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"I long ago realized that I could reach far more people by writing something, than by walking down the street with a banner."
- John Brunner
 |
| Dead Spot | ||
| A small planet in space has unusual properties. |
| ...the rockets sent trembling
vibrations through the ship. Instruments showed an exhaust velocity that should have sent the craft scudding outward into the spaceways. But Procrustes, behind them now, grew no
smaller and the dim, pin-point of the
.. sun far ahead grew no brighter.
"Something's the matter with the mixture—we're getting no acceleration!" exclaimed Lucas. "I suppose we'd better land on this thing—asteroid or whatever it is—and make some repairs." Layden shook his head as the craft once more was wheeled about. Again the rocket motors sent volcanic blasts into the ether—this time with the ship's nose pointed toward Procrustes. But the planet grew no nearer. "We're stuck!" exclaimed Jim Vorhees, the second pilot. "Something's holding us here!" Lucas glanced at Layden, who nodded. "I nearly got stuck here once before," said Layden. "I've named this planet Procrustes, the dead spot in the universe, where no laws seem to be in force!" |
| Technovelgy from Interplanetary Graveyard,
by R.R. Winterbotham. Published by Amazing Stories in 1939 Additional resources -
|
How does it work? It's complicated...
"There's a funny thing about this world. Magnetic conditions in the vicinity of the planet operate along the same lines as the Fitzgerald contraction, only, of course, it's quite different.
"The nearer we get to the planet, the closer the atoms in our bodies are packed. As a result we get smaller, but we don't realize it. We only know that the relative distance to the planet remains the same. No matter how close we go to the planet, we'd still be just as
far away, because the nearer we get, the smaller we become. Our ship, our
rocket fuel, our instruments, everything
decreases in the same proportion.
The interplanetary graveyard idea is also known by another name - the Sargasso of Space. Compare to the sargasso asteroid from The Stars My Destination (1956) by Alfred Bester.
You see, we're stuck in spacial mud—so to speak—and it'll hold us tighter than any terrestrial mud you've ever seen, because of a peculiar magnetic phenomenon that is inherent to Procrustes..."
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'So, Ender, we will now begin your education.'
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
