THE PRIME PRESS Box 2019—Philadelphia 3, Pa. MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES Dedication : To James Clerk Maxwell, whose Electromagnetic Equations founded the art of electronics and thus made Venus Equilateral possible.... And to my son, George O. Smith (Jg), who may some day work there....

Sometimes it's a little hard to get people to realize that not only has the world changed in the past, but that it is changing now, and will change in the future. In fact, it takes something on the order of an atomic bomb to blast them out of their congenital complacency. And it took the literally shocking violence of the atomic bomb to make the general public understand the fact that science-fiction is not "pseudo-science" (that's what you find in Sunday Supplements—fiction, pretending to be sc

Maintaining Communications through the worst of interference was a type of problem in which dire necessity demanded a solution. Often there are other problems of less demanding nature. These are sometimes called "projects" because they may be desirable but are not born of dire necessity. Barring interference, the problem of keeping communication with another planet across a hundred million miles of interplanetary space is partially solved by the fact that you can see your target! Keeping the cro

When necessity dictates a course of action and the course of action proves valuable, it is but a short step to the inclusion of the answer into the many facets of modern technical civilization. Thus it was that not many months after Venus Equilateral successfully established planet-to-ship communications with the "Empress of Kolain" that all course constants were delivered to the relay station and thereafter messages were transmitted as a part of the regular business of Interplanetary Communicat

Once the threat of piracy was over, Don Channing had an opportunity to think once more of the much-talked-about tube that had been found on the Martian Desert by Carroll and Baler. Predicated as a general rule, any medium used for the transmission of energy can be used as a means to transmit messages—intelligence, to use the more technical term. The reverse is not true, practically. And since Don Channing's initial problem during these days was to devise means of two-way communication from ship

Six thousand years ago, Sargon of Akkad held court on the plains of Assyria by torchlight. Above his head there shone the myriad of stars, placed there to increase his power and glory. But on one of the stars above called Mars, there were people who knew a mighty civilization and a vast world of science. They flew above the thin air of Mars and they hurled power by energy beam across the face of the planet. Then they—died. They died, and they left but broken fragments of their once-mighty civili

Baffled and beaten, Mark Kingman returned to Terran Electric empty handed. He hated science and the men who revelled in it, though he was not above using science—and the men who revelled in it—to further his own unscientific existence. The poetic justice that piled blow upon blow on his unprotected head was lost on Mark Kingman and he swore eternal vengeance. With a say in the operations at Terran Electric, Kingman directed that the engineers and scientists work furiously to discover something a

When the final problem of communicating with a ship in space was solved, the laboratories on Venus Equilateral returned to their original trends. These lines of research and study were wide and varied. Men dabbled brilliantly with insane, complex gadgets that measured the work-functions of metals in electron emission and they made conclusive measurements on the electrical conductivity under extremes of heat and cold. From the uranium pile that powered Venus Equilateral there came metals that had

Not all inventions and discoveries need be deadly. Yet if the matter is considered deeply enough, inventions and discoveries are, in a sense, deadly to something. The automobile sounded the knell of the blacksmith. Gutenberg stopped the widespread trade of the official scribes, who spent their working day writing books by hand. It is also quite safe to assume that inventors themselves seldom realize the effect their contributions will have upon the future. Did the Wright brothers ever stand upon

Don Channing turned from the court and made his way through the room to the hallway. In his hand he bore one of the judge's watch-replicas. In his mind he had the world by the tail. He was going to leave the court, make his way to Venus Equilateral and launch a new era. He didn't know that he had launched one already. "A lot has been written about mankind starving amid plenty. But never before was a civilization confronted with the prospect of luxury amid bankruptcy—" Keg Johnson was the executi

An era of absolutely no want may give rise to concern about the ambitions of the race. Those who may wonder why the Period of Duplication did not weed all ambition out and leave the race decadent are missing one vital point. They should ask themselves to consider the many reasons why men work, Keg Johnson himself can supply one line of reasoning—as follows: Why do men work? Men often work because they must work in order to live. Then why do many men work hard, at long hours when there are easier

"Yeah," drawled Wes Farrell, "but what makes it vibrate?" Don Channing looked down at the crystal. "Where did you get it?" he asked. Walt Franks chuckled. "I bet you've been making synthetic elements again with the heterodyned duplicator." Farrell nodded. "I've found a new series sort of like the iron-nickel-cobalt group." Channing shook his head. There was a huge permanent magnet that poured a couple of million gauss across its gap, and in this magnetic field Farrell had the crystal supported.