The Greatest Works of Otis Adelbert Kline - 18 Books in One Edition. Otis Adelbert Kline
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waited a moment or two, but there was nothing more.
“Did you get it, Mr. Grandon?” asked Louis eagerly.
Grandon finished his Gibson and put a bill down on the bar. “Could be,” he said. “I have a pretty good imagination, you know. Think I’ll wait another half hour and see.”
He left the bar. Either this was or it wasn’t. If it was, then he might as well follow up now as wait another half hour. If it wasn’t, it didn’t make any difference; he couldn’t possibly pay any attention to the opera now, no matter who was singing.
He made his way to the phone booths in the lobby and looked around, oblivious to the feminine eyes that turned to glance at his broad shoulders and curly black hair. No one fitting the description he’d received was in sight. He waited a moment and began to feel foolish.
Just imagination, he decided a little sadly. Well, there was time for a cigarette before he had to get back to his seat. He was reaching for his case when a pleasant voice at his right said, “Try one of mine, won’t you?”
Grandon turned and looked into the smiling eyes of a man about his own age. A man wearing a tuxedo with a green lapel pin. He accepted with thanks.
“Excellent performance, don’t you think?” volunteered the smiling one, lighting a cigarette himself which he had, unnoticed by Grandon in his confusion, taken from the side of the case opposite the one which he had extended a moment before.
“I suppose so—ah—why, yes, of course…”
Grandon was beginning to feel unaccountably drowsy.
Suddenly he slumped forward, and would have fallen on his face, but for the quick assistance of the friendly young man. A moment later he lost consciousness.
An attendant came running up. “What’s the matter with your friend?” he asked.
“Fainted dead away. It’s his heart; he’s had spells like this quite often lately. Help me get him outdoors.”
The two of them carried Grandon outside, followed by the more curious bystanders. When he reached the sidewalk, the young man waved to the driver of a car parked on the other side of the street. It immediately swung across and drew up to the curb.
“Let’s put him in the car,” said the young roan. “I’m used to this —a spin on Michigan Boulevard will revive him. Just needs fresh air. His doctor has told me how to handle him.”
They lifted Grandon into the car and the driver put the top down. The young man handed a crisp bill to the attendant and got into the car, which drove away.
Chapter 2
When Grandon regained consciousness he was lying on a cot in a dimly lighted room. He looked about him in bewilderment as he saw four bare concrete walls, a heavy oak door studded with many large bolts, and a small window fitted with powerful iron bars more than an inch in diameter.
There was a chair and a small table with a lamp on it next to the cot. On the table, Grandon saw a sheet of paper. He rolled over and picked it up, switching on the lamp.
“Dear Mr. Grandon,” he read, “I must admit and apologize for technically kidnapping you; but I hope to be able to persuade you shortly that this was both necessary and to your advantage. Now I must ask you to be patient for a little while; I shall see you soon. The drug you were given should be wearing off by evening—you were kidnapped last night—and I can assure you that it will have no harmful after-effects, physical or mental.” The paper was signed, “Dr. Morgan.”
Grandon arose and tottered unsteadily toward the door. It was evidently locked from the outside, for he could not rattle it. He went to the window and peered out. Night had fallen, and a myriad of twinkling stars looked down at him from a clear sky. Not a tree, house, or earthly object of any kind was visible. There was only the starry sky above and the black void below.
He heard the sound of talking, and wheeled about as a bolt slid back and the door opened. Two men entered. The foremost was tall and of large structure; his forehead was high and bulged outward, so that his shaggy eyebrows, which grew together above the bridge of his aquiline nose, half-concealed his eyes. He wore a painted, closely-cropped beard, in which a few gray hairs proclaimed him as middle-aged. Behind him was the young man who had given him the drugged cigarette in the lobby of the opera house.
The young man advanced and extended his hand. “How are you feeling now, Mr. Grandon?” he asked. “Ah, you seem surprised that we know your name. That will be explained to you. I should have introduced myself sooner. My name is Harry Thorne. Allow me to present Doctor Morgan.”
The big man held out his hand and said in a booming bass voice, “This is a pleasure I have long anticipated, Mr. Grandon.”
It was nothing like the voice he had heard in his mind, and yet it was the same voice. Grandon realized that at once; and his curiosity, added to the feeling of confidence in these men’s intentions toward him that the note had imparted, washed away any resentment he might feel at their methods. He clasped the doctor’s muscular hand and muttered an acknowledgment.
“And now,” said Morgan, “if you will accompany us to dinner, we shall start the explanation due you. Afterwards, I shall ask you to read two interesting manuscripts before we talk further; they will tell you far more, and prepare you far better, for the experiment I have in mind than a lecture from me.”
In Dr. Morgan’s drawing room, where night had given way to day while Robert Ellsmore Grandon read two novel-length manuscripts, Dr. Morgan— who had entered just as Grandon was finishing the last chapter of the second box of neatly-typed pages—smiled at his guest quizzically. “What do you think of them?” he asked.
Grandon shook his head. “If I hadn’t had the experience of the past day or so, I’d think they were just good stories and nothing more. Even so, they sound fantastic:
“They are,” Morgan agreed. “But nonetheless true. To summarize briefly, I started experimenting with telepathy ten years ago, and finally succeeded in building a device which would pick up and amplify thought waves.”
“And thought waves, you found,” said Grandon, “are not limited by space or time. So you picked up the waves projected by another man who had built a similar device to project them—only this man was on Mars.”
“But not the present-day Mars—the Mars of some millions of years ago, when a high human civilization did exist there.”
“And you and this Martian scientist, Lal Vak, found that persons who are nearly doubles in physical appearance may have similar brain-patterns— enough alike so that consciousness may be exchanged between them. Your first experiment involved such an exchange between an Earthman named Harry Thorne and a Martian named Borgen Takkor. The man you now call Harry Thorne was born on Mars as Borgen Takkor, while the true Harry Thorne is now living on Mars —and leading a most adventurous and satisfying career from the account I just read.”
Dr. Morgan nodded. “He and his princess have had many adventures together beyond those related in the first manuscript. To us, of course, both have been dead millions of years. But it is possible for me to tune in on their lives at any point where Harry was transmitting to me. He has never regretted his choice.”
“Then”, went on Grandon, “you got in touch with a Venusian named Vorn Vangal, who is a contemporary of Lal Vak and Borgen Takkor. With his help you constructed a space-time vehicle through which your nephew, Jerry Morgan, was able to go to Mars in the flesh. And he, too, made out pretty well.”
Morgan nodded. “Yes. I sent Jerry to Mars that way, and hoped that I’d be able to send someone to Venus the same way. But my telekinetic control failed in some way on the return trip, and I never recovered the ship I built for Jerry. Vorn Vangal said he would build one on Venus and send it to Earth for me,