable distance, that echoed strangely through
+the forest. The fearful sounds were repeated, alternately. And always
+the more distant seemed nearer, until the two sounds were together.
+
+And then an infernal din broke out in the darkness. Bellows. Screams.
+Deafening shrieks. Mighty splashes, as if struggling Titans had upset
+oceans. Thunderous crashes, as if they were demolishing forests.
+
+Eric and Nada clung to each other, in doubt whether to stay or to fly
+through the storm. Gradually the sound of the conflict came nearer,
+until the earth shook beneath them, and they were afraid to move.
+
+Suddenly the great fallen tree against which they had erected the flimsy
+shelter was rolled back, evidently by a chance blow from the invisible
+monsters. The pitiful roof collapsed on the bedraggled humans. Nada
+burst into tears.
+
+"Oh, if only--if only--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suddenly flame lapped up about them, the same white fire they had seen
+as they lay on the crystal block. Dizziness, insensibility overcame
+them. A few moments later, they were lying on the transparent table in
+the Cosmic Express office, with all those great mirrors and prisms and
+lenses about them.
+
+A bustling, red-faced official appeared through the door in the grill,
+fairly bubbling apologies.
+
+"So sorry--an accident--inconceivable. I can't see how he got it! We got
+you back as soon as we could find a focus. I sincerely hope you haven't
+been injured."
+
+"Why--what--what--"
+
+"Why I happened in, found our operator drunk. I've no idea where he got
+the stuff. He muttered something about Venus. I consulted the
+auto-register, and found two more passengers registered here than had
+been recorded at our other stations. I looked up the duplicate beam
+coordinates, and found that it had been set on Venus. I got men on the
+television at once, and we happened to find you.
+
+"I can't imagine how it happened. I've had the fellow locked up, and
+the 'dry-laws' are on the job. I hope you won't hold us for excessive
+damages."
+
+"No, I ask nothing except that you don't press charges against the boy.
+I don't want him to suffer for it in any way. My wife and I will be
+perfectly satisfied to get back to our apartment."
+
+"I don't wonder. You look like you've been through--I don't know what.
+But I'll have you there in five minutes. My private car--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding, noted author of primitive life and love, ate a
+hearty meal with his pretty spouse, after they had washed off the grime
+of another planet. He spent the next twelve hours in bed.
+
+At the end of the month he delivered his promised story to his
+publishers, a thrilling tale of a man marooned on Venus, with a
+beautiful girl. The hero made stone tools, erected a dwelling for
+himself and his mate, hunted food for her, defended her from the mammoth
+saurian monsters of the Venerian jungles.
+
+The book was a huge success.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Cosmic Express, by John Stewart Williamson
+
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