Chapter I: Front Matter

THE
RADIO
PLANET

Ralph Milne Farley

ACE BOOKS, INC.
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N.Y. 10036

THE RADIO PLANET
Originally published in 1926 as a serial in
_Argosy All-Story Weekly_.

_Cover by John Schoenherr. Illustration by Jack Gaughan._

_Ralph Milne Farley is also the author of_
The Radio Beasts
_available now from Ace Books_ (F-304)

Printed in U. S. A.

Author’s Foreword

Could _you_ make a radio set? Don’t answer rashly. Don’t say that you have already built several. For note that we did not ask whether you could assemble a set from parts already manufactured by others, but rather whether you could build the entire set yourself—from the ground up. That means making every part you require, including the vacuum tubes, the acid in the batteries, the wires, the insulation.

If you think that you could do this, let us ask you one further question. Put yourself in the place of the hero of the following story, and imagine yourself stranded amid intelligent savages who have not progressed beyond the wood age. Under such circumstances, with nothing to guide you but your scientific memory, with no tools except those of your own creation, and with no materials save those furnished by nature, could you, though the lives and happiness of your dear ones depended upon it—could _you_ make a radio set?

—_R. M. F._, 1926.

Contents

I (untitled) 5
II Too Much Static 8
III Yuri or Formis? 14
IV The Coup D’etat 18
V Lost Amid the Rocks 27
VI The Vairkings 36
VII Radio Once More 42
VIII But Why Radio? 49
IX A Prisoner 60
X The Siege of Sur 69
XI Att the Terrible 80
XII Companions in Misery 85
XIII Further Progress 93
XIV Old Friends 101
XV Plans for Escape 108
XVI Afterthoughts 117
XVII The Battle for Vairkingi 124
XVIII The Fall of Vairkingi 133
XIX The Battle in the Air 142
XX The Whoomangs 149
XXI Souls? 160
XXII Flight 169
XXIII Luno and Beyond 180
XXIV The Lobsteroid Circuit 189
XXV All Kinds of Trouble 199
XXVI The Debacle 206
XXVII Peace on Poros 217