The Secret of the Ninth Planet

A Science Fiction Novel

By Donald A. Wollheim

Jacket design by James Heugh

[Transcriber note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Cecile Matschat, Editor
Carl Carmer, Consulting Editor

THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
Philadelphia Toronto

Copyright, 1959
By Donald A. Wollheim

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 59-5328

Manufactured in the United States of America

For—
Three denizens of this minor planet:
Eleanor, Bill, and of course Janet.

Contents

The Mysterious Ninth World
Chapter 1. Special Delivery—by Guided Missile
Chapter 2. The Valley of Stolen Sunlight
Chapter 3. The Secret of A-G 17
Chapter 4. The Hidden Skyport
Chapter 5. Up the Rope of Space
Chapter 6. Sunward Ho!
Chapter 7. Hot Spot on Mercury
Chapter 8. The Veil of Venus
Chapter 9. The Ocean Primeval
Chapter 10. The Dying Planet
Chapter 11. Martians Don't Care
Chapter 12. At Rope's End
Chapter 13. The Pole of Callisto
Chapter 14. Rockets Away!
Chapter 15. Ice Cold on Oberon
Chapter 16. In Orbit Around Pluto
Chapter 17. Stronghold of the Lost Planet
Chapter 18. Sacrifice on the Sacred Moon
Chapter 19. The Museum of Galactic Life
About the Author

Other Winston Science Fiction Novels

The Mysterious Ninth World

While the circumnavigation of the solar system seems farfetched, it may not be once the problem of effective anti-gravitational control is solved. In this book I have assumed that the many researchers now actually at work on this problem will achieve such a result in the next decade. It is not at all impossible that they may—for we all know that the more minds that work at a problem, the sooner it will be solved. The discovery of a means of negating, reversing or otherwise utilizing the immense force of gravitation for space flight purposes is now thought to be within the bounds of probability. It should occur some time within the next hundred years, possibly in even the short period I assume here.

Once solved, the severe handicaps imposed on space exploration by the weight and chemical limitations of rockets would no longer apply. The whole timetable of our conquest of the planets in our solar system would be tremendously speeded up, from hot Mercury all the way out to frigid Pluto.

In describing the visits of the spaceship Magellan to the planets, I have endeavored to adhere to known facts and the more reasonable assumptions about each of these worlds. The planet Pluto, however, deserves further comment, occupying as it does both an important role in this adventure and a unique one in actual astronomical lore.

Back at the dawn of this century, many astronomers, and notably Dr. Percival Lowell, studied certain irregularities in the orbit and motion of Neptune, at that time believed to be the outermost planet. They decided that these eccentricities (or perturbations, as they are called) could only be caused by the presence of another, yet undiscovered planet beyond Neptune.

Following this line of research, a young astronomer, Dr. Clyde Tombaugh, working at Lowell's own observatory, was able to announce on March 13, 1930, that he had finally found this ninth world, which he named Pluto.

In the years that have followed, Pluto has proven to be a truly puzzling planet. Unlike its neighbors from Jupiter outward, it is not a giant world, light and gaseous in nature. Instead, it belongs physically to the small, dense inner planets of which Earth is one.