Title: Welcome to Paradise
Author: Donnelson, Allyn
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Welcome to Paradise" ***


                          WELCOME TO PARADISE

                          By Allyn Donnelson

              A civilian like me has no business getting
            mixed up in top secret government projects. But
           this one I got into--and you should be as lucky!

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
              Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
                            September 1954
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


President of the United States

The White House

Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. President:

I don't know who else to appeal to about the fix I'm in, because I'm
afraid I would be revealing top secret material to someone who isn't
entitled to hear it. That's why I wouldn't tell the FBI anything and
that's why I told them I don't want a lawyer.

I know you've got lots on your mind, Mr. President, and I hope hearing
about my blunder doesn't throw you off your game this weekend or
anything like that, but I sure would appreciate it if you could find
time to help me out.

You see, I'm not a spy, and I sure didn't stumble into this stuff of my
own accord, but how was I to know I was setting off a spark that had
something to do with space travel? After all, when you stop to think
about it, I only did what the foreman told me to, but he didn't know
any better either, so I wouldn't want to get him in Dutch.

You see, I work at the Diversified Metal Products Co. up here in
Chicago. I'm a spot welder and one job I had to do about every six
weeks was make six welds on a geedunk we called a "manhole cover." We
didn't know what they were, except that they were something special for
the Signal Corps, and they looked about as much like manhole covers as
anything else.

Well, the way the work is supposed to be scheduled, my welding job is
the first thing after it comes off the presses, just before the little
coils are put in. So the foreman comes over to me one night--it was
October 10, the last day of the World Series--and shows me one of the
covers after it's been wired up. One of the welds has come loose--maybe
because the material was dirty or something like that--and it looks
like the whole thing will have to be scrapped.

So he says to me "Tuck" (my name is Joe Peters, but they call me Tuck
for Kentucky where I come from)--he says, "Tuck, do you suppose you
can save this piece by welding it again, right there between those two
coils?"

I look the geedunk over, and there isn't much room to play around, but
I decide it's not near enough the coils to melt the wires. So if I
spoil it, so what? It'd be scrap anyhow. How was I to know the points
of the welder would establish an electrical contact?

So I take the piece and tell him I'll try it after I finish the
truckload of stuff I'm working on. But along about coffee time, I go
and burn my hand kind of bad on the welder, and have to get the nurse
to bandage it up for me, and that slows me up a good bit.

Everybody else in the department had left for washup by the time I put
the gismo in the machine. I kicked the pedal just like I always do, and
whoosh! I was out like a rookie the first time he faces Allie Reynolds.
Seems like I saw a flash of bluish-greenish light, but I don't know for
sure.

       *       *       *       *       *

Next thing I knew, a squatty guy with broad shoulders and bushy
eyebrows was standing over me. He said, "Well, did the Yankees win the
Series?" and his accent sounded like he should be following the Dodgers
instead.

I looked around. It was kinda dark, like just after the sun goes down.
I was sitting on a big strip of limestone, and I could see a few trees
and some small hills, and lots more of those limestone rocks, or
cliffs. It wasn't like any part of the country I've ever seen before.

The guy starts giving me the once over, too. "What monkey in that zoo
they call the Pentagon picked _you_ for a job like this? I knew the
Defense Department was hard up, but I didn't think they were _that_
hard up!"

Then I notice this geezer has a uniform sporting top sergeant's
stripes. I jump up and back away from him.

"Look," I says, "I don't know what happened, but I know I didn't
volunteer for no army job, and I'm too old to be drafted again. I must
have had amnesia. I wanna lawyer. Lemmee out of here--you're not giving
me that army routine again--no siree."

(Mr. President, please don't misunderstand me. I'm as patriotic as the
next guy, and I assure you I won't shirk no duty if I'm needed, but I
don't have to _like_ it, do I?)

The guy's dumbfounded. He doesn't give me a strong-arm deal like I'd
expect from a top-sarge--he just looks as if he can't figure it out.
Then he grabs me by the shoulder.

"Wait a minute, Mac, let's sit down and talk this over. Who the hell
are you? Where did you come from? Who sent you?"

I'm about to say "Groucho sent me," but I decide maybe I'd better be
serious. I tell him my name, and that I ain't got the faintest idea
where I am.

"Okay, Tuck," he says. "They call me Yogi. Now let's take it from the
beginning, slow and easy, huh?"

So I tell him what happened in the plant, and before I get done Yogi is
laughing like crazy, in fact he sits down on the rock and almost knocks
himself out.

"Well, what in Sam Hill is so all-fired funny? Who kidnapped me while I
was knocked out and dumped me on this God-forsaken army post?"

Yogi manages to stop laughing. He takes me across a strip of this
funny-looking, bare limestone rock, where a contraption is standing
that looks like a radio tower about ten feet high. Inside it is a
box about the size and shape of those reducing cabinets you see in
cartoons. The top to the box is open, and Yogi points to it.

"Is this the kind of doohicky you're talking about--what you call a
manhole cover?"

I look close, and sure enough, that's just what it is. I nod to Yogi,
and he sighs real serious like.

"Well, Tuck, my boy, you maybe made yourself famous tonight. One thing
for sure--you're the first civilian to travel by HHF, and the first one
to set foot on Lunette."

"And where on God's green earth is Lunette?"

"That's what's so funny, Tuck. It's not on God's green earth at all.
Lunette is a satellite of the Earth, discovered just a few months ago.
It's a sort of little moon--that's why we named it Lunette. It's got
enough atmosphere so we don't need space suits, and it's about half-way
between Earth and the moon."

       *       *       *       *       *

I guess I was giving him a "tell me another" look. He pointed in back
of me. "Look at the moon coming up over there, if you don't believe me.
Did you ever see anything like that on Earth?"

That convinced me. The old moon was huge, and I could see mountains and
rivers and seas on it, and even that natural bridge I'd read about.
Besides, I could even see the curve of the ground on Lunette!

But how in blazes did I get here?

"This contraption," Yogi explains, "we call a Matter BARS, short for
Matter Broadcasting and Receiving Station. It works on HHF--hyper
high frequency--and instead of sending out the ordinary type of
radio wave lengths it broadcasts matter. It won't work between two
points on Earth; it has to have a distance of at least 200,000 miles
to bounce from. We bounce stuff off the moon, and broadcast people,
equipment--anything of less than 250 pounds--between Earth and Lunette."

"Who bounces them? Who in tarnation bounced me here?"

"You bounced yourself, friend. Your spotweld machine set up a contact
here between these two coils. Our regular operators establish contact
by moving these two balls near each other like a Leyden jar. Your
machine had the same effect, and whoosh, here you are."

"Look, Bud, I remember a Leyden jar from high school science, but
durned if I follow the rest of that malarky."

Yogi's getting impatient with me. "It's very simple, Peters. Suppose
you wandered into a TV studio when the circuits were open--your picture
and voice would be broadcast over that station. Well, that Matter BARS
cover was set at the right frequency for sending objects or people to
Lunette and you were broadcast here. You wouldn't have been knocked out
if you had been inside the insulating cabinet; it would have just felt
like a sneeze."

"So what are you doing here?" This guy is selling me fast.

"Guess I'd probably better let the CO talk to you about that. But first
tell me about the Series."

So we bat the breeze a while about what is going on back on Earth,
and I start to wonder how am I going to get back there. Yogi tells me
to let the CO worry about that, and in the meantime offers to show me
around the joint.

There's not much to see on Lunette--nothing but salt water lakes,
limestone cliffs, a few scrawny trees, and some weird bushes with round
things dangling from them that you'd think was grapefruit, or something
like that, until you found out they were hard as coconuts.

All of the plant life looked like the chlorophyll people had been there
already, and had taken a big haul back to their toothpaste factories.
The grass and leaves were either a kind of chartreuse or a pale color
like weak orangeade. Finally we take off for the CO.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Captain turned out to be a right guy, but he sure was upset about
the security angle. He couldn't help grinning, though, when Yogi said,

"I still think it's damned funny that a civilian could stumble into a
top secret army base 100,000 miles from home!"

"Well, Peters," the Captain said, "we can't very well send you back
tonight anyway, because both the regular station and the test station
at your plant in Chicago are closed now. Under ordinary circumstances
I'd have to lock you up, but I don't see how you can escape from us! Go
bunk with Yogi and let me think it over."

He stopped us as we started out of the tent. "And men, keep your lips
buttoned."

We join the fellows and talked about baseball for a couple hours. We
organized a game for the next day, and I agreed to play shortstop,
even though I'm hoping I won't be around for it. The Captain's remarks
hadn't made me feel too easy on that score.

I ask Yogi how come all the bicycles over by the pueblo castle and he
explains that they can be broadcast, unassembled, where the parts to a
jeep or any other big vehicle would be too heavy for the Matter BARS
to handle. He says they're used by the crews assigned to surveying and
mapping Lunette, making geological and botanical surveys, and that sort
of thing.

Yogi gets me a sleeping bag and we stretch out under the stars in front
of the limestone castle. (Man, that thing is pretty in the moonlight,
Mr. President.) Lanterns hanging in some of the caves made it sparkle
here and there like a giant hunk of jewelry. And I never breathed such
fresh, sweet air as that, anyplace.

The next day the CO calls Yogi in for a conference that doesn't include
me, so I get in on the baseball game after all. It was a lot of fun,
too. Lunette's gravity is much less that of Earth so I made some pretty
wild throws until I got oriented.

At chow time I latched onto Yogi. "Hey, kid, when do I get out of here?
This is a fine adventure, but after all, I got obligations back on
Earth."

"It may not be that easy, Tuck. The Captain doesn't know what to do. HQ
is going to bust a gasket when they find out about you. After all, the
Captain is the only one who has made any trips back since we got here,
and the project is so secret that not more than 20 people on Earth have
any inkling of it."

I began to flip my lid. "Yogi," I said, "how much does this project
cost?"

"Plenty, Tuck, more than you'd imagine. The equipment the guys use for
their surveys is pretty high-powered stuff. Why?"

"Because it's coming out of my pocket, that's why. And me and a lot of
my buddies who are paying the freight on these deals are getting sick
of hearing that only two or three or twenty people in the whole USA
knows about this or that secret project. Security is okay, but don't
you think we ought to know something about what our money's going for?"

Boy, am I a genius at putting my foot in it! The lighter gravity on
Lunette must of gone to my head. Yogi gave me a real funny look, got up
from the mess table, and walked off.

       *       *       *       *       *

I started to sweat. What the heck made me blow off like that? Now they
really would think I was a security risk, and maybe they'd decide not
to let me go back at all, at least not until they had a court-martial
or something. Naturally I have plenty of respect for military secrets;
it's just that I think voters should have a little more information and
a little more say-so about how our money is spent. It's a sore point
with me. But what a stupid time I pick to sound off about it!

A soldier comes along and tells me the CO wants to see me. Now I know
this is it.

But Yogi and the Captain both looked as friendly as ever. "Peters," the
CO said, "I think you can be useful to us."

Oh, oh, here it comes. They're going to try to talk me into staying up
here.

"I suppose you have figured out by now what the Lunette Project is all
about," the Captain went on. "You remember stories in the papers a few
years ago on the possibility of creating an artificial satellite to use
as a base for guided missiles in case of war?"

I nodded.

"The stories were hushed up pretty fast, and the reason was that
Lunette was discovered just about then. They stopped talking about it
just as they stopped talking about atomic research after the Manhattan
project started."

"Listen, Captain, please," I said. "Beg pardon for interrupting, but
please don't tell me anything a civilian isn't supposed to know,
because--no offense--I don't want to get roped into the Army just
because I know too much."

"No offense to _you_, Peters--I'm not trying to get you into the Army."
He grinned, and I felt a lot better. "Let me go on. Yogi tells me that
he explained to you something about the Matter BARS. Did you understand
it?"

"Pretty well, sir. He should have been a teacher if he could make me
see a glimmer of light in that stuff."

The Captain laughed and Yogi got red.

"He was. Assistant Professor of Electronics at Columbia, before the
Signal Corps persuaded him to become a Space Cadet."

My face was red then.

"Well, on the military nature of our mission we have just a few more
wrinkles to iron out," the Captain went on, "but something else has
come up that we think has a lot more significance than guided missiles."

"I told the Captain I thought you'd help us," Yogi said, "because of
what you said about secret projects a while ago."

Now I _am_ confused. So I don't like so much secrecy, so they think I
can help their project? I don't get it. I don't get it at all.

"Yogi will explain the science part," the Captain said. "I'm just a
publicity man myself, not a teacher. But as a publicity man, Peters, I
think we can use you. Would you be game to try a job that could be very
important?"

I nodded, still confused but willing.

Yogi started by explaining that Lunette came into existence about a
hundred million years ago, a figure the geologists came up with by
measuring the radioactivity of the uranium here and comparing it with
that of uranium on Earth.

"But, in studying the radioactivity of the elements here," he said, "we
have discovered something else ... something that could change the
whole picture of things back on Earth. We found out about it, at least
a glimmer of it, almost as soon as we got up here, but we wanted to run
a whole slew of experiments before we let ourselves believe that it was
true.

"Say, Tuck, what's that bandage on your hand for?"

       *       *       *       *       *

I was surprised at his sudden change of subject, but I told him how I
had burned my hand on the spotweld machine the night before.

"Does it hurt now?"

"Heck, it ain't nothing, Yogi. Let's get on with my physics lesson."

"Do me a favor, please. Take off the bandage."

He was real serious, so I unwound the bandage the nurse put on. There
was just a tiny white scar where the burn had been. It looked like I
had done it at least a couple of weeks ago!

Yogi and the Captain looked at each other and grinned like they were
real proud of something.

"That's part of the lesson, Tuck. Our big discovery is that the
increased radioactivity of the elements here on Lunette seems to have
a miraculous healing power on any infectious or communicable disease,
and on any injury to body tissues. Maybe you remember reading a little
about the strange effect that the Bikini tests had on some of the
animals used experimentally."

I nodded.

Yogi continued. "We don't know yet just how this radioactivity works on
the body. In fact, we're not even sure it is the radioactivity alone.
There may be some added effect from the Lunette climate or water. But
we have proved, to the satisfaction of everyone here, that almost all
Earth diseases and most injuries can be cured on Lunette.

"The mess sergeant had a trick knee when he came here. The trouble
disappeared completely when we arrived. One of the geologists had an
ulcer. Hasn't felt a pain since the second day. Another guy had some
bad powder burns from a lab experiment that disappeared over night,
just like your burn did.

"When we first suspected what was going on, we asked the crew at Silver
Spring to send up white rats, guinea pigs, and dogs, with everything
from cancer and T.B. through rabies to polio, and the results were one
hundred per cent perfect, with complete recovery in every case inside
of a week. _And_, this is important, they stayed cured when sent back
to Earth."

Yogi's eyes were burning like one of them gospel preachers at a
revival, and his voice was shaking. I was catching the excitement
myself. The Captain took over the story.

"I suppose you're wondering what we want of you?"

"I sure am. This is a big deal, isn't it?" I looked at the little scar
on my hand again, to convince myself nobody was kidding.

"Here's our problem, and our plan, Tuck. Yogi told me what you said
about the taxpayers' right to know where their money is going, and it
ties in with what a lot of us up here have been discussing.

"Most of our fellows are like Yogi--technicians who chose their line
of work because they thought they could help make the world a better
place to live in. Now that they have the chance to make the biggest
contribution of their whole lives, they're all hemmed in by military
rigamarole and red tape. It goes against the grain for scientists."

"You mean the Army is keeping the place top secret, so it can't be used
for a ... well, a health resort?"

The Captain nodded. "I'm not arguing with the military reasons for
security. Maybe they're right on that score. But in the meantime,
thousands of people are dying every day of disease, needlessly, while
the Army keeps the secret that could end those deaths. The people
will find out about it eventually, and I don't think they'll like it.
Suppose your mother were to die of cancer a few months from now, and
you were to find out later that her death was unnecessary, and that
your own government could have stopped it. What would you think? How
about it, Peters, are you with us? What do you say?"

       *       *       *       *       *

The Captain had been talking louder and faster till he was practically
out of breath.

"I got just one thing to say, Captain. My baby sister died of T.B.
just before her eighteenth birthday last year. You can bet your bottom
nickel I'm with you on this deal, right down the line. Just give me the
scoop. I'll go along."

Yogi and the CO slapped me on the back.

They explained to me, Mr. President, all about this secret
Congressional hearing to be held on the Lunette project next week, and
how I should go to Washington and get my Congressman to spring me as a
surprise witness--a civilian who had been to Lunette and knew the score.

They knew all about what strings to pull to be sure I could get in,
and they helped me figure out what I should say. They seemed to think
that my word, you know, the guy on the street or something like that,
would carry some weight and make Congress see that the health angle on
this Lunette project is a darned sight more important than keeping the
secret of a guided missile station. Why, for Pete's sake, Mr. President
Uncle Sam owns Lunette, doesn't he? When the other side hears about
this they'll want to get in on it so bad they'll be awful anxious
to stay in our good graces. Probably turn out to be an even better
military defense than guided missiles.

Time was important now, so just at five o'clock, when I generally
report for work, Yogi and I walked down to the Matter BARS and shook
hands. Yogi took a polaroid picture of me standing there and gave me
the print. You know, Mr. President, I kind of hated to leave. That
Lunette sure is a pretty place.

Yogi moved the two little balls together, and sure enough, like he had
told me, I felt like I was catching a fit of sneezing. That was all,
and there I was back at Diversified, in the restricted Signal Corps
section, with the inspector staring at me.

He looks ready to pull a gun on me, so I laugh at him, nervous as
heck inside but trying not to show it. "What's the matter, you seen a
ghost?"

"How did you get in that cabinet, Peters?" He's really mad, and I'm
wondering if I can pull it off.

"Well, I know you spend all your time over here by yourself, so I
thought maybe someone should break the monotony. I just crawled in
there a couple of minutes ago to surprise you." (That was true in a
way, wasn't it?)

"Don't do that again, Peters. No harm done, I guess, but if I had moved
those two little balls together without seeing you in there I don't
know what would have happened to you!"

Mebbe you don't, but I do, I thought to myself. I scrammed out of there
as soon as I was sure I had him sold on my story.

And that's all there is to the story, Mr. President, except that last
week like a darned fool I had to drop that picture. It was one Yogi
took of me with his Polaroid, standing by the Matter BARS with a bunch
of Lunette coconuts (the boys call them Ikenuts, sir).

So my foreman sees the manhole cover in the picture and thinks that
something must be funny and turns it in to our personnel manager. And
_he_ turns it over to the FBI, and I wouldn't tell em anything, and
here I am in the clink.

So it looks like I've fouled up the boys' plans to use me as a secret
weapon, and it looks like I've fouled up my own life real good unless
you can figure out a way to help me.

I think I will close now and leave the whole mess up to you.

                                                      Obediently yours,

                                                            Joe Peters.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE WHITE HOUSE

Washington, D. C.

Dear Mr. Peters:

We are happy to learn that, in accordance with instructions from this
office, you have been reinstated in your job and that the FBI and your
employer are reassured as to your loyalty.

The President has asked me to extend his personal invitation to you to
have lunch at the White House next Friday when you are in Washington
for the hearing.

Your story interested him so much that he investigated it personally
and thoroughly. As a result he has a special surprise in store for
Congress and the American people on Friday. All I can divulge to you at
this time is that his barber fainted this morning when he called at the
White House to give the President his weekly trim.

                                                      Very truly yours,

                                                         Robert Kenwood

                                               Special Assistant to the

                                         President of the United States



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