magnetrons: devices that generate high-frequency electromagnetic waves, as for use in radar applications.
make mincemeat out of: thrash; beat decisively.
Mercator: a type of high-quality world map shown on a flat surface that can be used for accurate navigation.
metal: mettle; spirited determination.
mitts: hands.
mix words: variant of “mince words”; to restrain oneself in a conversation and say less than one wants to, out of fear of offending the listener.
MP: Military Police.
net-and-trident: a pair of weapons used by gladiators consisting of a net and a three-pronged spear.
Nubians: people from Nubia, a region in southern Egypt and northern Sudan and a former kingdom from 2000 BC–AD 1400.
Numidians: people from Numidia, an ancient country in North Africa corresponding roughly to modern Algeria.
onion: one’s subject or business.
out at elbows: in financial straits; short of funds.
Palatine Hill: one of seven hills in Rome; the central hill of the seven on which Rome was built, considered the oldest and the site of many of the imperial palaces.
palisades: stakes pointed at the top and set firmly in the ground in a close row with others to form a defense.
phalanx: especially in ancient Greece, a group of soldiers that attacks in close formation, protected by their overlapping shields and projecting spears.
privy: an outhouse.
P. T. Barnum: Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810–1891); an American showman who is best remembered for founding the circus that eventually became Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.
radized: having caused (metal) to absorb doses of radiation.
Riot Act: an English statute of 1715 providing that if twelve or more persons assemble unlawfully and riotously, to the disturbance of the public peace, and refuse to disperse upon proclamation, they shall be considered guilty of a felony.
Roman holiday: a violent public spectacle or disturbance in which shame, degradation or physical harm is intentionally inflicted on one person or group by another or others. It comes from the bloody gladiatorial contests staged as entertainment for the ancient Romans.
Roman Legionnaires: members of the Roman army that was the basic military unit of ancient Rome. The Roman Legionnaires were the best equipped soldiers in the world, with helmets and armor that covered more than seventy percent of their bodies. They also carried a heavy body shield, two types of swords and a spear. They were well protected and their equipment was heavy, but still possessing considerable freedom of movement and lighter than the rest of the armies at the time.
scareheads: headlines in exceptionally large type.
septuagenarian: a person who is seventy years of age.
shacking up: living or dwelling (in homes).
shooter: a person who sets off explosives in oil-drilling operations.
skunked: cheated by someone.
spiderwork steel: steel; long rods of steel used for constructing antenna towers.
stiffen your resolution: to strengthen or make firm one’s determination to do something or to carry out a purpose.
straw boss: a worker who also supervises a small work crew, acting as an assistant to the foreman.
stud poker: a game of poker in which the first round of cards is dealt face down, and the others face up.
Styx: (Greek mythology) river of Hades; the river across which the souls of the dead were ferried into the underworld.
Tedeschi: (Italian) Germans.
Tenth Legion: one of the legions used by Julius Caesar in 58 BC for his invasion of Gaul, an ancient European region.
Texas A&M: Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University, located in College Station, Texas.
Treasury Department: an executive department of the US federal government that administers the treasury of the US government. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the largest of the Treasury’s bureaus. It is responsible for determining, assessing and collecting internal revenue in the US.
vestal virgins: (Roman mythology) virgin priestesses who tended the sacred fire in the temple of Vesta, goddess of the hearth.
visograph: a tool utilized for displaying still or moving images.
vitriol: sulfuric acid, a highly corrosive, dense, oily liquid.
West Pointer: someone from the US Military Academy, called West Point, in New York. It has been a military post since 1778 and the seat of the US Military Academy since 1802.
white: a white-colored chip having the lowest value, chiefly used in poker.
your queen bets: in stud poker, statement made by the dealer indicating who bets first. In this form of poker, the player with the highest card dealt in that round bets first.
Published by
Galaxy Press, LLC
7051 Hollywood Boulevard, Suite 200
Hollywood, CA 90028
© 2008 L. Ron Hubbard Library. All Rights Reserved.
Any unauthorized copying, translation, duplication, importation or distribution, in whole or in part, by any means, including electronic copying, storage or transmission, is a violation of applicable laws.
Mission Earth is a trademark owned by L. Ron Hubbard Library and is used with permission. Battlefield Earth is a trademark owned by Author Services, Inc. and is used with permission.
Cover artwork: © 1948 Better Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Hachette Filipacchi Media. Horsemen illustration from Western Story Magazine is © and ™ Condé Nast Publications and is used with their permission. Cover art thumbnail on back of book and story illustrations; Fantasy, Far-Flung Adventure and Science Fiction illustrations; Story Preview and Glossary illustrations and Story Preview cover art: Unknown and Astounding Science Fiction copyright © by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Penny Publications, LLC.
ISBN 978-1-59212-604-0 ePub version
ISBN 978-1-59212-351-3 print version
ISBN 978-1-59212-324-7 audiobook version
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007927522
Contents
THE PROFESSOR WAS A THIEF
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
BATTLE OF WIZARDS
THE DANGEROUS DIMENSION
GLOSSARY
The Professor Was a Thief
Preface
IT was about two o’clock in the afternoon and Sergeant Kelly, having imbibed a bit too much corned beef and cabbage at lunch, was dozing comfortably at his desk. He did not immediately hear the stumbling feet of Patrolman O’Rourke, but when he did, he was, in consequence, annoyed.
Sergeant Kelly opened his eyes, grunted, and sat slowly forward, hitching at his pants which he had unbuckled to ease his ballooning stomach.
His eye was offended at first by Patrolman O’Rourke’s upset uniform and then, suddenly, interested. And what sergeantly eye would not have been? For Patrolman O’Rourke’s mouth was slack and his eyes could have been used as bowling balls. He ran into a spittoon and heeded its thundering protest and departure not at all. Bracing his tottering self against the desk without changing his dazed expression, O’Rourke gulped:
“It’s gone.”
“Well!” said Sergeant Kelly. “Don’t stand there like a jackanapes! Speak up! What’s gone?”
“The Empire State Building,” said Patrolman O’Rourke.
Chapter One
NO one knew why he was called Pop unless it was that he had sired the newspaper business. For the first few hundred years, it appeared, he had been a senior reporter, going calmly about his business of reporting wholesale disaster, but during the past month something truly devastating ha
d occurred. Muttering noises sounded in the ranks.
Long overdue for the job of city editor, lately vacated via the undertaker, Pop had been demoted instead of promoted. Ordinarily Pop was not a bitter man. He had seen too many cataclysms fade into the staleness of yesterday’s paper. He had obit-ed too large a legion of generals, saints and coal heavers to expect anything from life but its eventual absence. But there were limits.
When Leonard Caulborn, whose diapers Pop had changed, had been elevated to city editor over Pop’s decaying head, Pop chose to attempt the dissolution of Gaul in the manufactures of Kentucky. But even the latter has a habit of wearing away and leaving the former friend a mortal enemy. Thus it was, when the copy boy came for him, that Pop swore at the distilleries as he arose and looked about on the floor where he supposed his head must have rolled.
“Mr. Caulborn said he hada seeyuh rightaway,” said the copy boy.
Pop limped toward the office, filled with resentment.
Leonard Caulborn was a wise young man. Even though he had no real knowledge of the newspaper business, people still insisted he was wise. Hadn’t he married the publisher’s daughter? And if the paper didn’t make as much as it should, didn’t the publisher have plenty of stockholders who could take the losses and never feel them—much, anyway.
Young and self-made and officious if not efficient, Caulborn greeted Pop not at all, but let him stand before the desk a few minutes.
Pop finally picked up a basket and dropped it a couple inches, making Caulborn look up.
“You sent for me?” said Pop.
“I sent for you— Oh, yes, I remember now. Pending your retirement you’ve been put on the copy desk.”
“My what?” cried Pop.
“Your retirement. We are retiring all employees over fifty. We need new people and new ideas here.”
“Retirement?” Pop was still gaping. “When? How?”
“Effective day after tomorrow, Pop, you are no longer with this paper. Our present Social Security policy—”
“Will pay me off about twenty bucks complete,” said Pop. “But to hell with that. I brought this paper into the world and it’s going to take me out. You can’t do this to me!”
“I have orders—”
“You are issuing the orders these days,” said Pop. “What are you going to do for copy when you lose all your men that know the ropes?”
“We’ll get along,” said Caulborn. “That will be all.”
“No, it won’t either,” said Pop. “I’m staying as reporter.”
“All right. You’re staying as reporter then. It’s only two days.”
“And you’re going to give me assignments,” said Pop.
Caulborn smiled wearily, evidently thinking it best to cajole the old coot. “All right, here’s an article I clipped a couple months ago. Get a story on it.”
When Caulborn had fished up the magazine out of his rubble-covered desk he tossed it to Pop like a citizen paying a panhandler.
Pop wanted to throw it back, for he saw at a glance that it was merely a stick, a rehash of some speech made a long while ago to some physics society. But he had gained ground so far. He wouldn’t lose it. He backed out.
Muttering to himself he crossed to his own desk, wading through the rush and clamor of the city room. It was plain to him that he had to make the most of what he had. It was unlikely that he’d get another chance.
“I’ll show ’em,” he growled. “Call me a has-been. Well! Think I can’t make a story out of nothing, does he? Why, I’ll get such a story that he’ll have to keep me on. And promote me. And raise my pay. Throw me into the gutter, will they?”
He sat down in his chair and scanned the article. It began quite lucidly with the statement that Hannibal Pertwee had made this address before the assembled physicists of the country. Pop, growing cold the while, tried to wade through said address. When he came out at the end with a spinning head he saw that Hannibal Pertwee’s theories were not supported by anybody but Hannibal Pertwee. All other information, even to Pop, was so much polysyllabic nonsense. Something about transportation of freight. He gathered that much. Some new way to help civilization. But just how, the article did not tell—Pop, at least.
Suddenly Pop felt very old and very tired. At fifty-three he had ten thousand bylines behind him. He had built the World-Journal to its present importance. He loved the paper and now it was going to hell in the hands of an incompetent, and they were letting him off at a station halfway between nowhere and anywhere. And the only way he had of stopping them was an impossible article by some crackbrain on the transportation of freight.
He sighed and, between two shaking hands, nursed an aching head.
Chapter Two
A pavement-pounding reporter is apt to find the turf trying—and so it was with Pop. Plodding through the dismal dusk of Jersey, he began to wish that he had never heard the name of Hannibal Pertwee. Only the urgency of his desire to keep going had brought him thus far along the lonely roads. Grimly, if weakly, he at last arrived at a gate to which a Jerseyite had directed him.
With a moan of relief he leaned against a wire-mesh fence and breathed himself to normalcy. It wasn’t that he was getting old. Of course not! It was just that he should have worn more comfortable shoes.
He looked more observantly about him and became interested. Through this factory fence he could see a house, not much bigger than an architect’s model, built with exactness which would have been painful to a more aesthetic eye than Pop’s.
The fence itself next caught his interest. He fingered the steel mesh with wonder. At the top the poles bent out to support three strands of savage-looking barbed wire. Pop stepped back and was instantly smitten by a sign which shouted:
1,000,000 VOLTS
BEWARE!
Pop felt a breeze chill him as he stared at his fingers. But they were still there and he was encouraged. Moving toward the gate he found other signs:
BEWARE OF THE LIONS!
Pop searched anxiously for them and, so doing, found a third:
AREA MINED!
And:
TRESPASSERS BURIED
FREE OF CHARGE!
Uncertain now, Pop again stared at the tiny house. It began to remind him of a picture he had seen of Arizona’s gas chamber.
But, setting his jaw to measure up to the threats around him, he sought the bell, avoiding the sign which said:
GAS TRAPS
And the one which roared:
DEATH RAYS
KEEP OUT!
He almost leaped out of his body when a voice before him growled: “What is your business?”
Pop stared. He backed up. He turned. Suspiciously he eyed the emptiness.
At last, rapidly, he said, “I want to see Hannibal Pertwee. I am a reporter from the New York World-Journal.”
There was a click and a square of light glowed in a panel. For seconds nothing further happened and then, very slowly, the gate swung inward.
Boldly—outwardly, at least—Pop marched through. Behind him the gate clicked. He whirled. A little tongue of lightning went licking its chops around the latch.
It took Pop some time to permanently swallow his dinner. He glared around him but the strange change in the atmosphere soon registered upon his greedy senses.
Here the walk was only a foot wide, bordered by dwarf plants. What Pop had thought to be shrubbery was actually a forest of perfect trees, all less than a yard tall but with the proportions of giants. Here, too, were benches like doll furniture and a miniature fountain which tinkled in high key. Sundials, summerhouses, bridges and flowers—all were tiny, perfect specimens. Even the fish in the small ponds were nearly microscopic.
Pop approached the house warily as though it might bite. When he stood upon the porch, stooping a little t
o miss the roof, the door opened.
Standing there was a man not five feet tall, whose face was a study of mildness and apology. His eyes were an indefinite blue and what remained of his hair was an indefinite gray. He was dressed in a swallowtail coat and striped pants and wing collar, with a tiny diamond horseshoe in his tie. Nervously he peered at Pop.
“You are Mr. Brewhauer from the Scientific Investigator?”
“No. I’m from the New York World-Journal.”
“Ah.”
“I came,” said Pop, “to get a story on this lecture you handed out a couple months ago.”
“Ah.”
“If you could just give me a few facts, I should be very glad to give you a decent break.”
“Oh, yes! Certainly. You must see my garden!”
“I’ve just seen it,” said Pop.
“Isn’t it beautiful? Not a bit like any other garden you ever surveyed.”
“Not a bit.”
“Such wholesome originality and such gigantic trees.”
“Huh?”
“Why, over a thousand feet tall, some of them. Of course, trees don’t ordinarily grow to a thousand feet. The tallest tree in the world is much less than that. Of course, the Aldrich Deep is 30,930, but then no trees grow in the ocean. There, now! Isn’t the garden remarkable? I’m so sorry to walk you all over the place this way, but I have recently given my cars to charity.”
“Hey,” said Pop. “Wait. We haven’t been anywhere.”
“No, indeed not. My garden is only a small portion of what I have yet to show you. Please come in.”
Pop followed him into the house, almost knocking off his hat on the ceiling. The house was furnished in somewhat garish fashion and, here again, everything was less than half its normal size, even to the oil paintings on the walls and the grand piano.
“Please be seated,” said Hannibal Pertwee.
Somehow Pop squeezed himself into a chair. There was a tingling sensation as though he was receiving a rather constant shock. But he paid it no heed. Determined to get a story, he casually got out his cigarette case and offered Hannibal a smoke.