Another day wore on with no word or sign. Still another day. Now it was a week. What had happened out there on that strange world? Was the mission of the two indomitable German chemists to be favored with success? Was this to be the end of . . .?
Crash! . . .This time the projectile landed on the east shore of the Rhine near Mulheim. Clic! . . . The panel slid open! Out tumbled the limp bodies of the unfortunate scientists! . . . Whizz . . . The empty shell was gone as suddenly as it had appeared.
Smash! . . . At almost the same instant an explosive missle came down in the German Black Forest, and laid waste a vast area. There were no casualties, but the destruction was nevertheless terrifying to behold.
WELL, this old earth is up against it now for sure!" Morosely Ray Fletcher scanned the morning paper with its graphic telephoto reproductions of the latest atrocities. "We send them what they want . . . and look at the result!"
Hale glanced up from his close perusal of the dramatic news accounts. He stroked his chin meditatively. "I've been giving this matter a lot of thought, Ray. And who hasn't? A certain idea has been developing in my mind, and it's getting to have more and more of a definite shape, the longer I mull over it. If there is anything to my notion, then it may go a long way to explain this entire string of strange happenings since that first shell slithered into the ocean a number of weeks ago.
"What's your idea, Cliff! . . . let's have it!" Fletcher was all attention.
"To start with, Ray," began Hale, "there's no question but that those projectiles come from some inhabited planet or other heavenly body out in space."
"Everybody will agree to that."
"And this race of beings, whatever they are, must be advanced to a state of scientific development which is far superior to our own. With their automatically operated space vehicles, their terrifically powerful explosives, their long-distance command of our earth languages, they certainly must be of the highest degree of intelligence."
"And," broke in Fletcher," "the uncanny way they have of dispatching their shell right to the spot that they're aiming at—and how about the automatic return voyage? They're a slick race, they are!"
"Hold on a minute, Ray—there's just the point I'm driving at—the aiming of those shells. Did you ever stop to consider whether they're really aiming at any given places in their shots—or are they just firing at random?"
"Well, Cliff, I wouldn't call it actually shooting at random. Look at how neatly they drop that same old message of theirs, worded in just the right language for each particular country—America, France, England, Germany. If that isn't good aim, then I'd like to know what is."
"You're right, Ray, as far as that goes, but I think there's more to it than that. It's my idea that their aim isn't as good as it might be as they themselves would like to have it. I believe there's a whole lot more tied up with this aiming propostion than you would suspect off-hand. Let's go over it from the very start:
"The first projectile that we have any record of fell into the ocean about fifty miles from New York. We'll call that one the very first shell, although we can't be definitely sure that there were no others that dropped into the sea unknown to anybody. The next one came down a little closer to land—off Coney Island. After that followed the Jersey projectile, with its message. At least three shots—and only one effective. Wouldn't that show poor aim?"
"Not entirely Cliff. Maybe you could do better shooting at a fly on a barn door at a range of ten miles, eh? Anyway, how do you know just what they were trying to hit? Maybe the first few shots were only meant to be warnings—to get people interested and wondering—to sort of pave the way for the real one."
"That's possible, but it doesn't seem likely when you consider the rest of the story. The next shell dropped by the Adirondacks, hundreds of miles from where the others fell. My notion is that if their aim was all that it should have been, they would have had the explosive shell land in or near New York, and done some real damage—thank heaven that it did not!"
"Then the scene changes to France. The first shell falls some distance from Paris. The murdered prisoners are returned miles away to the east. In retalliation, an explosive shell drops into the Channel without doing any damage. Another comes down and wrecks a village on the coast. It seems highly probable that they're aiming for Paris, but that their shooting is erratic.
"The same situation is evident in the English and German shells. I can't believe that these shots were deliberately scattered and therefore wasted as some of them undoubtedly have been. It's more reasonable to assume that the mysterious people from space, although they possess a terriby potent weapon in this automatic vehicle, haven't quite got the thing down to perfection yet. It looks to me very much as though it gets beyond their control at times. That assumption would certainly explain the way these shells have been dropping all over the map."
Fletcher was buried in thought for a few moments. "Well, all right, Cliff. Suppose that those birds up there are having trouble with their aim, then where does that get us?
"My guess is, that their demand for terrestrial chemists is in some way tied up with their balky mechanism. Probably the operation of their projectiles depends on some chemical reaction or phenomenon which they haven’t yet learned to control adequately. Maybe they have an idea that they could draft or kidnap some of our own scientific skill to lend them a hand in solving their problem."
"I see . . . and they're sore at us for not letting them have what they want," added Fletcher, "so they can give us a sample of what they are capable of doing in the way of revenge? . . . Mm-m! . . . There may be something to it. But wait, Cliff! . . . Didn't those two German chemists go up as per instructions, and you know what happened to them How would you explain that, eh?”
"I won't even try," laughed Hale. Remember that I'm only venturing a guess as to the meaning of this entire puzzle. I may be all wrong about it."
A lapse of silence, in which both young men remained buried in thought.
"If only we had something definite to work on," remarked Fletcher. "If only our scientists could get into that shell, take it apart and see what makes it work, maybe we'd learn all about it. Maybe we could even
