Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition), April 1944 — page 42: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

40 stein that evidently had been hastily aban- doned. “Questioning among townsmen,” the offi- cer went on, “elicited the information that a strange, zeppelin-like machine had been seen at night in the vicinity of the aban- doned shaft.” “Good Heaven!” Hoskins was scarcely aware that he had uttered the exclamation. He realized after a blank moment that he had been listening to the general with a vague impatience, and anxiety to have an end of words and to get actively on with the search. And now— It was all done. The search was over; or almost over. All preliminaries were success- fully concluded. “Sir,” he said warmly, “you are a remarkable man.” ; “Let me finish,” the officer smiled broadly. “I’m not through yet.” He went on in a precise tone: “We have received altogether three—out of thousands —letters that are unmistakably genuine and relevant. The third, and most important, from a Frau Kreigmeier, wife of the man who has been Nazi party leader in Latzky for three years, arrived last night when I had already received word that you were on your way. ‘““Gentlemen”—his voice was quiet but confident—“by the end of the week you will have all the information that is still available on this continent. “Naturally,” he finished, and his careful phrasing of his promise had already brought the first shock to Hoskins, “the Nazis will have made every effort to insure that nothing vital is available. Nevertheless—” By noon of October 4th they had the bodies. Seven older men, nine women, two girls and twelve youths lay side by side on the cold ground. Silently, they were loaded onto a line of hearses, and started on the journey to the coast from whence they would be shipped to America for more fitting burial. After the hearses had disappeared down the road, Hoskins stood with the others in the little clump of bushes where they had been led by the plump husband of Frau Kreigmeier. A cold north wind was blowing, and the men in the armored cars that had escorted them were beating their hands together for warmth. In spite of the cold, Hoskins noted fero- ciously, Herr Kreigmeier was sweating profusely. “If ever a man deserved the Shaposhenko punishment—” he thought. ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION But they had promised; the posters had promised—money, safe removal to any second-degree United Nations Mandate, and unlimited police protection. The general came up: “The shovel men will finish up here,” he said. “Let’s go. I crave the warmth of a hotel room. You can mull over the successes and’—he looked quickly at Hoskins—“‘the failures.” There wasn’t much. Silently, Hoskins sat in his chair before a roaring grate fire, and reread the translation of the single note they had resurrected: Movement of anything requires a reverse movement, a cancellation, a balancing. A body moving between two points in space uses energy, which is another word for—reverse movement. The science of reverse movement involves in its greatest functions a relationship between the microcosmos and the macrocosmos, be- tween the infinitely small and the infinitely large. When a balance is established between two forces of the macrocosmos, one loses what the other gains. Engines puff uoisily, organic creatures laboriously perform their duties. Life seems infinitely hard. However, when a_ reverse movement is created in the microcosmos for a movement occurring in the macrocosmos, then the ultimate in energy relations is obtained. There is also a complete balancing result; the law that move- ment is equal to reverse movement holds as rigidly as before— “T’d hate,” said Hoskins wearily, “to ask any patent office to grant a patent on that. I’m afraid we’ve reached the end of the engine trail; and that means my hope for quick action that would rescue Pendrake and his wife is gone. The rest of this stuff” —he flicked the typewritten sheets—‘con- sists of notes on elementary radium re- actions. There’s a big gap somewhere, and I guess it’s the hole in the empty sack we’re holding.” He looked up. Hohnstein, Saxony, center?” . “Nothing,” said Cree Lipton. “It was obviously only one of their ports of call for spaceships, hastily evacuated during our search. They’ve got their main equipment, all their secrets, on Mars or Venus—” Hoskins cut in: “The Moon! Make no mistake about it. Mars and Venus are too far away even at their closest. And besides, they wouldn’t dare let their young men and women see the kind of planet that Venus must be if you can believe the report of what the Lambton Land Project promised its settlers. It’s blood and iron the leaders who escaped the Shaposhenko punishment have in mind for their Herrenvolk, and so comiclooks “Anything new from the other murder (©