The Moon Maker

On the front cover:

Professor Hooker watches the Earth rise as he stands on the Moon!

On the back cover: The destruction of the asteroid; Medusa!

These are just two of the many memorable scenes of fantastic adventure in this thrilling classic of science fiction.

A masterpiece of suspense as a giant asteroid hurtles thru space towards Earth, and man must make his first trip into space to save his planet!

The MOON MAKER

ARTHUR TRAIN

and

ROBERT W. WOOD Illustrated by Frank D. McSherry, Jr.

1958

KRUEGER HAMBURG, NEW YORK

Contents

11 - THE WANDERING ASTEROID

25 - THE FLYING RING

39 - THE FLIGHT OF THE RING

54 - ON THE MOON

66 - THE ATTACK ON THE ASTEROID

When the world-war was at its height, wireless messages signed with the name "Pax" had been received at the Naval Observatory at Washington, in which the sender declared him - self capable of controlling the forces of nature. These mysterious messages were followed by the occurrence of extraordinary natural phenomena such as violent seismic shocks and an unprecedented display of the aurora borealis. Coincidently, there appeared in the heavens a terrible air-craft, the Flying Ring, which, by means of a powerful lavendar ray, disrupted the mountains in northern Africa and flooded the Desert of Sahara. The warring nations were informed that if they did not conclude a permanent peace, Pax would shift the axis of the earth and compel the termination of hostilities by turning central Europe into an arctic waste. The nations, convinced at last that, unless they acceded to his demands, human life upon the globe would come to an end, entered into negotiations for peace. At about the same time, Professor Benjamin Hooker, attached to the Department of Applied Physics at Harvard University, determined, by independent research, that the mysterious force had its origin in the wilds of Labrador, and resolved to go there himself to see what he could find out about Pax and his schemes. After much hardship, he discovered the location of the Ring, arriving there at the moment when Pax was about to carry out his threat to deflect the axis of the globe; but, owing to an accident to the machinery generating the lavendar ray, an explosion occurred in which Pax and his associates were destroyed. The Flying Ring, however, remained intact, and Hooker, with his friend, the famous aviator Burke, succeeded in mastering its mechanism and starting in it for the United States.

PART I

THE WANDERING ASTEROID