THE MYSTERY OF THE ASTEROIDS
View-Master Reel No. 970-C
| THE MYSTERY OF THE ASTEROIDSView-Master Reel No. 970-C | |
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| SCENE ONE - "An hour later, Roger Manning struggled back to consciousnes andraced to a phone. The Marsport Control Tower connected him directly to thePolaris. "Tom," he shouted, "They've got Joan Dale and all of our figures.Now listen, they've probably already taken off, but if we can hit space withinan hour I can pick them up on the Polaris' long range radar. I'll be there in 45minutes; be ready to blast'' Forty minutes later, after a wild ride through Marsopolis, Roger climbedinto the Polaris and within 30 seconds, the Solar Guard's 500-foot cruiserclimbed skyward under the full power of her four great atomic engines! After waiting impatiently for them to bandage his head, Roger activated thesearch radar, a tremendously powered set with twice the range of anyprevious radar. Minutes passed, while the invisible search waves probedempty space thousands upon thousands of miles toward the Asteroid Belt. "I've got them," Roger suddenly announced. "See that shadow!" Changecourse and we'll follow them just beyond range of their radar" |  |
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| SCENE TWO - The chase lasted 30 days and covered over 100 million milesoutward from the sun. In gradually overhauling the IC ship, the Polarisreached a top speed of over 100 miles per second. As they neared the Asteroids, both ships decreased their speed, and Tomclosed in keeping the sun at his back to prevent visual or radar detection. Thechase become a game of hide and seek among the Asteroids. |  |
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| SCENE THREE - As soon as they were within visual range, Tom manned thesix-inch direct vision scope. After a few hours of dodging hundreds ofwhirling rocks all sizes and traveling all speeds, Tom cried out, "There it is ared asteroid about a mile in diameter. They're landing! Reduce speed, Astro.We'll circle and land on the opposite side!" They laid the ship alongside the great rock - mooring it with a chain. Almostweightless, they gained the surface of the asteroid by pulling themselvesalong the chain, then with a series of leaps rounded to the side where the ICship stood. Nearby, set deep in the meteor-pitted red- stone, was an odd-shaped structure, open and Deserted! |  |
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| SCENE FOUR - "They must be inside," radioed Tom to Astro and Roger. "Roger, you guard the entrance. There may be more of them in the ship.Astro, when I give the signal, we'll rush them! OK. . . Now!" The two space-suited figures plunged down the open ramp into anunderground room. The two IC men who held Dr. Dale there were completelysurprised. Astro drove a fist into the stomach of one while Tom held aparalyzer pistol on Rondo, the leader. Freed, Dr. Dale disarmed Rondo. The rest of the crew were lured into the room and captured without astruggle. Astro and Roger went aboard the IC ship and with the disarmedcrime crew at the controls, blasted off for earth leaving Tom and Dr. Dale tobring back the contents of the metal chamber. |  |
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| SCENE FIVE - "It must be a Time Tomb," declared Dr. Dale. Behind slidingpanels they had found a world of objects, devices, papers and pictures, andreels upon reels of what looked like magnetic tapes for recording sound andsight. "A complete record of a civilization that discovered space travel longbefore there was any life on earth!'' Tom was exploring some controls near the blank wall at one end of thetomb. "This lever seems to be movable. I'm going to pull it down." They heard a dry whining and the blank wall before them began to glow.Then, by some optical miracle, they saw projected on it a picture that moved,was brilliantly colored and had three-dimensional depth! Onto a small balcony, they saw a small creature run out. It was coveredwith large, green, flexible scales, had a pale green, pleasant face from the topof which two antennae-like tendrils protruded, and four arms! It waved two orthree of its arms at something in the distance. As this object drew closer, they saw a larger creature of the same kind floating through the air on a purple disc. It must have been an anti-gravity device because it hungperfectly still in the air while the large creature stepped onto the balcony andcaught the small one up in its four arms! "Father coming home from work - a billion years ago," marvelled Tom. |  |
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| SCENE SIX - Tom and Dr. Dale loaded the contents of the Time Tomb,including the odd projection equipment that "played" the hundreds of magnetictapes, into the Polaris. During the long trip back,to Earth, Dr. Dale spent hoursstudying these strange records out of the past. "Eight hundred million years ago," she told Tom," another planet, which theycalled 'Varth', circled the sun between Mars and Jupiter. The sun was youngthen, and its intense radiation warmed this planet 250 million miles away,enabling a race of six-limbed creatures to evolve. They struggled up throughignorance, disease, famine and war until they reached undreamed of heightsof social and scientific achievements. They derived power from the completedestruction of matter, conquered gravity, and reached the stars with a many-times-faster-than-light drive. "But tidal and volcanic forces beyond even their control began to tear theirplanet apart. The other planets of the young Solar System were eitherviolent balls of fire or massive spheres of ice and corrosive gases, so thisrace Fled to the stars. Knowing that life would come to the cooling innerplanets, they came back later to build the Time Tomb and leave clues to itsexistence. Now their descendants live somewhere among the stars, probablyforgetting that this was their birthplace!" |  |
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| SCENE SEVEN - Six months later, in the top-secret laboratories of theSpace Academy, Tom Corbett stepped onto an experimental anti-grav bar andunder the direction of Dr. Dale gingerly turned the simple hand control. "It works! " he whispered incredulously as he floated high over their heads. "It works and Earth has anti-gravity!" "And we've found clues to the ancient race's faster-than-light drive," saidDr. Dale. "I hope that someday, some distant tomorrow, we'll meet them outthere among the stars. Then we can say, 'Thank you' |  |
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