Islands of Space

Opening

In the early part of the Twenty Second Century, Dr. Richard Arcot, hailed as “the greatest living physicist,” and Robert Morey, his brilliant mathematical assistant, discovered the so-called “molecular motion drive,” which utilized the random energy of heat to produce useful motion.

John Fuller, designing engineer, helped the two men to build a ship which used the drive in order to have a weapon to seek out and capture the mysterious Air Pirate whose robberies were ruining Transcontinental Airways.

The Pirate, Wade, was a brilliant but neurotic chemist who had discovered, among other things, the secret of invisibility. Cured of his instability by modern psychomedical techniques, he was hired by Arcot to help build an interplanetary vessel to go to Venus.