"I have examined the brains of all of you," he announced at length, "and I find hopeless contradictions. Each of you believes thoroughly in his own social order. Both tell me of hopeless misery on the part of a large portion of his people. Both tell of horrible wars and suffering beyond my comprehension. The thoughts of all of you teem with modes of bringing death to your fellow beings. Your entire science his been perverted to the ends of destruction. Nothing of the sort can be realized by the Selom where truth, justice and mercy prevail. Each of you holds that his form of government is better than the other, and will cause less suffering and misery than the others'.

None of you hold out hope of happiness for your fellow beings. I do not know which system is less obnoxious. My decision is made. The Selom will not interfere in the affairs of the upper-earth. You may fight out your battles without aid and without interference.

"I will operate on both Ivan Saranoff and Dr. Bird. I will remove from their minds all knowledge of our science and instruments and leave them in the same condition that they were when they entered my realms.

Each of you will then be returned to upper-earth, Ivan Saranoff to Russia, Dr. Bird and Mr. Carnes to the United States. The pilots, whom I hold prisoners, will have their mentalities restored and be returned to their homes. The planes we have captured, I will send off into time so that they can never be used for the misery of upper-earth men again. Jumor, you will carry out these orders."

"I wish I could remember how that time machine was built and operated," said Dr. Bird reflectively, as he sat in his private laboratory in the Bureau of Standards some time later, "but Jumor did his work well. I can't even remember what the thing looked like."

"Well, Doctor, our trip below wasn't a loss. We removed a very real menace to the established order of things and we have got rid of Saranoff temporarily. It will take him some time to return here from Russia."

"Three weeks or less," said Dr. Bird pessimistically. "However, we have gained one other thing. Did you notice this?"

He pulled what looked like a watch from his pocket. Carnes regarded it with a puzzled expression.

"No, Doctor, what is it?"

"It is a very small camera which takes pictures one-half inch by seven-eighths. I had several opportunities to use it. I wasn't sure that it would work on such short waves, but it did. When Saranoff tries to return to this country, he will find that every immigration inspector and every member of the border patrol has an excellent likeness of him. That may hinder his entrance into the country for a little while."

A CLa.s.sIFICATION OF THE UNIVERSE

A cla.s.sification of everything in the universe, from the smallest thing yet measured, the electron, less than a millionth of a millionth of an inch in extent, to the biggest, a star system of a thousand million trillion miles, was described recently by Prof. Harlow Shapley of Harvard in a lecture at the commerce center of the College of the City of New York.

Looking forward to a time when man will be able to measure even smaller things than the electron and larger than the greatest star system, Prof. Shapley explained that he had left the cla.s.sification "open at both ends."

Man, Prof. Shapley said, occupies a very small place in all this system, although, beside an electron or an atom, he is not so negligible, at that.

"The survey," it was explained, "aims toward giving perspective. It gives a sane and modest view of man's place in the scheme.

"The significance of the cla.s.sification lies in the skeleton which is afforded all science to bring some measure of order out of the world's present chaotic knowledge of the systems of various kinds.

"All systems find a place in this synthesis--atoms, comets and galaxies; man, radiation and the s.p.a.ce-time complex. When looked at in this objective way, human beings, and all a.s.sociated terrestrial organisms, appear only parenthetically in one of the subdivisions of the cla.s.s of colloidal aggregates."

Prof. Shapley discussed the concept of the cosmoplasma.

"This," it was explained, "is at once the most mysterious and fundamental part of the universe, and only recently has come under direct experimental study. In brief, it is the substratum of materials throughout the universe, between planets, stars and the galaxies.

"It has no obvious systematic organization. Hence it includes such diverse const.i.tuents as the high speed shooting stars, interstellar calcium gas and radiation itself.

"Though no one has even seen an electron, the smallest thing included in the cla.s.sification, they have been proved to exist in several ways.

They give forth flashes of light that can be photographed. They have caused the bending of X-rays as they pa.s.s through a substance."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Readers' Corner

_A Meeting Place for Readers of_ Astounding Stories]

_Likes the "Corner"_

Dear Editor:

This month's issue, May, has the best collection of letters you've ever published. All it lacked was a letter from Bernard J. Kenton, that master of epistles and super-science stories. One of your Readers would like to have "The Readers' Corner" omitted. For heaven's sake, don't take it out! I recognize it as one of the best features of our mag, and whenever I open the covers, turn to it directly after having glimpsed the table of contents and the announcement of the stories to appear in the forthcoming issue.

Mr. Joseph R. Barnes--whose letter I enjoyed immensely, incidentally--will be interested in knowing that "The Mascot Deep" is already in book form and that "The Disintegration Machine" and "When the World Screamed," all by the same author, are under the same covers. He also will be interested in learning that Ray c.u.mmings' fine story, "Sea Girl," is also between hard covers.

The idea of putting out a quarterly is a dandy. The other science fiction quarterlies are mere text-books; there are, occasionally, of course, a few exceptions. The thought of the sort of fantastic action stories Astounding Stories publishes, put together in a magazine doubly thick, is a pleasing one to contemplate. Reading a story the length of "Brigands of the Moon" and of such literary merit, complete in one issue, is a thrill to be looked forward to. By all means put out such a magazine and have stories by Jack Williamson, R. F. Starzl and Edmond Hamilton, three of your best writers, in the first issue.

I'm glad to see that Starzl is coming back with the next issue. More from him, please. And Hamilton and Williamson should appear more frequently, too.

A question, Mr. c.u.mmings: Shades of Polter and Tugh!--why must you always have a deformed character in your stories?

Do they appeal to your dramatic sense?

The news that we're going to have a story from Francis Flagg brings raptures of delight to my homely face. If it's a dimensional story, I'll cheer twice. When it comes to writing that kind of a story, Flagg's the king of them all.

For sheer interested and originality, he's got his contemporaries in that field outdistanced with a distance that can only be counted by light-years.

A pat on the back for Booth Cody and Sears Langwell, two staunch supporters.

All our magazine needs is a story about time crusaders, or a planet of mechanical men.

Omitting the authors already mentioned, I considered my favorites to be Rousseau, Eshbach, Diffin, Ernst, and Hal K.

Wells.

The best story you ever published? Who am I to answer? Why not put it up to the Readers for popular vote?--Jerome Siegel, 10522 Kimberley Ave., Cleveland, Ohio.

_Explanation Wanted_

Dear Editor:

This is my first letter to you, but I am a consistent Reader of Astounding Stories, and look forward to all of the coming issues. I have in mind a question, a friendly one, not one that I expect to or hope will seem to be trying to dampen any theories. This rocket-ship propulsion: as I understand it, there is a void between all planets, etc. If this is the case, how then can a rocket-propelled s.p.a.ce ship go across this void? Since the exhaust of the rockets must rely on some material of a sort, or rather some sort of resistance to push the ship along, how does it push on nothing? Of course, near Earth it has the ground and then the atmosphere to push from, but out in the void, why not cut off and save fuel, therefore saving an extra heavy load of explosives, if rocket-ships were really practical in s.p.a.ce flying? Yours for a thicker Astounding Stories--H. M. Crowson, Jr., Sumter, S. C.

_Better Than Love Stories_

Dear Editor:

I have started to read the Astounding Stories and enjoy it very much, although I do not find very many girls writing in to the "Corner." This mag is a thousand times better than all those love story magazines, and besides these stories are educational.

I would rather read Astounding Stories than eat. They are not too scientific to be boresome, but they are just good enough to be real interesting.

I wish you would publish some more stories like "The Lake of Light," "Dark Moon," etc. I especially like stories of the future and interplanetary novels.

Anyone wishing to correspond with me will be welcome, as I love to write letters, and especially to anyone interested in the same things that I am.--(Miss) Bernice Goldberg, 147 Crescent Drive, Mason City, Iowa.