The Universe Wreckers by Edmond Hamilton

Book Details

The Universe Wreckers – A serial novel by Edmond Hamilton about the attempt by the beings of Neptune to explode the Sun into a double star which would destroy all of the inner planets of the Solar System. Men of Earth must fight to save the Earth from utter immolation.

Spaceships are developed and outfitted and a scouting party is sent to Neptune to determine the cause of the disturbances to the Sun. And there the party discovers the horrible truth – the Sun was being deliberately manipulated to benefit the beings of Neptune at the expense of every other planet of the Solar System. Captured, they must fight their way out and back to earth, in hopes that they can mount a force to save the Earth.

The Universe Wreckers (1930)
A Serial in Three Parts — Part I
Chapter I – A Warning of Doom
Chapter II – To Neptune!
Chapter III – The Space-Flier Starts
Chapter IV – Through Planetary Perils
Chapter V – At the Solar System’s Edge
Chapter VI – Into Neptune’s Mysteries

The Universe Wreckers
A Serial in Three Parts — Part II
What Went Before
Chapter VII – The Giant Ray
Chapter VIII – Prisoned on Triton
Chapter IX – Before the Council
Chapter X – To Split the Sun!
Chapter XI – Desperate Chances

The Universe Wreckers
A Serial in Three Parts — Part III
What Went Before
Chapter XI (Continued) – Desperate Chances
Chapter XII – Through the Roof
Chapter XIII – The Gathering of Earth’s Forces
Chapter XIV – An Ambush in Space
Chapter XV – “You of Neptune or We of Earth!”
Chapter XVI – Space-Rovers

Edmond Moore Hamilton (1904–1977) was a child prodigy that entered college at the age of 14, though he left at 17.

Hamilton wrote prolifically for all of the pulp science fiction magazines during the late 20s and early 30s and is considered a co-creator of the “space opera” sub-genre of science fiction. His story “The Island of Unreason” won the first Jules Verne Prize (a precursor to the Hugo Awards) as the best Science Fiction story of the year in 1933.

In 1946, Hamilton married fellow science fiction writer, Leigh Brackett. Ray Bradbury served as Best Man.

The Universe Wreckers has 6 illustrations.

Files:

1. Hamilton-TheUniverseWreckers.epub

Excerpt: The Universe Wreckers

Chapter I

A Warning of Doom

IT was on the third day of May, 1994, that the world received its first news of the strange behavior of the sun. That first news was contained in a brief message sent out from the North American Observatory, in upper New York, and signed by Dr. Herbert Marlin, the observatory’s head. It stated that within the last twenty-four hours a slight increase had been detected in the sun’s rotatory speed, or rate of spin, and that while that increase might only be an apparent one, it was being further studied. That brief first message was broadcast, a few hours later, from the Intelligence Bureau of the World Government, in New York. It was I, Walter Hunt, who supervised the broadcasting of that message at the Intelligence Bureau, and I remember that it seemed to me of so little general interest that I ordered it sent out on the scientific-news wave rather than on the general-news wave.

Late on the next day, however—the 4th—there came another report from the North American Observatory in which Dr. Marlin stated that he and his first assistant, an astronomical student named Randall, had checked their observations in the intervening hours and had found that there was in reality a measurable increase in the sun’s rotatory speed, an increase somewhat greater than had been estimated at first. Dr. Marlin added that all the facilities of the observatory were being utilized in an effort to determine the exact amount of that increase, and although it seemed at first glance rather incomprehensible, all available data concerning it would be gathered. And at the same hour, almost, there came corroborative reports from the Paris and Honolulu Observatories, stating that Dr. Marlin’s first observations had already been confirmed independently by their own observers. There could be no doubt, therefore, that the sun was spinning faster!

To astronomers this news of the sun’s increased rotatory speed became at once a sensation of the first importance, and in the hours following the broadcasting of Dr. Marlin’s first statement, we at the Intelligence Bureau had been bombarded with inquiries from the world’s observatories regarding it. We could only answer those inquiries by repeating the statement already sent out on the scientific-news wave and by promising to broadcast any further developments instantly from our Bureau, the clearing-house of the world’s news. This satisfied the scientifically-minded, while the great mass of the public was so little interested in this slight increase in the sun’s rate of spin as not to bother us with any questions concerning it. I know that I would have taken small interest in the thing myself, had it not been for a personal factor connected with it.

“Marlin!” I had exclaimed, when the Intelligence Chief had handed to me that first report for broadcasting. “Dr. Herbert Marlin—why, he was my astronomy prof up at North American University, two years ago.”

“Oh, you know him,” the Chief had remarked. “I suppose then that this statement of his on the sun’s increased rate of spin is authentic?”

“Absolutely, if Dr. Marlin gave it,” I told him. “He’s one of the three greatest living astronomers, you know. I became good friends with him at the University, but haven’t seen him for some time.”

So that it was with an interest rather unusual for me, that I followed the reports on this technical astronomical sensation in the next few days. Those reports were coming fast now from all the observatories of earth, from Geneva and Everest and Tokio and Mexico City, for almost all astronomers had turned their interest at once toward this unprecedented phenomenon of the sun’s increased rate of spin, which Dr. Marlin had been first to discover. The exact amount of that increase, I gathered, was still somewhat in doubt. For not only did the sun turn comparatively slowly, but the problem was complicated by the fact that it did not, like the earth or like any solid body, rotate everywhere at the same speed, but turned faster at the equator than at its poles, due to its huge size and the lack of solidity of its mass. Dr. Marlin, however, stated that according to his observations the sun’s great fiery ball, which had rotated previously at its equator at the rate of one rotation each 25 days, had already increased its rate of spin, so as to be turning now at the rate of one rotation each 24 days, 12 hours.

This meant that the sun’s rotatory period, or day, had decreased 12 hours in three earth-days, and such an unprecedented happening was bound to create an uproar of excitement among astronomers. For to them, as to all, who had any conception of the unvarying accuracy and superhuman perfection of the movements of the sun and its worlds, such a sudden increase of speed was all but incredible. And when on the fourth day Dr. Marlin and a score of other observers reported that the sun’s rotatory period had decreased by another 4 hours, the excitement of the astronomers was unprecedented. A few of them, indeed, sought even in the face of the recorded observations to cast doubt on the thing. The sun’s rotatory speed, they contended, could be measured only by means of the sun-spots upon its turning surface, and it was well known that those sun-spots themselves often changed position, so that this sudden increase in speed might only be an illusion.

This contention, however, found small support in the face of the indisputable evidence which Dr. Marlin and his fellow astronomers had advanced in the shape of numerous helio-photographs and time-recordings. The sun was spinning faster, that was undoubted by the greater part of the world’s astronomers—but what was making it do so? Was it due to some great dark body passing the solar system in space? Or was it due to strange changes within the sun’s great fiery sphere? It was the latter theory, on the whole, that was favored by most astronomers, and which struck me at the time as the most plausible. It was generally held that a great shifting of the sun’s inner layers, a movement of its mighty interior mass, had caused this sudden change in speed of rotation. Dr. Marlin himself, though, when questioned, would only state that the increased rate of spin was in itself beyond doubt but that no sound theory could as yet be formed as to the phenomenon’s cause.

AND while the astronomers thus pondered and disputed over the thing, it had begun to arouse repercussions of interest in the non-scientific public also. More and more inquiries concerning it were coming to us at the Intelligence Bureau in those first few days, those inquiries becoming so numerous as to cause us to switch the news on the thing from the scientific-news wave to the general-news wave, which reached every communication-plate in the world. It was, no doubt, out of sheer lack of other topics of interest that the world turned thus toward this astronomical sensation. For sensations of any kind were rare now in this peaceful world of ours. The last mighty air war of 1972, which had ended in the total abolition of all national boundaries and the establishment of the World Government with its headquarters in the new world-capital of New York, had brought peace to the world, but it had also brought some measure of monotony. So that even such a slight break in the order of things as this increase in the sun’s rate of spin, was rather welcomed by the peoples of the world.

And now, the thing had passed from the realm of the merely surprising to that of the astounding. For upon the fifth and sixth days had come reports from Dr. Marlin and from the heads of the other observatories of the world that the strange phenomenon was still continuing, that the sun’s rotatory speed was still increasing. In each of those two days, it was stated, it had decreased its period of rotation by another 4 hours, the same daily decrease noted previously. And the exactness of this decrease daily, the smoothness of this strange acceleration of the sun’s spin, proved that the acceleration could not have been caused by interior disturbances, as had at first been surmised. A great interior disturbance of the sun might indeed cause it to spin suddenly faster, but no such disturbance could be imagined as causing an exact and equal increase in its speed of spin with each succeeding day. What, then, could be the cause? Could it be that in some strange way the universe was suddenly running down?

But while Dr. Marlin and his fellow-astronomers discussed this matter of the phenomenon’s cause, it was its effects that had begun to claim the attention of the world at large. For that increase of the sun’s speed was already making itself felt upon earth. Even the great storms in the sun’s mass, those storms that we call sunspots, indeed, make themselves felt upon earth by the intense electrical and magnetic currents of force which they throw forth, causing on earth electrical storms and auroras and strange weather-changes. And now all the usual phenomena were occurring, but enhanced in intensity. On the third day of the thing, the 6th of May, there occurred over the mid-Atlantic an electrical storm of such terrific power as to all but sweep from the air the great air-liners caught in it, the Constantinople-New York liner and a grain-ship bound from Odessa to Baltimore having been forced down almost to the sea’s surface by the terrific air-currents. Great auroras were reported farther south than ever before, and over all our earth changes in temperature were quick and sudden. And among the other new phenomena called into being, apparently by the sun’s increased spin, were the new vibrations discovered at that time by Dr. Robert Whitely, a prominent physicist and a colleague of Dr. Marlin’s at North American University.

Excerpt From: Edmond Hamilton. “The Universe Wreckers.”