The Secret of the Ninth Planet

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The Secret of the Ninth Planet
by Donald A. Wollheim
1959 - copyright expired
For Three denizens of this minor planet: Eleanor, Bill and of course Janet.
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.
The latest viewpoint on this planet, whose size and weight seem quite like those of Earth,
is that it may not be a true child of the Sun, but an outsider captured as it roamed the

trackless realms of galactic space. Its orbit is highly eccentric and rather lopsided, taking
it as far away from the Sun as four and a half billion miles and as close to the Sun as two
and three-quarter billion miles, thereby cutting inside the orbit of Neptune itself. In fact,
during the period from 1969 to 2009 (covering most of the lifetimes of the younger
readers of this book) Pluto will not be the ninth planet, but the eighth, for it will be at its
closest in those years. Huge Neptune will thus regain temporarily the title of being the
Sun's farthest outpost!
This orbital eccentricity has lead some astronomers to speculate on the possibility that
Pluto may once have been briefly held as a satellite of Neptune. And following that line
of thought, the possibility also has been suggested that Neptune's larger moon, Triton,
may once have been a companion of Pluto which failed to break away from Neptune's
grip!
I think that the first men to land on Pluto are going to make some very astonishing
discoveries. But I am also sure that they will never go there in rockets. They will have to
make the immense trip by some more powerful means like the anti-gravitational drive.
D.A.W.



CHAPTER ONE
Special Delivery by Guided Missile
ON THE morning that the theft of the solar system's sunlight began, Burl Denning woke
up in his sleeping bag in the Andes, feeling again the exhilaration of the keen, rarefied,
mountain air. He glanced at the still sleeping forms of his father and the other members
of the Denning expedition, and sat up, enjoying the first rays of the early morning.
The Llamas were already awake, moving restlessly back and forth on their padded feet,
waiting for their tender to arise and unleash them. The mules were standing patiently as
ever, staring quietly into the distant misty panorama of the mountains.
It was, thought Burl, a dim day, but this he supposed was due to the earliness of the
morning. As the Sun rose, it would rapidly bring the temperatures up, and its unshielded