Air Wonder Stories, August 1929 — page 79: what you’re looking at

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

hae 4 6 Rr Nt rr rk ety , sil ®. 2 Tee 4 ee eee a 6} wires around the table, for not an inch of wiring could seen. Then Riel was right, he thought, this must be the work room of a clever scientist, who was using. this electrical equipment to control the world with. A sound from the direction of the switchboard attracted his attention, and looking in that direction he noticed, for the first time, a man kneeling at the base of the center panel. His hair was white and long, but his slightly wrinkled face was clean shaven. His bent shoulders indicated that the work of continually bend- ing over instruments and drawings was beginning: to tell on him. A small black-skull-cap covered the top of his head and a cord running down from it was con- nected to the panel. He was apparently busy testing something out for he had not as yet, noticed: Wallace. “This must be the wizard,” thought Frank, as he silently watched his captor. “As far as J can see from a side view he doesn’t seem to be the devil that I ex- pected to meet, but you can’t always tell a man by his looks.” His thoughts were interrupted by the other rising and removing his cap. “You are-right,” he spoke, turning and advancing toward his visitor with a quiet but baffling smile, “you can’t tell a man by his looks. My advice is to make sure of him by testing hiny out.” Wallace’s mouth opened in amazement as his host continued: “You seem surprised, Mr. Wallace, that I can read your thoughts. I, in turn, am surprised that a simple demonstration of mental telepathy should so astonish you.” “Mental telepathy? Such a thing isimpossible. You re doubt knew what was on my mind by reading my ace.” “Then you don’t believe it is possible to read an- other man’s thoughts.” : “Of course not. It has been tried often, but has never been done and never will. Such a thing is impossible.” “Tn a few minutes I will endeavor to change your mind on the subject. But first allow me to introduce myself as J, B. Jolsen. You may as well make your- self comfortable, for your visit will likely be a long one. You may also take off your disguise, for I am sure that you will be more comfortable without it, It was very clever of Riel to substitute yot in his place, and also very careless of me not to have noticed my mis- take before I brought you here. But any way, I may find a use for you later on. But to return to the sub- . ject of mental telepathy. You are like the average man, you must see a thing done or else you brand it as impossible.” The Wizard’s Power HE wizard seemed to be in his favorite role when lecturing on science, and Frank was willing to hear him. “1 have worked a long time on the theory that the human brain radiates vibrations or waves which, by, using a suitable system, could be detected.” “You mean you can turn a man’s thoughts info speech,” gasped Wallace. “Exactly, and while working on a ray by which I could collect and carry the thought waves to my ampli- fying and transforming device, I accidentally found a way to improve the vision ray that I am now using, greatly increasing its range. Having developed the vision ray, I-used it in my further experiments to pro- duce the telepathy ray. And it is well that I did, for THE PLANET'S AIR MASTER 173 after producing a high Ereauency wave that would carry along the vision ray, I knew that I had dis- covered it.” His prisoner was silent, he could see the logic of the man’s words. He knew tow what Riel meant by an- other power. He recollected how it was used on them to reveal the hiding place of the papers during the rob- bery of the liner which he and Riel were taking to London, also the reason why he and the pilot had been so willing to bring the ship down on the last trip. The wizard was indeed entitled to the name of Master of the Earth.” “For two persons to exchange thoughts,” his host con- ftaued, “it is necessary that their brains be of like character, for the human: brain is similar to the wire- less instruments. When one wireless set. sends a message into space, the set that receives the message must be adjusted to a wave length; that is, the circuit that receives the message must be adjusted so that it will be most sensitive to the frequency of the waves that are carrying the message, The human brain works on the same principle in respect to telepathy. Two persons having brains whose characteristics are sim- ilar, will be more successful at- mental telepathy than others.. But mental telepathy will never be a success because the thought waves that a man tries to receive from another are so feeble that his own thoughts drown them out, and it is almost impossible to free the brain from one’s own thoughts sufficiently to make it sensitive enough to receive the’ thought waves of an- other. So you can easily see that there is but one thing to do and that-is to build-up the thought waves until they are strong enough to be detected by the other brain. In fact, if you build them up stron; enough and pass them through another man’s ead, they will take possession and control of his brain by being more powerful than his own thoughts.” “You mean that you can force one man to think the thoughts of another?” “Exactly, I will prove it,” As he spoke, the wizard turned to the electrically equipped bench. and commenced to adjust a number of controls on some of the panels mounted on the wall, while Wallace watched him wondering what was about to happen next. But in a moment he forgot about the present, he thought about the events of the trip from London, He remembered the trip through the endless banks of clouds and he wondered if after all it wasn’t better to leave the beam and ttavel below the clouds in such cases. _ His thoughts were interrupted by the scientist say- ing: “Well, is that proof. enough?’ “I wasn’t noticing you,” admitted the other, “I was thinking of—” “You were thinking the same thoughts that occupied your mind before you brought the liner down yester- day. Or, I might say, the thoughts that I put. into your head to make you bring it down, I used again, Just now, to prove my power over the rest of mankind. “I can tread any man’s thoughts and learn all his secrets. I can put his thoughts into another man’s brain and not only cause one man to talk another’s thoughts, but as the brain controls the body I can make him do what I wish: I can make him hate, love, steal, murder or whatever I wish him to do. By con- trol of man’s brain I am master of this planet. All men are my servants.” Frank was utterly dumbfounded. But gradually the comicbooks _—T 8 aa) ae ee