First run: late May 2001
The ether propeller (first built by Thomas Edison) has some marvelous properties: it can drive a ship from one planet to another in a matter of weeks. It even (somehow) creates an artificial gravity field that not only keeps one's feet on the floor where they belong, but also completely insulates a ship's passengers from the terrific acceleration of the propeller's operation. But while the ether propeller can produce high acceleration and speed, it cannot deliver small accelerations. Thus it is not useful for precise maneuvering in vacuum. The supply ships of the orbital heliographs must use steam jets for final approach and docking at those stations. An American inventor, Dr. Cyrus Grant of the Arizona Territories, has been working on a solution to this problem, in the form of his ether propeller governor. He intends to test his governor on the Moon, and also to investigate the mysterious "glow area" on the Lunar farside - a region of greenish-yellow light visible only from deep space.
Dr. Grant has been in correspondence with Professor Edmund Arthur Challenger of London about his plans, and invites Professor Challenger along on the expedition. To save Challenger the expense of a transatlantic voyage and transcontinental railroad journey to Arizona, Dr. Grant flies his ship to London, accompanied by American government agent James East. As the batteries of the "Arizona Flyer" are recharged, Prof. Challenger takes Grant and East to his club for the evening. There they meet Lady Margaret Ann Remington, amateur private detective, and her gentleman companion Lord Michael Wallace (strong, handsome, and a bit dim). They also wish to see this new scientific marvel. In the morning, all of them (except Dr. Grant) purchase Davenport Ether Survival Suits; to dispense with the awkwardness of air hoses, they also obtain air packs from an acquaintance of Professor Challenger. Then they depart for the Moon.
The "Arizona Flyer" arrives in lunar orbit after a six-hour flight. As the Moon lacks an atmosphere, neither gasbags not liftwood (both of which make a ship lighter than air) can make a soft landing. Dr.Grant switches on his governor, which uses a flawed diamond to focus the ether flows; he mentions that the device didn't function if a flawless diamond was used. The ship lands on the Moon, and they have dinner by Earthlight and are entertained by the effects of low gravity. The party also dons their ether suits to explore outside. In the morning, the ship lifts a mile above the surface and flies around the Moon to the "glow area". This is discovered to be a region of great canyons and craters, covered with points of light. Mr. East maneuvers the ship next to a light spot and tries examine it with a searchlight, and is blinded by a reflection. The light shines from "light pipes": small tubes lined by volcanic glass. Evidently the source of the light is somewhere within the Moon.
While exploring the area, wheel tracks are spotted in front of a tunnel mouth. The "Arizona Flyer" proceeds about a thousand feet down the tunnel to a bubble cave; a great triangular chasm is found there. The ship flies over ten miles down this shaft to another bubble cave at the bottom. From there, the wheel tracks are followed through a zig-zagging path of caves and lava tunnels. At a depth of approximately 20 miles, the ether propeller starts to hesitate and surge: it is in atmosphere! The ship reverses course to vacuum. When it stops for the night and the propeller is turned off, everyone realizes that the local gravity has increased, to about double that of the lunar surface. A pinwheel is improvised and installed outside a porthole to warn of increasing atmosphere.
In the morning, the ship flies back down the tunnel; when it reaches dense air, the gasbag is inflated and the "Arizona Flyer" proceeds as an airship. There are no more wheel tracks on the floor. The glow spots on the walls become ever more common. After a time, slime is noticed on the tunnel walls: a mixture of water, rock dust and organic matter. Water is found, then various types of fungus. Finally, a yellow-green glowing fungus is discovered: it contains an acid that irritates skin but dissolves fibers. As the glow fungus becomes more common, the lighting becomes pretty good. The tunnel eventually becomes a vertical shaft for 1000-2000 feet, ending in a large bubble cave. None of the tunnels out of this cave are large enough to fly through. Landing marks are found for a wheeled vehicle about 80 or 90 feet long.
Lord Wallace stays aboard the ship; everyone else disembarks to explore. They encounter a man in the tunnels. He is quite surprised to see them, and speaks with an Irish accent. After hearing Lady Margaret's British accent, he remarks (rather loudly) that Mr. Guinness will be interested in meeting them. The party follows him with (eventually justified) suspicion: they are ambushed with a volley of bottles from cave mouths. The broken bottles release an anesthetic gas. Everyone evades the gas; Lady Margaret was briefly separated but rejoined the party after traveling through parallel tunnels. The unseen attackers were held off with gunfire as the "Arizona Flyer" was prepped for departure; Prof. Challenger retrieved an unbroken gas bottle.
While traveling back up the tunnels into vacuum, a searchlight was noticed up ahead. The ship backed into a short dead-end tunnel and waited. A wheeled ether flyer drove past, pulsing its ether drive for propulsion; "Fenian Brotherhood" was painted on the side. The "Arizona Flyer" returned to the surface at maximum speed, then returned to London. The British government was very interested in the Fenian presence. The party sold an exclusive account of their adventure to the London Times for £100.
***
Second run: early July 2001
Over the next few weeks, the British government prepares a military expedition to the lunar caves. Since Dr. Grant would not lend or sell the only prototype of the ether propeller governor and the "Arizona Flyer" was too small for an expedition-in-force, the Royal Navy cobbled together a craft like the one used by the Fenians: wheeled and driven by a pulsed ether propeller. £500 from H.M. Government helped persuade Grant to accompany the expedition. The party was joined by another inventor, John Almontondo, with his new liftwood personal conveyer. The "Arizona Flyer" now has a barometric altimeter.
The Navy's ship carried a small contingent of Marines, and was armed with a small cannon and Gatling gun. It had a docking cradle on top so that the "Arizona Flyer" could lock on and carry it through the cave-and-tunnel system. The commander of the expedition, Col. Caruthers, made the "Flyer" his command post and communicated with the Navy ship via a telephone link in the docking cradle and his signalsman, CPO Sharkey. Since the Navy wheel-flyer was quite slow, both ships were dropped off in Lunar orbit by the ether warship "Duke of York".
At the bottom of the first 10-mile shaft, the two ships separated and the Marines disembarked to check for booby traps. They found one the hard way, and Private Benson was injured by the blast. As they penetrated the tunnel complex , several more explosive traps were found; Lady Margaret was able to disarm them. Finally they came to the bottom of the tunnels, only to find that the landing area in the cave was mined. The Navy ship set one off; while everyone aboard was rattled by the blast, the ship wasn't damaged. There were signs of a hasty evacuation. A well-armed party then set out to explore. The first exit from the landing cave led to a dead-end collection of caves and crevices and tunnels. The other tunnels connected to a great complex, some 2 miles long and wide, and a mile from top to bottom; the caves varied from very small to over a thousand feet across. Challenger dubbed it "Cavendish Caverns". Steam vents at one end provided streams of water all through the caves. And there was some animal life: swarms of "Lunar bats" tended to attack anything that moved; "Lunar rats" (like six-legged armadillos) foraged on the fungus; a ten-foot long monster caterpillar attacked, but was stunned by gunfire; and large, deep pools at the bottom of the complex contained small fish with big teeth.
A group of defensible caves had been fitted as living quarters, complete with a field kitchen and a doctor's surgery and laboratory. Some notebook pages were found behind a bench in the doctor's lab; they indicated that the complex was planned as a hideout for Fenian operatives on the run from police. Also found in the laboratory were the remains of Earthly lab rats that were reduced in size to about one inch, yet retained much of their original mass. The garbage pit near the kitchens made it clear that the Fenians had eaten some Lunar rats, and several sorts of fungus (not the acidic glow fungus!). In several places in the cave system, there were indications of a small-scale diamond mining operation. The stones found by the party were almost all of very poor quality; the very few flawless diamonds were quite small. Satisfied that all the Fenians had fled, the party packed up to return to Earth.
***
Third run: July 20, 2001
On final approach to London after last episode, a battery leaked and corroded other batteries, generating lots of smoke. Lady Margaret got a face full of smoke that left her stunned and temporarily blinded when she opened the hatch to the rear compartment. As James East piloted the flyer, Mr. Almontondo went aft with a wet cloth to protect his face. The smoke was vented and the leaking acid was neutralized, but the "Arizona Flyer" was out of commission for a few weeks to replace the bad battery and inspect the rest. Professor Challenger left to deal with some business of his own.
Examination of the notes found in the lunar caves revealed a partial address: Oxford Street in Whitechapel, very near the London Hospital. The handwriting was determined to belong to Dr. Henry Sebastian (reported killed some months ago in a fire at his Oxford Street rooming house).
There was a minor crime wave in Whitechapel, involving thieves with glass cutters opening store windows and stealing from the displays. John Almontondo (the inventor) made a connection to "Helzberg Diamonds" (pawnshop, fence and diamond broker). Herr Helzberg gave no useful information. Lady Margaret, in disguise on the street, heard some rumors that Dr. Sebastian was NOT a nice person: he may have had criminal connections, and it was noted that the Ripper murders stopped just when his rooming house burned down. She also encountered a man leaving Helzberg's: the Irishman she met in the moon (Conn O'Hara). He also recognized her, and he and 5 others tried to attack or kidnap her. James East and Tatsumi Itsuro (Japanese military attache/agent and samurai) counterattacked, capturing about half of them. (The London police were less than pleased with excessively bloody swordplay in the streets.) The Fenians denied being behind the robberies, they were simply fencing diamonds. Conn O'Hara said that the money was being used to get supplies for local safehouses, and medical supplies for "Doc Harry". The police suspect that Helzberg sold some small diamonds to the local underworld, who made the glass cutters with them.
***
Fourth run: August 10, 2001
Professor Challenger returned, bringing along a colleague: Dr. Angus Macavity (an inventor) Mr. Almontondo departed to try to interest the Navy (or Army) in building his newly designed electric railgun. Police interrogation of some Fenian thugs (captured last game) yielded the locations of 2 safehouses. The police raids were too late: everyone was gone and all papers burned. Also burned (incompletely) was some rubberized canvas that turned out to be diving suits with traces of lye on them. There was an entrance to the London sewers near one of the safehouses. In a room off the tunnel were coat hooks in the wall, and the remains of 2 showers: 1 for lye and 1 for water. There was also a locked crude grate door blocking a tunnel sloping down to a lower level. The party went down and discovered a small room off the lower tunnel, set up as a laboratory: benches and work tables and empty bottles. There was also a cage containing rat bones, and something had acid-burned its way out of the cage. The acid was determined to be hydrochloric.
Further down the tunnel the party encountered something 4 ft high and 10 ft long, stinking of rotten meat and chlorine, covered with ever-shifting patches of skin and fur and scales. When it approached, shots and a throwing knife were fired into it, to no effect. It lashed out a pseudopod from over 20 ft away but missed. Tatsumi Itsuro sliced off the tip with a knife and picked it up with a piece of his shirt; he got the bit into a bottle before acid dissolved the cloth. The party ran, outdistancing the blob, and it didn't come up the tunnel to the upper level.
Extensive lab work followed. The thing was determined to be a mass of cancerous tissue that quickly regenerated from damage. Physical attacks couldn't hurt it, fire only did partial damage, most poisons were not effective. Also, it ejected any poisoned or burning tissue to protect the rest. It avoided base chemicals (such as lye), but wasn't actually hurt by them.
Questioning of the Fenian prisoners turned up some information: "Doc Harry" had been running some experiments in the sewers for privacy, when something bad happened. He had the grate installed to keep people out of the lower tunnel, and he allowed only his servant to accompany him down there. They started wearing diving suits and dousing themselves with lye before going below, and washing it off with water upon their return. The diving suits were equipped by ethersuit airpacks, modified with a valve to tap into the pack's reservoir. The oxygen source in ethersuit airpacks is high purity hydrogen peroxide. The blob was soon discovered to be vulnerable to H2O2, and that damage did not grow back.
The party obtained quantities of high-strength H2O2 and sprayers and went down to deal with the problem. The blob turned out to get more dexterous and move faster as its bulk was diminished by the attacks. It could also split into independent smaller ones (good thing they didn't dynamite it!). The blobs were destroyed with no casualties and minimal injury. The party finished by burning the remains and hosing down the tunnels with peroxide to mop up any leftover bits.
***
Fifth run: August 31, 2001
The "Arizona Flyer" is finally back in service, and Cyrus Grant plans another expedition to Cavendish Caverns in the Moon. Plenty of spelunking gear is loaded: the plan is to look for exits from C. Caverns to the suspected larger cave system. Perhaps they could try climbing down a water-tunnel chute. A diving suit and compressor is also loaded for exploring deep pools.
Grant's chosen approach to the "glow area" on the Lunar Farside is down a long deep canyon about 1 mile above the floor (below the top of the walls). Dr. Macavity spots a flash of bright yellow-green light off to the side as the flyer encounters a cross-canyon. The ship turns toward the light. Keeping the light in sight is a bit difficult since it disappears whenever the ship moves too high or too far to the side. The flyer comes to a deep split in a ridge (caused by a Moon-quake?); a long piece of rock fell crosswise in the gap, and rubble mounded on top of it. The result is a triangular gap, about 100' wide at the top and 300' high. The light coming through this gap can't shine out above the canyon wall. On the other side of the ridge is a mountain with a great bubble at its heart. A landslide has ripped a huge opening in the side, about half a mile long and 500' high. The internal bubble is partially collapsed. The glow comes from a great shaft, about 1000' across, and is reflected outside by patches of volcanic glass above and around the shaft.
The shaft is irregular, approximately circular, with many small ledges. At a depth of 20 miles, the gas bag is deployed because of the increasing density of the atmosphere. A few ledges can be seen that are large enough to rest the ship on. Patches of gray and brown fungi appear, and later glow fungus. Small caves appear occasionally, only 1' to 2' across; lunar bats fly out of one cave and run into the flyer after the searchlight is shined into it. About 9 miles below gas bag deployment, an ether flyer of about 30 tons is found wrecked on a large ledge. There is some writing on the side in Cyrillic letters; Lady Margaret reads it as "Pride of Minsk". Dr.Grant speculates that this is the ship of Vladimir Illyich Tereshkov, a Russian inventor who went missing about 2 years earlier. Tereshkov had published some papers in a German ether-science journal about precisely controlling ether flows. Grant's ether propeller governor was inspired by a translation of one of those papers.
The other ship has suffered significant (though perhaps not critical) damage in the crash. It appears to have skidded backward onto the ledge, smashing the air screws and buckling the ether propeller (looks like a Zeppelin patent design). The main greenhouse window shattered against a rocky outcrop, and a row of hull plates along that side had popped their rivets. The gas bag was apparently rags before impact; Dr. Macavity flies his personal conveyor up to a ledge where glow fungus was stripped away by impact. Searching the ship reveals no bodies; there were staterooms for 5 or 6 people. It had been stripped of its furnishings and movable equipment; there was a laboratory aboard. Even many of the non-removable electrical and mechanical systems had been gutted of parts. There were remains of a solar boiler, with a silver-plated sheet iron mirror folded against the top of the flyer. Batteries and an auxiliary power plant had been removed. Most of the Earthly plants in the greenhouse were dead, but a large portion had been removed. Lunar fungus was encroaching on the remainder.
A broad path down the side of the shaft had once been cleared of glow fungus (its acid will burn through cloth and ropes), though it was now growing back. The cleared path ends about 6 miles further down. Here is found an exceptionally large ledge and a cave entrance about 50' across. There is no path past this point: there are no footprints on rock, and they don't last long on mud. The most promising path downward is rather damp: many wet caverns with lush fungi growth. Arrows and numbers are carved into the walls at decision points.
Most of the party goes exploring (Dr. Grant stays with his ship), all wearing their ethersuits for its modest armor value. Dr. Macavity pedals along in his liftwood personal conveyor. Finally the party walks down a tunnel with flowing water running down the rough surface, and through holes in the floor. Tatsumi Itsuro notices vibrations in the floor and everyone stops to listen. Suddenly there is a loud crack; the floor drops 3' and twists 30° to the right; James East falls. The party is now on a stone surfboard, skidding down a 20° sloping water tunnel 25' wide. After about 50' the tunnel ends 20' up the side of a bubble cave; but there's a nice pool below it, only 10' deep at most. Everyone runs off the back of the "surfboard" while it is still in the tunnel, and manage to seal their suits before hitting the pool.
This is a huge open space, a 1000 yard bubble touching others of similar size. There are pools and streams all over the place, even lakes, with lush fungus growth on stalagmite "trees" like Spanish moss. The air is steamy from geysers; sightlines are limited; lighting varies from dim to pretty bright (more yellow than green). It's an underground swamp. Lady Margaret notices what appears to be a human skull at the bottom of the pool, as everyone scrambles to the shore. Dr. Macavity throws a rope down to rest of the party, who all leap 20' up to the mouth of the water tunnel.
At this point, four 5' caterpillars come around a corner and charge toward the pool. They also leap up to the tunnel mouth; two are very clumsy - despite many tries, they never manage to grab hold of the rock. The other two are a stubborn problem, but gunfire and a few sticks of dynamite hold them off as everyone climbs the rope back up the water tunnel. One follows most of the way up the tunnel before it is finally knocked out; it slides down out of sight, and ripping and crunching sounds follow. Everyone now returns to the "Arizona Flyer", which departs for Earth.
***
Runs six and seven: September 21 and 29, 2001
Cyrus Grant suggested salvaging the "Pride of Minsk", and the other members of the group were agreeable. Dr. Macavity contributed a replacement gasbag for the "Arizona Flyer" large enough to lift both ships. Replacing the original commercial-grade batteries of the "Flyer" with one of Macavity's super-batteries also allowed a dramatic increase in cargo capacity. Recalling the attack of the killer caterpillars, the party purchased some helmets and body armor (breastplates and chain mail). Professor Challenger purchased a supply of insecticide. James East had a very persuasive interview with an officer of the Maxim company, and managed to get a Maxim gun at a wholesale price, plus a case of ammunition. Mr. East assured the fellow that the Maxim gun would be prominently featured in the London Times' account of this expedition.
Back in the Moon, the "Arizona Flyer" landed beside the "Pride of Minsk" to check whether anyone had been there since their last visit; the note Lady Margaret had left was undisturbed. The "Flyer" descended a few more miles to the ledge where they had entered the caves last time. A sulfurous blast of wind rocked the ship from below, and Dr. Macavity landed the "Flyer" with a thump. The propeller governor was knocked out of alignment. Worse, the large flawed diamond inside split. Flying up the shaft with a normal ether propeller was possible, but very dangerous. Better to replace the diamond, and they knew that flawed diamonds existed on the Moon.
Dr. Grant and Lord Wallace stayed on the "Arizona Flyer" while the others explored the tunnels. At the end of a long string of linked caverns, the group had a choice: a tunnel off to the left, or a cave-mouth half-way up the cavern wall to the right. Professor Challenger shined his electric torch up into the cave, and a volley of gunfire responded! The small cave was full of insectile creatures, about 5 feet tall with six limbs, armed with lever-action carbines. A battle ensued; Mr. East and Dr. Macavity were wounded before the small cave was dynamited. Eight Remington carbines were recovered when more Selenites appeared behind them in the main cavern. The party entered the left-hand tunnel.
Lt. Col. John Carter (an American acquaintance of Mr. East) who joined the group just before they left London, evaded the Selenites and followed the party into the tunnel. A few bends into the tunnel, they encountered more Selenites, armed with spears and crossbows. Lady Margaret soon determined that at least one had a minimal knowledge of Russian, and that they were enemies of the gun-wielding Selenites. The whole party retreated down the tunnels, only stopping once in a defensible cave to tend to their wounds. The Selenites led the party to a well-defended cave complex just off the great swamp caverns. Here they encountered three Russians, who were delighted to see rescuers.
After the "Pride of Minsk" was wrecked, they moved equipment to a hive near a diamond-bearing strata. On their last trip down, they found that Dr. Tereshkov had taken over and armed the custodian Selenites with Remington carbines. Tereshkov's custodians were raiding other Selenite hives for slave labor to work the mine, and he planned to hijack the next ship that found them. When the crewmen objected, he attacked them. The Russians found refuge with this hive's Selenites, and taught them to make spears and crossbows for defense. The group plotted an attack on Tereshkov's mine-hive to get diamonds for the propellor governor, and they met K'Chuk, a Selenite of the rare specialist caste (much smarter than the custodians). Dynamite opened a tunnel into the mine. Dynamite blasts and Maxim-gun fire made short work of the carbine-armed custodians. As the attacking force approached Vladimir Tereshkov's laboratory/living quarters, he attacked with a ray that shrunk Prof. Challenger to half his normal size. He mortally wounded Tereshkov, then the device shrank itself and everything within 20 feet, and fused solid. Tereshkov died, and Challenger (much annoyed) was now less than two feet tall.
The leaderless Selenites quickly surrendered and a large bag of diamonds was recovered. The effects of the diabolical Shrink Ray wore off after 24 hours (12 hours for each size reduction). The party returned to the "Arizona Flyer" with the Russian crewmen, and Dr. Grant fitted the governor with a new focussing diamond (and pocketed a couple of spares). After being assured of return visits for trade, K'Chuk gave the group an amulet of unknown origins; it was clearly machined metal, marked with strange runes, and it glowed. With the "Pride of Minsk" in tow, they all returned to London. Everyone received a share of £1000 from the sale of the diamonds, and a professional writer was hired to produce a suitably heroic account for the London Times exclusive. Dr. Grant declared that he had had enough adventure for now, and was returning to Arizona. He left a notebook about his ether propellor governor design with Dr. Macavity.
***
Run eight: October 20, 2001
To avoid being stranded in the Moon again, James East conceived a lifeboat (to be docked to the "Minsk"), and persuaded Lady Margaret to cover the bulk of the cost. It was constructed from Dr. Macavity's superhard steel alloy, and equipped with one of his superbatteries and his reproduction of Dr. Grant's ether propeller governor. Carrying 6 people and a ton of cargo, the new propeller invented by Professor Challenger can move it at an astounding 9.27 million miles per day for up to 10 days. (Unfortunately, the air supply is only good for 5 days, or 8 days if the cargo is more oxygen supplies.) For unknown reasons, Mr. East refers to it as a "cigarette boat".
The ship was dubbed the "Remora" in an elaborate publicity event. James East, Lady Margaret Remington and Lord Michael Wallace took 3 seats for the maiden flight, plus a Times correspondent in the fourth, and the remaining pair were auctioned off, with half the proceeds going to charity. The initial flight was to the "Harbinger" orbital heliograph station, to ask the scientists at the Oxford/Cambridge Lab to track them and certify their speed. Then they were off to the Moon, for a quick lunch on the surface, and back to the "Harbinger". The Times office on board printed certificates for everyone.
***
Runs nine and ten: November 3 and 19, 2001
The London police come to call on Lady Margaret or Professor Challenger; a low-class foreigner with a suspicious amount of money was picked up for loitering near the British Museum, and gave their names as references. It was Dmitri Vladislavski (one-time crewman of the "Pride of Minsk"), and they vouched for him. Dmitri, who is a patriotic Pole and not an ethnic Russian, tells them about a rumor that Russian secret operatives are trying to rob the Museum of something that just came from an archeological dig in Greece. Professor Challenger is acquainted with and not currently on too bad terms with the curator, Sir Giles Winthrop, who gives them a tour. They notice a foreigner lurking near the back rooms where the new Greek exhibit is being prepared; they can't find him again as the museum is closing for the night.
The group stakes out the rear of the museum, which is right on the Thames. After dark, some doors open and two men slowly carry large draped objects toward a boat. Prof. Challenger and Dr. Macavity attack them, and are attacked by two sailors from the boat; the Remora arrives on the scene, and James East and Lady Margaret help with the capture. Meanwhile, another door opens and the lurking foreigner slips out and away. Macavity and East chase him down, but he throws a satchel into the river. They recover it from the shallow water using an ethersuit as an improvised diving suit; it contains American newspapers, transcontinental shipping papers, financial documents, and 5 leaden bars. Apparently lead, but actually gold and worth £240.
The prisoners are: two English sailors (smugglers), two Greek hired thugs, and Nikolaos the shipping company agent from Greece. He is also a Russian operative and amateur antiquarian who accidently swapped his satchel for a British archeologist's note bag, and came to the museum to switch them back. Interrogating with threats and intimidation, the group learns that Nikolaos is a link in a chain stretching from America into Central Asia, sending the gold to an unknown destination. The source of the shipments is Trans-Siberian Enterprises, a Russian company still in the fur trade in Alaska.
James East, Lady Margaret and Col. Carter (with Nikolaos) take the Remora to Sitka, Alaska and spend some time trying to figure out the source of the gold. (They have some fun playing with the minds of the Johnson Mining Company officials). Their suspicions point toward Kodiak Island, although gold has never been found there. James East asks about some porcelain on a shelf in a general store: the previous store owner bought it from a trapper. East buys a cup and Carter's archeological expertise identifies it as 1200-year-old Chinese work! Apparently it has been underwater for some time.
The Remora follows a fur-trading ship around Kodiak Island as it picks up bundles from trapping outposts. Every few days, it stops in a south-coast cove and sends down a hardhat diver. The Remora returns to London to fetch the Manta (formerly "Pride of Minsk"), plus a periscope and crane. The cove is found to be the site of an ancient shipwreck; little is left but pottery, some metal fittings (East recovers the ship's bell), and a lot of gold nuggets. While the Remora distracts the Russian recovery ship, the rest of the gold is brought up by the crane. The total haul is 154 troy pounds of gold; after expenses, equal shares of £1468 are paid to East, Carter, Lady Margaret, Macavity and Challenger. But the Russian secret police won't forget about this.
***
Run eleven: December 2001
Dr. Macavity, Professor Challenger, and Col. Carter are at dinner in a fine London restaurant when a message arrives for Macavity: the Edinburgh offices of the Caledonian Research Trust had been ransacked during the night by someone apparently looking for scientific papers. Since all of his papers are in his laboratories, aboard the airship Mount Olympus and at his Scotland estate, the party flies north to look after his security. The household staff report no incursions, but Carter finds that a storage shed at the zeppelin mooring had been broken into and searched. (This is puzzling.) Meanwhile, Macavity rigs booby traps at the entrances to his laboratories, an alarm bell to the main hatch of the Mount Olympus , and a fireworks signal connected to the alarm bell.
The signal flare goes off around 2:00 in the morning and everyone heads for the zeppelin mooring. The airship hatch is open and the electric trap at the laboratory was activated; a body has been hastily dragged away. The trail is easily followed into the brush, where an exchange of gunfire nets two prisoners: an unconscious man with electrical burns and one with Col. Carter's bullet in his shoulder. Challenger and Macavity pursue two more men to a small liftwood flyer, just taking off. Challenger leaps, grabs the rope ladder, and climbs up; Macavity and Carter shoot to try to disable the flyer, damaging the propeller and boiler. Challenger is knocked off and falls (without injury), and the flyer gets away in the darkness. The conscious prisoner reveals that the raiders were after Macavity's new ether propeller which only has half the power consumption of normal ones (actually, that is Prof. Challenger's invention). They were hired by a man who awaited their return at a landing field near Edinburgh. The Mount Olympus made that appointment instead of the liftwood flyer, and the man indicated that he was hired by the Birmingham Manufacturing Trust. In return for his freedom and the remainder of his commission, he passed a hastily-drafted set of blueprints to his contact. The new plans were actually a variation of a Zeppelin ether propeller with a built-in Hertzian Wave transmitter, and the party started listening for a signal.
***
Run twelve: January 25, 2002
James East, Lady Margaret, and Tatsumi Itsuro (in the Remora) arrive on the scene. Hertzian Wave signals arrive from the "ether propeller", but triangulation doesn't produce a precise fix before the signals end with a Morse code message: "Nice try". The Mount Olympus stays a while longer to listen.
Then a very strong signal comes from the west. It stays on for minutes at a time, then off for several hours. The group follows this signal into the mountains of Wales, and finds a bizarre phenomenon - something like a pulsing whirlpool in midair, causing headaches and nausea to anyone who looks at it for very long. The source of the Hertzian Wave signal is a strange craft, cylindrical with long vanes protruding from the sides and sweeping backward. It seems to have crash-landed at considerable speed, skidding across the rocks.
The odd vehicle is the Space Patrol Ship Deneb, commanded by Major Aristarchis Locksley. He is happy to see rescuers because, for some reason, his Tele-screen won't transmit, the tri-borium crystal power plant has shut down, and the radium rockets overheat but produce no thrust. Worse, his prisoner (space pirate Reinhart "Blacky" Kroginold) escaped after the crash. The Deneb was en route to the Hall of Justice in Science City (capital of Eurasia) when "Blacky" Kroginold got loose from his manacles and tried to take over the ship. Spaceman Singh attacked him from behind and Kroginold's "Destructo Crystal Ray" fell and shattered; everyone's vision went weird, and the ship fell out of the sky with few of its system still working.
The rocketship apparently fell out of the aerial whirlpool; the whirlpool is shrinking and will close completely within three days. And for no obvious reason, the crew of the Deneb are feeling more and more ill, the longer they stay here. The Deneb is amazingly light for its size (Spaceman M'Butu mentioned something about "inerton"), so the Mount Olympus and Remora can lift it up to the whirlpool. But what about Kroginold?
Contacting the constable in a nearby (unpronounceable) Welsh town, the group learns that the local apothecary shop was robbed, and a stranger fitting Kroginold's description departed in the direction of the nearest town with a railway station. East, Lady Margaret, Itsuro and Maj. Locksley catch up to "Blacky" at the station, and he attacks with a clumsy device that projects explosive electrical blasts. The device seems to get hotter each time it is fired; curiously enough, Maj. Locksley's ray-revolver is doing the same. Kroginold seems to be immune to the effect of his own weapon; but then it suddenly overheats and explodes - he isn't immune to that blast! Maj. Locksley takes back his prisoner (who bears an uncanny resemblence to Dr. Macavity), and the Deneb is sent back through the dimensional wormhole. In gratitude, Maj. Locksley leaves the group a gift: a Power 2, Endurance 2 battery - a 10" cube, weighing just 25 pounds.
***
Run thirteen: March 30, 2002
Professor Challenger is visited by one Sir George FitzAllen, who "wishes to consult on a scientific matter" and has many questions about the London Times account of the mad Russian Tereshkov and his shrinking ray. Sir George eventually admits that he is from Scotland Yard, and the reason for his interest. An aerial shipyard near Liverpool was raided by night twice in the last month, and a small airship was stolen. Two nightwatchmen evidently found the thieves and died in a curious manner: shrunken to the size of dolls. Their clothing also shrank, but not metal objects such as coins and buttons. Challenger and Macavity got permission to examine the bodies, but learned little beyond finding traces of odd chemical compounds in the corpses.
A few days later, an advertisment in the Strand magazine announced the arrival of the "Sky Diamond" aerial liner. Once an ether liner, before it crashed and was sold as scrap, it was now a combination tour boat/flying casino hotel. It had cabins for 100 passengers and could accomodate as many more "day-trippers" in the casino, restaurant and observation decks. Being a luxurious way to see the world, it was full of the rich and famous. Putting two and two together, the group guessed that a bit of aerial piracy was afoot. James East, Col. Carter and Sgt. Jaeger booked passage on the "Sky Diamond" while Challenger and Macavity followed at a discreet distance in the Mount Olympus.
After flying up England and Scotland, the "Sky Diamond" headed out across the North Sea toward Norway. An airship approached and signaled that its owner (the Count of Monte Carlo) wished to visit the casino. Permission was given and it docked at the aft upper landing deck. At this point, some 30 armed men raced from the airship into the casino; the cashiers were the primary target, followed by the wallets and jewelry of the passengers. East, Carter and Jaeger attacked the pirate airship from a maintenence hatch below it, exchanging fire with gunners and capturing a 1" Gatling gun. Challenger and Macavity landed on top of the gasbag and got down into the gondola. They had knocked out the engineers and damaged the engines when the pirates returned with their booty! They escaped while the pirate airship cast off from the "Sky Diamond", and the other group shot holes in the gasbag.
Mount Olympus picked up Macavity and Challenger, and then East et al from the "Sky Diamond". The pirates got their engines working, but it was clear they were losing lift and would hit the water before they reached land. The Mount Olympus found a small Royal Navy force nearby and informed the commander of the situation; the pirates surrendered rather than drown in the North Sea.
***
Run Fourteen: June 1, 2002
A messenger finds James East at a club and delivers a note to report to the American embassy tomorrow on official business. A senior staffer tells him of orders to investigate reports of counterfeit dollars being passed in the south of England. The police are not involved: the counterfeit money was reported to them but no evidence was found when they checked. They dismissed the hardware shopkeeper (Harold Nebbish) as a hysteric and dropped the matter, but word got back to the US Treasury Department. The evidence seemed too thin to send an investigator from America, but fortunately East was already here...
Nebbish claims that he took what seemed to be US dollars, but all he later found in his cashbox was a handful of alder leaves. A stranger appeared at his shop at sunset. The man seemed foreign, tall and thin, in old fashion clothes; his face seemed odd, but Nebbish can’t recall exactly what he looked like. The fellow asked whether Nebbish was familiar with American money, and took out “dollars” when the shopkeeper said “yes”, to pay for copper and brass items (and an old all-wooden wheelbarrow) and to exchange for British coin. Other people will remember the odd stranger, who paid British money for food. No one knows where he came from or where he went. Everyone assumes he came and went by train, but one woman remembers that he seemed to shy away from the station gate (iron grillwork). The local constable refused to take Nebbish’s story seriously, accusing him of repeating old folk tales; the suggestion of counterfeiting came from an excitable stringer for a county weekly newspaper. A wheelbarrow track led north of town to a "chalk figure" cut into the hillside, traditionally called "The Traveler at the Door". Professor Challenger detected an intense but fading magnetic zone (in midair!) in the center of the chalk figure. Converstion with a farmer on the other side of the hill brought mention of a midnight aurora (to the south) on two recent nights.
Quiet discussion of printing (paper type and engraving quality and plate) is overheard in the pub. Those talking are from a small newspaper and print shop three towns west on the rail line. It seems a thin lead, but George Harper investigates. The newspaper squashed the stringer's counterfeiting story (much to his annoyance), and Harper recognizes some London rent-a-thugs keeping watch over the print shop. Late at night, the shop is manufacturing quantities of German, French, and other currencies for a criminal cabal. They are producing no British or American money, and have convinced themselves they are doing nothing wrong: after all, it’s just foreign money. A police raid catches this lot and gets the name of the London solicitor who is the middleman in the scheme.
***
Run Fifteen: August 3, 2002
At the Wiltshire chalk figure "The Traveler at the Door", Professor Challenger is setting up instruments to observe the curious magnetic anomoly, when he is interrupted by an old acquantaince: Col. Caruthers. It seems that Cavendish Caverns (under the Flow Area on the Moon) is the site of a joint military-academic-commercial project, both studying the Lunar life and environment, and experimenting with operations in airless gravity environments. Lunar Station Alpha on the surface has been out of contact with Cavendish Caverns for nearly a week. The specially-build "elevator" ethership is well overdue, and they didn't want to send down a standard ship because an ether propeller's high acceleration makes them dangerously hard to control in confined spaces. HM Government attempted to contact Dr. Cyrus Grant to obtain use of his propeller governor but received no reply. The Colonel hoped that Challenger could contact Grant, or had a propeller governor of his own, and the government was willing to pay for his assistance.
The party set out for the Moon in the Remora, with the Manta to follow. The "elevator" ship was found smashed at the bottom of the shaft, with all aboard dead. No signs of sabotage or accident (beyond the obvious) were found. The controls were set for lift; the ship's bumpers had been crushed against the sides of the shaft, and a piece twisted back to penetrate the ether drive; the ship then fell to the bottom. Exploring down the tunnels, the party found a transport "crawler" jammed against a wall. All aboard were dead, suffocated by carbon dioxide because no one replaced the spent "air scrubber". There were no signs of violence, and they had apparently all fallen suddenly unconscious; one man was in the middle of a sentence, writing an entry in the logbook. Comparing the logbooks indicated that the crawler crew fell unconscious at about the same time the "elevator" ship crashed. Traces of a strange chemical were detected in the cabin air. The same chemical were detected in the outside atmosphere, further down the tunnels. The whole party is wearing spacesuits, and using internal air sources.
The second crawler was found down in the Cavendish Caverns landing cave. Two men had fallen there while doing standard maintenence, apparently at the same time the crew of the first crawler lost consciousness. These were alive, in a state more resembling hibernation than normal sleep. Quick exploration found that all humans and Lunar animals were in the same state. Humans were transported up to the surface, as many as the Remora could take at a time. Records in the Caverns indicated that about 36 hours before the first crawler left to meet the "elevator" ship, a rumbling sound and stench had come out the deadend tunnels on the far side the Caverns. The chemical in the air is noted to be diminishing and Lunar animals are starting to stir as the last humans are evacuated.
Then, out of the deadend tunnels comes a queer sort of Lunar rat: 50% larger than normal, fast and aggressive, and glowing green like fungus. They quickly prove to also have acidic blood, like the juice of glow fungus, and a corrosive venom-bite. The glow-rats are dispatched before the spacesuits are badly damaged. More appear and are killed, later. The rats are coming from a cave full of glowing eggs; water erosion had collapsed a floor, opening this cave (which possibly appears to have been deliberately sealed). The cave had been filled with hibernation gas, which was slowing deteriorating toward harmlessness from contact with water. James East pumped out a quantity of the nearly-pure gas and dehydrated it for later study, before resealing the egg cave.
The party split £500 for the use of their ships, and each received an additional £100 fee (£20 per day for 5 days).
Thomas Carman
Tom_Carman at compuserve dot com
last updated 4/22/2003