The Moon Maker

When the world-war was at its height, wireless messages signed with the name "Pax" had been received at the Naval Observatory at Washington, in which the sender declared himself capable of controlling the forces of nature. These mysterious messages were followed by the occurrence of extraordinary natural phenomena such as violent seismic shocks and an unprecedented display of the aurora borealis. Coincidently, there appeared in the heavens a terrible air-craft, the Flying Ring, which, by means of a powerful lavender ray, disrupted the mountains in northern Africa and flooded the Desert of Sahara. The warring nations were informed that if they did not conclude a permanent peace, Pax would shift the axis of the earth and compel the termination of hostilities by turning central Europe into an arctic waste. The nations, convinced at last that, unless they acceded to his demands, human life upon the globe would come to an end, entered into negotiations for peace. At about the same time, Professor Benjamin Hooker, attached to the Department of Applied Physics at Harvard University, determined, by independent research, that the mysterious force had its origin in the wilds of Labrador, and resolved to go there himself to see what he could find out about Pax and his schemes. After much hardship, he discovered the location of the Ring, arriving there at the moment when Pax was about to carry out his threat to deflect the axis of the globe; but, owing to an accident to the machinery generating the lavender ray, an explosion occurred in which Pax and his associates were destroyed. The Flying Ring, however, remained intact, and Hooker, with his friend, the famous aviator Burke, succeeded in mastering its mechanism and starting in it for the United States.

PART I

THE WANDERING ASTEROID

I

"Now," said Bentham T. Tassifer, with an air of defiance, "we'll see!" He was a bandy-legged little man, whose abdominal structure suggested a concealed melon.

Red-faced and perspiring, he arose from where he had been teeing up his ball for the fifth hole, flourished his driver aggressively, and, adjusting his knobby calves at a carefully calculated angle, went through a variety of extraordinary contortions with his wrists and forearms. Outwardly, he was the personification of pugnacious assurance. He had every appearance of being absolutely certain of his ability to swat that small white sphere to a distance of not less than three hundred yards and plumb onto the next green. Inwardly, however, Bentham had no confidence in himself at all. He knew that the chances were just nineteen out of twenty that he would slice into the bushes at about sixty yards and lose a brand new "baby bramble." But, as befitted a deputy assistant solicitor at the Department of Justice, he allowed no hint of nervousness to betray itself, looked sternly at Judson, his lank opponent, and remarked again, "Now we'll see!"

Nobody but Mrs. Tassifer knew what a sucking dove Bentham really was in his inmost soul. The world at large regarded him as a rather terrible squatty person who had a chip on each shoulder, for he made almost as much noise insisting on his rights as a native Briton. In point of fact, he thought he looked like Stephen A. Douglas or, in lieu of that, like Robert G. Ingersoll possibly. But that was all on the exterior. And now, as he addressed the ball, he kept inwardly repeating to himself: "Eye on the ball--head steady--follow through. Eye on the ball--head steady--follow through." Then, summoning all his resources, he swung his driver over his shoulder and was about to bring it down with the impetus of a Travis, when he thought he saw a black gnat dancing in front of his eyes.

"Tush!" he exclaimed, waving with his left hand. "These flies!"

"Aren't any flies," retorted his friend Judson, from the Department of Agriculture, "in October."

"Well, I thought there was," said Bentham, dressing at the ball once more. "There it is again!" he added, suddenly striking at something. Then he fastened his eyes on the horizon. "You're right! It isn't here--it's there! See it?" And he pointed out into the blue of space with his driver.