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DOUBLE TROUBLE
by CARL JACOBI
Grannie Annie, that waspish science-fiction

  writer, was in a jam again. What with red-spot

  fever, talking cockatoos and flagpole trees,

  I was running in circles—especially since

  Grannie became twins every now and then.

  [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

  Planet Stories Spring 1945.

  Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that

  the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
We had left the offices of
Interstellar Voice
three days ago, Earth
time, and now as the immense disc of Jupiter flamed across the sky,
entered the outer limits of the Baldric. Grannie Annie strode in the
lead, her absurd long-skirted black dress looking as out of place in
this desert as the trees.

  Flagpole trees. They rose straight up like enormous cat-tails, with
only a melon-shaped protuberance at the top to show they were a form of
vegetation. Everything else was blanketed by the sand and the powerful
wind that blew from all quarters.

  As we reached the first of those trees, Grannie came to a halt.

  "This is the Baldric all right. If my calculations are right, we've hit
it at its narrowest spot."

  Ezra Karn took a greasy pipe from his lips and spat. "It looks like the
rest of this God-forsaken moon," he said, "'ceptin for them sticks."

  Xartal, the Martian illustrator, said nothing. He was like that,
taciturn, speaking only when spoken to.

  He could be excused this time, however, for this was only our third day
on Jupiter's Eighth Moon, and the country was still strange to us.
When Annabella C. Flowers, that renowned writer of science fiction,
visiphoned me at Crater City, Mars, to meet her here, I had thought she
was crazy. But Miss Flowers, known to her friends as Grannie Annie,
had always been mildly crazy. If you haven't read her books, you've
missed something. She's the author of
Lady of the Green Flames
,
Lady of the Runaway Planet
,
Lady of the Crimson Space-Beast
, and
other works of science fiction. Blood-and-thunder as these books are,
however, they have one redeeming feature—authenticity of background.
Grannie Annie was the original research digger-upper, and when she
laid the setting of a yarn on a star of the sixth magnitude, only a
transportation-velocity of less than light could prevent her from
visiting her "stage" in person.

  Therefore when she asked me to meet her at the landing field of
Interstellar Voice
on Jupiter's Eighth Moon, I knew she had another
novel in the state of embryo.

  What I didn't expect was Ezra Karn. He was an old prospector Grannie
had met, and he had become so attached to the authoress he now followed
her wherever she went. As for Xartal, he was a Martian and was slated
to do the illustrations for Grannie's new book.

  Five minutes after my ship had blasted down, the four of us met in the
offices of
Interstellar Voice
. And then I was shaking hands with
Antlers Park, the manager of I. V. himself.

  "Glad to meet you," he said cordially. "I've just been trying to
persuade Miss Flowers not to attempt a trip into the Baldric."

  "What's the Baldric?" I had asked.

  Antlers Park flicked the ash from his cheroot and shrugged.

  "Will you believe me, sir," he said, "when I tell you I've been out
here on this forsaken moon five years and don't rightly know myself?"

  I scowled at that; it didn't make sense.

  "However, as you perhaps know, the only reason for colonial activities
here at all is because of the presence of an ore known as Acoustix.
It's no use to the people of Earth but of untold value on Mars. I'm
not up on the scientific reasons, but it seems that life on the red
planet has developed with a supersonic method of vocal communication.
The Martian speaks as the Earthman does, but he amplifies his thoughts'
transmission by way of wave lengths as high as three million vibrations
per second. The trouble is that by the time the average Martian reaches
middle age, his ability to produce those vibrations steadily decreases.
Then it was found that this ore, Acoustix, revitalized their sounding
apparatus, and the rush was on."

  "What do you mean?"

  Park leaned back. "The rush to find more of the ore," he explained.
"But up until now this moon is the only place where it can be found.

  "There are two companies here," he continued, "
Interstellar Voice
and
Larynx Incorporated
. Chap by the name of Jimmy Baker runs that.
However, the point is, between the properties of these two companies
stretches a band or belt which has become known as the Baldric.

  "There are two principal forms of life in the Baldric; flagpole trees
and a species of ornithoid resembling cockatoos. So far no one has
crossed the Baldric without trouble."

  "What sort of trouble?" Grannie Annie had demanded. And when Antlers
Park stuttered evasively, the old lady snorted, "Fiddlesticks, I never
saw trouble yet that couldn't be explained. We leave in an hour."
So now here we were at the outer reaches of the Baldric, four travelers
on foot with only the barest necessities in the way of equipment and
supplies.

  I walked forward to get a closer view of one of the flagpole trees. And
then abruptly I saw something else.

  A queer-looking bird squatted there in the sand, looking up at me.
Silver in plumage, it resembled a parrot with a crest; and yet it
didn't. In some strange way the thing was a hideous caricature.

  "Look what I found," I yelled.

  "What I found," said the cockatoo in a very human voice.

  "Thunder, it talks," I said amazed.

  "Talks," repeated the bird, blinking its eyes.

  The cockatoo repeated my last statement again, then rose on its short
legs, flapped its wings once and soared off into the sky. Xartal,
the Martian illustrator, already had a notebook in his hands and was
sketching a likeness of the creature.

  Ten minutes later we were on the move again. We saw more silver
cockatoos and more flagpole trees. Above us, the great disc of Jupiter
began to descend toward the horizon.

  And then all at once Grannie stopped again, this time at the top of a
high ridge. She shielded her eyes and stared off into the plain we had
just crossed.

  "Billy-boy," she said to me in a strange voice, "look down there and
tell me what you see."

  I followed the direction of her hand and a shock went through me from
head to foot. Down there, slowly toiling across the sand, advanced a
party of four persons. In the lead was a little old lady in a black
dress. Behind her strode a grizzled Earth man in a flop-brimmed hat,
another Earth man, and a Martian.
Detail for detail they were a duplicate of ourselves!
"A mirage!" said Ezra Karn.

  But it wasn't a mirage. As the party came closer, we could see that
their lips were moving, and their voices became audible. I listened in
awe. The duplicate of myself was talking to the duplicate of Grannie
Annie, and she was replying in the most natural way.

  Steadily the four travelers approached. Then, when a dozen yards away,
they suddenly faded like a negative exposed to light and disappeared.

  "What do you make of it?" I said in a hushed voice.

  Grannie shook her head. "Might be a form of mass hypnosis superinduced
by some chemical radiations," she replied. "Whatever it is, we'd better
watch our step. There's no telling what might lie ahead."

  We walked after that with taut nerves and watchful eyes, but we saw no
repetition of the "mirage." The wind continued to blow ceaselessly, and
the sand seemed to grow more and more powdery.

  For some time I had fixed my gaze on a dot in the sky which I supposed
to be a high-flying cockatoo. As that dot continued to move across the
heavens in a single direction, I called Grannie's attention to it.

  "It's a kite," she nodded. "There should be a car attached to it
somewhere."

  She offered no further explanation, but a quarter of an hour later as
we topped another rise a curious elliptical car with a long slanting
windscreen came into view. Attached to its hood was a taut wire which
slanted up into the sky to connect with the kite.

  A man was driving and when he saw us, he waved. Five minutes later
Grannie was shaking his hand vigorously and mumbling introductions.

  "This is Jimmy Baker," she said. "He manages
Larynx Incorporated
, and
he's the real reason we're here."

  I decided I liked Baker the moment I saw him. In his middle thirties,
he was tall and lean, with pleasant blue eyes which even his sand
goggles could not conceal.

  "I can't tell you how glad I am you're here, Grannie," he said. "If
anybody can help me, you can."

  Grannie's eyes glittered. "Trouble with the mine laborers?" she
questioned.
Jimmy Baker nodded. He told his story over the roar of the wind as we
headed back across the desert. Occasionally he touched a stud on an
electric windlass to which the kite wire was attached. Apparently these
adjustments moved planes or fins on the kite and accounted for the
car's ability to move in any direction.

  "If I weren't a realist, I'd say that
Larynx Incorporated
has been
bewitched," he began slowly. "We pay our men high wages and give them
excellent living conditions with a vacation on Callisto every year.
Up until a short time ago most of them were in excellent health and
spirits. Then the Red Spot Fever got them."

  "Red Spot Fever?" Grannie looked at him curiously.

  Jimmy Baker nodded. "The first symptoms are a tendency to garrulousness
on the part of the patient. Then they disappear."

  He paused to make an adjustment of the windlass.

  "They walk out into the Baldric," he continued, "and nothing can stop
them. We tried following them, of course, but it was no go. As soon as
they realize they're being followed, they stop. But the moment our eyes
are turned, they give us the slip."

  "But surely you must have some idea of where they go," Grannie said.

  Baker lit a cigarette. "There's all kinds of rumors," he replied, "but
none of them will hold water. By the way, there's a cockatoo eyrie
ahead of us."

  I followed his gaze and saw a curious structure suspended between
a rude circle of flagpole trees. A strange web-like formation of
translucent gauzy material, it was. Fully two hundred cockatoos were
perched upon it. They watched us with their mild eyes as we passed, but
they didn't move.

  After that we were rolling up the driveway that led to the offices of
Larynx Incorporated
. As Jimmy Baker led the way up the inclined ramp,
a door in the central building opened, and a man emerged. His face was
drawn.

  "Mr. Baker," he said breathlessly, "seventy-five workers at Shaft Four
have headed out into the Baldric."

  Baker dropped his cigarette and ground his heel on it savagely.

  "Shaft Four, eh?" he repeated. "That's our principal mine. If the fever
spreads there, I'm licked."

  He motioned us into his office and strode across to a desk. Silent
Xartal, the Martian illustrator, took a chair in a corner and got his
notebook out, sketching the room's interior. Grannie Annie remained
standing.

  Presently the old lady walked across to the desk and helped herself to
the bottle of Martian whiskey there.

  "There must be ways of stopping this," she said. "Have you called in
any physicians? Why don't you call an enforced vacation and send the
men away until the plague has died down?"

  Baker shook his head. "Three doctors from Callisto were here last
month. They were as much at loss as I am. As for sending the men away,
I may have to do that, but when I do, it means quits. Our company is
chartered with Spacolonial, and you know what that means. Failure
to produce during a period of thirty days or more, and you lose all
rights."

  A visiphone bell sounded, and Baker walked across to the instrument. A
man's face formed in the vision plate. Baker listened, said "Okay" and
threw off the switch.

  "The entire crew of Shaft Four have gone out into the Baldric," he said
slowly. There was a large map hanging on the wall back of Baker's desk.
Grannie Annie walked across to it and began to study its markings.

  "Shaft Four is at the outer edge of the Baldric at a point where that
corridor is at its widest," she said.

  Baker looked up. "That's right. We only began operations there a
comparatively short time ago. Struck a rich vein of Acoustix that
runs deep in. If that vein holds out, we'll double the output of
Interstellar Voice
, our rival, in a year."

  Grannie nodded. "I think you and I and Xartal had better take a run up
there," she said. "But first I want to see your laboratory."

  There was no refusing her. Jimmy Baker led the way down to a lower
level where a huge laboratory and experimental shop ran the length
of the building. Grannie seized a light weight carry-case and began
dropping articles into it. A pontocated glass lens, three or four
Wellington radite bulbs, each with a spectroscopic filament, a small
dynamo that would operate on a kite windlass, and a quantity of wire
and other items.

  The kite car was brought out again, and the old woman, Baker and the
Martian took their places in it. Then Jimmy waved, and the car began to
roll down the ramp.
Not until they had vanished in the desert haze did I sense the
loneliness of this outpost. With that loneliness came a sudden sense of
foreboding. Had I been a fool to let Grannie go? I thought of her, an
old woman who should be in a rocking chair, knitting socks. If anything
happened to Annabella C. Flowers, I would never forgive myself and
neither would her millions of readers.

  Ezra Karn and I went back into the office. The old prospector chuckled.

  "Dang human dynamo. Got more energy than a runaway comet."

  A connecting door on the far side of the office opened onto a long
corridor which ended at a staircase.

  "Let's look around," I said.

  We passed down the corridor and climbed the staircase to the second
floor. Here were the general offices of
Larynx Incorporated
, and
through glass doors I could see clerks busy with counting machines and
report tapes. In another chamber the extremely light Acoustix ore was
being packed into big cases and marked for shipment. At the far end a
door to a small room stood open. Inside a young man was tilted back in
a swivel chair before a complicated instrument panel.

  "C'mon in," he said, seeing us. "If you want a look at your friends,
here they are."

  He flicked a stud, and the entire wall above the panel underwent a
slow change of colors. Those colors whirled kaleidescopically, then
coalesced into a three-dimensional scene.

  It was a scene of a rapidly unfolding desert country as seen from the
rear of a kite car. Directly behind the windscreen, backs turned to me,
were Jimmy Baker, Grannie, and Xartal. It was as if I were standing
directly behind them.

  "It's Mr. Baker's own invention," the operator said. "An improvement on
the visiphone."

  "Do you mean to say you can follow the movements of that car and its
passengers wherever it goes? Can you hear them talk too?"

  "Sure." The operator turned another dial, and Grannie's falsetto voice
entered the room. It stopped abruptly. "The machine uses a lot of
power," the operator said, "and as yet we haven't got much."

  The cloud of anxiety which had wrapped itself about me disappeared
somewhat as I viewed this device. At least I could now keep myself
posted of Grannie's movements.

  Karn and I went down to the commissary where we ate our supper. When
we returned to Jimmy Baker's office, the visiphone bell was ringing.
I went over to it and turned it on, and to my surprise the face of
Antlers Park flashed on the screen.

  "Hello," he said in his friendly way. "I see you arrived all right. Is
Miss Flowers there?"

  "Miss Flowers left with Mr. Baker for Shaft Four," I said. "There's
trouble up there. Red spot fever."

  "Fever, eh?" repeated Park. "That's a shame. Is there anything I can
do?"

  "Tell me," I said, "has your company had any trouble with this plague?"

  "A little. But up until yesterday the fever's been confined to the
other side of the Baldric. We had one partial case, but my chemists
gave the chap an antitoxin that seems to have worked. Come to think of
it, I might drive over to Shaft Four and give Jimmy Baker the formula.
I haven't been out in the Baldric for years, but if you didn't have any
trouble, I shouldn't either."

  We exchanged a few more pleasantries, and then he rang off. In exactly
an hour I went upstairs to the visiscreen room.

  Then once more I was directly behind my friends, listening in on their
conversation. The view through the windscreen showed an irregular array
of flagpole trees, with the sky dotted by high-flying cockatoos.

  "There's an eyrie over there," Jimmy Baker was saying. "We might as
well camp beside it."
Moments later a rude circle of flagpole trees loomed ahead. Across the
top of them was stretched a translucent web. Jimmy and Grannie got out
of the car and began making camp. Xartal remained in his seat. He was
drawing pictures on large pieces of pasteboard, and as I stood there in
the visiscreen room, I watched him.

  There was no doubt about it, the Martian was clever. He would make
a few rapid lines on one of the pasteboards, rub it a little to get
the proper shading and then go on to the next. In swift rotation
likenesses of Ezra Karn, of myself, of Jimmy Baker, and of Antlers Park
took form.

  Ezra spoke over my shoulder. "He's doing scenes for Grannie's new
book," he said. "The old lady figures on using the events here for a
plot.
Look at that damned nosy bird!
"

  A silver cockatoo had alighted on the kite car and was surveying
curiously Xartal's work. As each drawing was completed, the bird
scanned it with rapt attention. Abruptly it flew to the top of the
eyrie, where it seemed to be having a consultation with its bird
companions.

  And then abruptly it happened. The cockatoos took off in mass flight. A
group of Earth people suddenly materialized on the eyrie, talking and
moving about as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  With a shock I saw the likeness of myself; I saw Ezra Karn; and I saw
the image of Jimmy Baker.

  The
real
Jimmy Baker stood next to Grannie, staring up at this
incredible mirage. Grannie let out a whoop. "I've got it!" she said.
"Those things we see up there are nothing more than mental images.
They're Xartal's drawings!"
"Don't you see," the lady continued. "Everything that Xartal put on
paper has been seen by one or more of these cockatoos. The cockatoos
are like Earth parrots all right, but not only have they the power
of copying speech, they also have the ability to recreate a mental
image of what they have seen. In other words their brains form a
powerful photographic impression of the object. That impression is
then transmitted simultaneously in telepathic wavelengths to common
foci. That eyrie might be likened to a cinema screen, receiving brain
vibrations from a hundred different sources that blend into the light
field to form what are apparently three-dimensional images."

  The Larynx manager nodded slowly. "I see," he said. "But why don't the
birds reconstruct images from the actual person. Why use drawings?"

  "Probably because the drawings are exaggerated in certain details and
made a greater impression on their brains," Grannie replied.

  Up on the eyrie a strange performance was taking place. The duplicate
of Grannie Annie was bowing to the duplicate of Jimmy Baker, and the
image of Ezra Karn was playing leap frog with the image of Antlers Park.

  Then abruptly the screen before me blurred and went blank.

  "Sorry," the operator said. "I've used too much power already. Have to
give the generators a chance to build it up again."

  Nodding, I turned and motioned to Karn. We went back downstairs.

  "That explains something at any rate," the old prospector said. "But
how about that Red spot fever?"

  On Jimmy Baker's desk was a large file marked: FEVER VICTIMS. I opened
it and found it contained the case histories of those men who had been
attacked by the strange malady.

  Reading them over, I was struck by one detail. Each patient had
received the first symptoms, not while working in the mines, but while
sleeping or lounging in the barracks.

  Five minutes later Karn and I were striding down a white ramp that
led to the nearest barracks. The building came into sight, a low
rectangular structure, dome-roofed to withstand the violent winds.

  Inside double tiers of bunks stretched along either wall. In those
bunks some thirty men lay sleeping.

  The far wall was taken up by a huge window of denvo-quartz. As I stood
there, something suddenly caught Ezra Karn's eye. He began to walk
toward that window.

  "Look here," he said.

  Six feet up on that window a small almost imperceptible button of dull
metal had been wedged into an aperture cut in the quartz. The central
part of the button appeared to be a powerful lens of some kind, and as
I seized it and pulled it loose, I felt the hum of tiny clock work.

  All at once I had it! Red spot fever. Heat fever from the infra-red
rays of Jupiter's great spot. Someone had constructed this lens to
concentrate and amplify the power of those rays. The internal clockwork
served a double purpose. It opened a shutter, and it rotated the lens
slowly so that it played for a time on each of the sleeping men.

  I slid the metal button in my pocket and left the barracks at a run.
Back in the visiscreen room, I snapped to the operator:

  "Turn it on!"

  The kite car swam into view in the screen above the instrument panel.
I stared with open eyes. Jimmy Baker no longer was in the car, nor
was Xartal, the Martian. Grannie Annie was there, but seated at the
controls was Antlers Park, the manager of Interstellar Voice.
Ezra Karn jabbed my elbow. "Grannie's coming back. I thought she'd be
getting sick of this blamed moon."

  It didn't make sense. In all the years I'd known Annabella C. Flowers,
never yet had I seen her desert a case until she had woven the clues
and facts to a logical conclusion.

  "Ezra," I said, "we're going to drive out and meet them. There's
something screwy here."

  Ten minutes later in another kite car we were driving at a fast clip
through the powdery sands of the Baldric. And before long we saw
another car approaching.

  It was Grannie. As the car drew up alongside I saw her sitting in her
prim way next to Antlers Park. Park said:

  "We left the others at the mine. Miss Flowers is going back with me to
my offices to help me improve the formula for that new antitoxin."

  He waved his hand, and the car moved off. I watched it as it sped
across the desert, and a growing suspicion began to form in my mind.
Then, like a knife thrust, the truth struck me.

  "Ezra!" I yelled, swinging the car. "That wasn't Grannie!
That was one
of those damned cockatoo images.
We've got to catch him."

  The other car was some distance ahead now. Park looked back and saw us
following. He did something to the kite wire, and his car leaped ahead.

  I threw the speed indicator hard over. Our kite was a huge box affair
with a steady powerful pull to the connecting wire. Park's vehicle
was drawn by a flat triangular kite that dove and fluttered with each
variance of the wind. Steadily we began to close in.

  The manager of Interstellar Voice turned again, and something glinted
in his hand. There was a flash of purple flame, and a round hole
appeared in our windscreen inches above Karn's head.

  "Heat gun!" Ezra yelled.

  Now we were rocketing over the sand dunes, winding in and out between
the flagpole trees. I had to catch that car I told myself. Grannie
Annie's very life might be at stake, not to mention the lives of
hundreds of mine workers. Again Park took aim and again a hole
shattered our windscreen.

  The wind shifted and blew from another quarter. The box kite soared,
but the triangular kite faltered. Taking advantage of Park's loss of
speed, I raced alongside.

  The I. V. manager lifted his weapon frantically. But before he could
use it a third time, Ezra Karn had whipped a lariat from his belt and
sent it coiling across the intervening space.

  The thong yanked tight about the manager's throat. Park did the only
thing he could do. He shut off power, and the two cars coasted to a
halt. Then I was across in the other seat, wrenching the weapon free
from his grasp.

  "What have you done with Miss Flowers?" I demanded.

  The manager's eyes glittered with fear as he saw my finger tense on the
trigger. Weakly he lifted an arm and pointed to the northwest.

  "Val-ley. Thir-ty miles. Entrance hidden by wall of ... flagpole trees."
I leaped into the driver's seat and gave the kite its head. And now the
country began to undergo a subtle change. The trees seemed to group
themselves in a long flanking corridor in a northwesterly direction, as
if to hide some secret that lay beyond. Twice I attempted to penetrate
that wall, only to find my way blocked by those curious growths.

  Then a corridor opened before me; a mile forward and the desert began
again. But it was a new desert this time: the sand packed hard as
granite, the way ahead utterly devoid of vegetation. In the distance
black bulging hills extended to right and left, with a narrow chasm or
doorway between.

  I headed for that entrance, and when I reached it, I shut off power
with an exclamation of astonishment.

  There was a huge chair-shaped rock there, and seated upon it was
Grannie Annie. She had a tablet in her hands, and she was writing.

  "Grannie!" I yelled. "What're you doing here? Where's Mr. Baker?"

  She rose to her feet and clambered down the rock.

  "Getting back Jimmy's mine laborers," she said, a twinkle in her eyes.
"I see you've got Antlers Park. I'm glad of that. It saves me a lot of
trouble." She took off her spectacles and wiped them on her sleeve.
"Don't look so fuddled, Billy-boy. Come along, and I'll show you."

  She led the way through the narrow passage into the valley. A deep
gorge, it was, with the black sheer cliffs on either side pressing
close. Ten feet forward, I stopped short, staring in amazement.

  Advancing toward me like a column of infantry came a long line of
Larynx miners. They walked slowly, looking straight ahead, moving down
the center of the gorge toward the entrance.

  But there was more! A kite car was drawn up to the side. The windscreen
had been removed, and mounted on the hood was a large bullet-like
contrivance that looked not unlike a search lamp. A blinding shaft of
bluish radiance spewed from its open end. Playing it back and forth
upon the marching men were Jimmy Baker and Xartal, the Martian.

  "Ultra violet," Grannie Annie explained. "The opposite end of the
vibratory scale and the only thing that will combat the infra-red rays
that cause red spot fever. Those men won't stop walking until they've
reached Shaft Four."

  Grannie Annie told her story during the long ride back to Shaft Four.
We drove slowly, keeping the line of marching Larynx miners always
ahead of us.

  Jimmy Baker had struck a new big lode of Acoustix, a lode which if
worked successfully would see
Larynx Incorporated
become a far more
powerful exporting concern than
Interstellar Voice
. Antlers Park
didn't want that.

  It was he or his agents who placed those lens buttons in the Larynx
barracks.
For he knew that just as Jupiter's great spot was
responsible for a climate and atmosphere suitable for an Earthman on
this Eighth Moon, so also was that spot a deadly power in itself,
capable when its rays were concentrated of causing a fatal sickness.
Then suddenly becoming fearful of Grannie's prying, Antlers Park strove
to head her off before she reached Shaft Four.

  He did head her off and managed to lure her and Baker and Xartal into
the Shaft barracks where they would be exposed to the rays from the
lens button. But Grannie only pretended to contract the plague.

  Park then attempted to outwit Ezra Karn and me by returning in Jimmy
Baker's kite car with a cockatoo image of Grannie.
I listened to all this in silence. "But," I said when she had finished,
"how did Park manage to have that image created and why did the mine
laborers walk out into the Baldric when they contracted the fever?"

  Grannie Annie frowned. "I'm not sure I can answer the first of those
questions," she replied. "You must remember Antlers Park has been on
this moon five years and during that time he must have acquainted
himself with many of its secrets. Probably he learned long ago just
what to do to make a cockatoo create a mental image.

  "As for the men going out into the Baldric, that was more of Park's
diabolical work. In the walls of the barracks besides those lens
buttons were also miniature electro-hypnotic plates, with the master
controlling unit located in that valley. Park knew that when the miners
were in a drugged condition from the effects of the fever they would
be susceptible to the machine's lure.... And now, Billy-boy, are you
coming with me?"

  "Coming with you?" I repeated. "Where?"

  The old lady lit a cigarette. "Pluto maybe," she said. "There's a penal
colony there, you know, and that ought to tie in nicely with a new
crime story. I can see it now ... prison break, stolen rocket ship,
fugitives lurking in the interplanetary lanes...."

  "Grannie," I laughed. "You're incorrigible!"

The mining for a precious ore called Acoustix has spurred colonization of Jupiter’s eighth moon by two mining companies called Interstellar Voice and Larynx Incorporated. There is a barren desert landscape between the mining areas of the two companies that is called the Baldric. The only plant appears to be trees that have melon-shaped tops, and the only animal is a silver parrot-like bird that is capable of imitating human speech, and also of imitating human forms in a holographic-like manner.

Grannie Annie (AKA Annabella C. Flowers) is a famous science fiction writer, who is travelling to the Baldric with her martian employee, Xartal, who takes detailed drawings that are the background research for her next novel. She is travelling in a party of four: herself, Xartal, Ezra Karn (old prospector), and the narrator (called Billy-boy by Grannie).

Strange happenings are known to occur in the Baldric. They encounter a silver bird that repeats English words and creates what seems like a mirage of themselves projected in the distance which disappears as it comes closer. They do not know at the time, but the parrot has created this mirage based on viewing one of the lifelike drawings that Xartal is making of the group.

They happen to run into Jimmy Baker, the manager of the Larynx Incorporated mining company, who is interested in Grannie’s help sorting out the root cause of his workers coming down with “red spot fever” which causes them to leave their work and walk into the Baldric, never to return. They travel to Larynx Incorporated’s offices with Jimmy, where he learns all of the workers from Shaft Four have left their posts due to the fever. Coincidentally, that is also their most productive ore location. Jimmy, Grannie, and Xartal take off to Shaft Four via the Baldric to investigate what is going on. During their travel, they break for camp near a flock of the birds and discover their ability to imitate human forms.

Antlers Karn, the manager of Interstellar Voice, turns out to be a bad guy who ambushes Grannie’s camp. He is trying to sabotage Jimmy’s company by causing the red spot fever to stop them from capitalizing on a huge deposit of Acoustix they discovered in Shaft Four. He steals Jimmy’s car and kidnaps a mirage-version of Grannie. Billy and Ezra chase them down and discover Antlers has stranded their friends in a valley thirty miles away.

Grannie has independently solved the mystery of the Red Spot Fever and sending her mirage with Antlers was part of her master plan. When Billy and Ezra return to her, Jimmy is projecting ultra-violet light onto a large group of the Shaft Four workers in a deep valley gorge. This counteracts the infra-red radiation that put them into a trance-like state that caused them to wander into the desert.

Grannie, Jimmy, Xartal, Billy, and Ezra are triumphantly returning the workers to Shaft Four at the close of the story.

The story starts three days into an expedition on Jupiter's Eighth Moon, led by Annabella C. Flowers, a science fiction author, known by her friends as Grannie Annie. Also in the group were some of her friends: the narrator Billy, the prospector Ezra Karn, and the Martian illustrator named Xartal. The moon was known for Acoustix, an ore that allows aging Martians to improve their supersonic telecommunication abilities. They traveled through the desert to an area called the Baldric, which was filled with cat-tail-like trees and silver cockatoo-like creatures. Antlers Park, the manager of Interstellar Voice (an Acoustix mining company) had told them about the area. As they continued on, the group had a shock: they saw duplicates of themselves traveling toward them. It was not a simple mirage, as they could hear the others talking. Once they got close, however, the doubles disappeared. Shaking off the odd situation, the group continued, and eventually ran into Jimmy Baker, the manager of Larynx Incorporated, the competitors of Interstellar Voice. It seemed Jimmy needed Grannie's help: his workers at the mine had been falling sick with Red Spot Fever, which made them wander into the Baldric. The group headed to the Larynx Incorporated offices, where Jimmy admitted that calling off the mining expedition would mean the end of Jimmy's company, so he needed to combat the Fever. Grannie grabbed supplies from Jimmy's laboratory and they headed to the desert with Xartal. Ezra and Billy stayed to look around the offices, and briefly talked to Antlers Park on the visiphone. He had less issue with the Fever, but had an antitoxin that he was willing to share with Jimmy. Through a camera on Jimmy's car, Billy was able to watch the group in the desert as another set of mirages appeared. Grannie excitedly realized that the cockatoos on the moon were copying Xartal's drawings, mimicking the mental images and causing these "mirages". Ezra and Billy headed to Jimmy's office to investigate reports, realizing that everyone fell sick in the barracks, not while mining. They found a lens in the barracks that was pushing concentrated rays towards the workers, so they ran to the visiscreen room to find out where Grannie was. They were surprised to see Antlers Park was the only person in the car with Grannie, Jimmy and Xartal nowhere to be seen. Ezra and Billy drove out to meet them, where Billy realized this was a cockatoo and not the actual Grannie. Antlers Park eventually gave up the information about where he had left Grannie and the others, and when Billy and Ezra found them, Grannie showed them the blue ultraviolet light that had been set up to counteract the red rays that cause the fever. It seemed that the lens amplifying the rays to cause the fever was placed in Jimmy's company's barracks by Antlers' company, and the Red Spot Fever was a plan to keep Jimmy's company from becoming more successful than Antlers'.

Annabella C. Flowers, known as Grannie Annie, is a famed science fiction writer who summons the story's narrator, Billy, to join her on a mission to the 8th moon of Jupiter, where she ostensibly plans to observe the setting for her next novel. She also invites her constant companion, a prospector name Ezra Karn, and her illustrator, a Martian named Xartal. On the moon, the team unites at the offices of Interstellar Voice, a company managed by Antlers Park. Upon Billy's arrival, Antlers updates him on the history of the company; Interstellar Voice and their rival company Larynx Incorporated mine the moon for its resource of an ore called Acoustix, which is popular amongst Martians because of its ability to revitalize their supersonic vocalizations that dwindle around middle age. Between the properties of these two companies stretches a vast desert known as the Baldric, which is home to a bird-like species resembling cockatoos as well as flagpole trees. Grannie Annie plans to cross in order to further observe the moon's environment and make way to Larynx Incorporated. Antlers Park warns them vaguely of danger in the Baldric, but the team leaves anyway. During the course of their journey, they observe the cockatoos and discover their ability to mimic human voices. In addition, they discover an alarming visage--from their perch atop a high cliff, they see four travelers, seemingly themselves in exact 3D duplicate, walking along the same path they'd just traversed. After this odd discovery, they meet Jimmy Baker, who arrives in his car guided through the air attached to a kite, and Grannie Annie reveals the true purpose of their trip is to help Jimmy resolve the labor issues at his company, Larynx Incorporated. His workers have been stricken with Red-Spot Fever, which causes them to abandon their job and walk into the desert; Jimmy worries this will destroy his business. After Grannie Annie, Xartal, and Jimmy Baker leave to tour his company's laboratory and Shaft Four, Billy and Ezra stay behind and tour the offices of Larynx Incorporated. An employee shows them an updated visiphone from which they can view Grannie Annie's journey, and they witness them stopping by a cockatoo nest, where a cockatoo observes Xartal's drawings and uses its ability to mentally mimic images to recreate his drawings of the team in 3D just as they saw previously in the desert. When Billy and Ezra discover a device in the workers' bunker that has been used to spread Red-Spot Fever and see Grannie Annie is returning with Antlers Park, they rush to meet them. Billy realizes this isn’t the real Grannie Annie, but rather her 3D image, and they hurry to stop Antlers Park. After a chase, Antlers admits he set up the Red-Spot device in order to sabotage his business rival. When they reunite with Annie, she and Jimmy and Xartal are using ultra-violet rays to combat the infra-red rays that ignited the Red-Spot Fever in order to draw them back to Larynx Incorporated.

Grannie Annie, Ezra Karn, and Billy-Boy are on Jupiter’s Eighth Moon. Xartal, a Martian, is also there to draw illustrations for Grannie Annie’s book. The group meets with Antlers Park, the manager of Interstellar Voice, and he tells them about the Baldric, a stretch of land that connects his company, Interstellar Voice, with Larynx Incorporated. The two companies are competing to harvest Acoustix. Acoustix is an ore that amplifies Martians’ thoughts so that they can continue to speak to Earthmen even in their old age when their ability to produce vibrations diminishes. Park warns that the Baldric is dangerous, but Annie is undeterred.

Annie, Ezra, Billy, and Xartal arrive at the Baldric and spot a cockatoo. Xartal draws the creature and the group members in his notebook. Moments later, Annie spots four figures that look just like herself and her crew members walking on the other side of the hill. The apparent mirage disappears quickly.

Billy sees a kite car, and minutes later Jimmy Baker, the manager of Larynx Incorporated, approaches the group. His company is in trouble because a lot of its workers have come down with Red Spot Fever. The workers become talkative and then they walk out into the Baldric. Annie, Jimmy, and Xartal head out to investigate. Billy and Ezra stay behind, and they check out an invention of Jimmy’s - a three-dimensional screen that makes them feel like they’re right there with their group members. They speak to Park on the contraption, and he says that he will give Jimmy the antidote to Red Spot Fever. Billy spots his own likeness on the screen, and he’s shocked. Annie tells the others that the cockatoos are looking at Xartal’s drawings and projecting their mental images of his pictures.

Billy realizes that all of the workers become sick when they’re in their barracks, not when they’re in the mines. At the barracks, Ezra finds a piece of metal with a lens on the wall. The infra-red rays from Jupiter are causing the plague; the lens was put there to amplify those rays, and they sicken the sleeping workers.

Billy and Ezra return to the screen and see Park driving a kite car with Annie by his side.  While the men follow Park’s car, he tries to shoot at them. He fails, and Ezra uses a tool to grab Park by the throat. Billy and Ezra find Annie and hundreds of Jimmy’s workers. The group has set up a large ultraviolet light that works to fight the infra-red rays that cause the fever. It was Park all along who was forcing the men to become sick because he did not want Jimmy’s company to be competitive. Park had tried to get Grannie Annie sick as well, but he ended up taking her duplicate image in the kite car instead of the real one.

What settings does the story take place in?

In the buildings of Interstellar Voice and Larynx Incorporated, two Acoustix ore mining companies on Jupiter’s eighth moon.

The Baldric - the largely deserted space between the mining grounds of Interstellar Voice and Larynx Incorporated. It is a desert-like place with trees that are trunks with melon-shaped tops, and silver birds that can repeat English phrases as well as mimic human forms that appear like mirages. There is also a deep valley gorge within the desert and many eyries which seem similar to oases.

There are several scenes aboard kite-propelled cars in the Baldric, as well as visiphone-like video feed of Jimmy’s car that is viewed from the offices of Larynx Incorporated.

Shaft Four is one of the locations that Larynx Incorporated mines in on the border of the Baldric, which is talked about often, but is never actually visited by the main characters during the story.

The surface of Jupiter's Eighth Moon is covered in desert with huge trees that look like giant cat-tails, long thin poles with a melon-shaped part on top. It is very windy, which pushes all of the desert sand around a lot. The "flagpole trees" mark the edge of the Baldric, an area defined by the trees and a cockatoo-like creature. When Antlers Park said that the area would be trouble, Grannie knew she had to investigate. The Baldric itself acts as a line between the areas controlled by the two mining companies, and the mines themselves are where the work happens. Most of the surface, then, is covered either in sand or rock. The other major location in the story is the headquarters of Larynx Incorporated, which is also on Jupiter's Eighth Moon. In the headquarters, there are barracks for the miners, which have huge windows made of denvo-quartz. There is a commissary where people can eat, and a number of administrative areas such as Jimmy's office, and a large visiscreen room where the characters at the headquarters are able to track the movements of the part of the group that left to investigate Red Spot Fever.

The primary action of the story takes place on Jupiter's Eighth Moon, where Grannie Annie assembles a team to help Jimmy Baker resolve the labor issues at his company, Larynx Incorporated. Although the team assembles at the headquarters of Jimmy's rival company, Interstellar Voice, they never go inside, and immediately make their way across a vast, desert-like area known as the Baldric. The manager of Interstellar Voice, Antlers Park, warns them of threats in the Baldric, but they never run into any such danger. Instead, they observe two of the Baldric's most unique characteristics: The flagpole trees that look like vertical cat tails topped with a melon-like protuberance and the bird-like creatures resembling cockatoos that build large, transparent, web-like nests between them. The cockatoos are silver and look like parrots with a crest and have the unique ability to mimic not only the sounds of a person's voice but also the 3D image of their visage in exact duplicate. As the team makes their way across the desert, they are pelted by wind and powdery sand and climb a high ridge from which they are picked up by Jimmy Baker flying his kite-guided car. These vehicles appear to be the main mode of transportation for representatives of both companies on the moon. The final unique setting of the story is Larynx Incorporated, which is comprised of offices and crew bunkers in a large central building, several mining shafts spread throughout the Baldric, a laboratory, a commissary, and an experimental shop. From one of the many offices in the building, an operator shows Billy and Ezra an update to the visiphone that allows viewers to witness 3D events remotely. Later, Billy and Ezra examine the barracks, housed in a low, rectangular building with a dome roof.

“Double Trouble” takes place on the Eighth Moon of Jupiter. Two companies, Interstellar Voice, and Larynx Incorporated are at war with each other to harvest the most Acoustix ore. The companies are located about 10 miles away from each other, and in between them is a space called the Baldric. The Baldric is covered with Flagpole trees. They stand straight up and have a bulbous fruit or vegetable that grows out of the very top. The entire surface is covered in sand, and wind is an ever-present feature of the atmosphere. There are also hundreds of birds that look a lot like cockatoos. The birds look at Xartal’s drawings and then project those images out of their minds. This makes it appear like there are two Grannie Annies or two Billys, when there is really just one. The cockatoos’ ability to project images is similar to their ability to repeat words and phrases that humans say.

The characters also venture inside of Larynx Incorporated, the company owned by Jimmy Baker. There are offices, glass doors, counting machines, and report tapes there. The offices are where they package the Acoustix ore to ship it to their customers. The most interesting part of Larynx Incorporated is Jimmy’s invention, an improvement on the visiphone called a visiscreen. Viewers can be taken to a location and the three D image that’s created makes it feel like they are there, experiencing everything along with the group.

What was the relationship like between Jimmy and Grannie?

Jimmy Baker is the manager of the Acoustix ore mining company called Larynx Incorporated on Jupiter’s eighth moon. Grannie Annie (AKA Annabella C. Flowers) is a famous science fiction writer, well known for her authentic background research for her novels. She is exploring the eighth moon of Jupiter for her newest novel.

Jimmy has knowledge of Grannie’s work and is hoping she can help him solve the mystery of the Red Spot Fever with her excellent problem solving skills. Grannie does not appear to know Jimmy before their meeting in the Baldric. They have a cordial and collaborative relationship through the story that results in solving the mystery.

Jimmy Baker is the director of Larynx Incorporated, one of the companies on Jupiter's Eighth Moon that aims to collect Acoustix ore. Visiting Jimmy was Grannie's primary reason for traveling to the Baldric, and Jimmy seems to need her help. In fact, he thinks she is the only one who might be able to solve his problem. Grannie is excited to help, and is intrigued by the puzzle he has for her. The two of them seem to work well together; Jimmy trusts Grannie to go with him to investigate the issues, and Grannie has some good ideas for him. In the end, they are able to uncover the issue and find a way to help Jimmy's workers.

Jimmy Baker is the congenial manager of Larynx Incorporated, and Billy immediately likes him. When Jimmy picks up Grannie Annie and her team in the Baldric, he mentions how relieved he feels to have her there to help him with his labor problems. Jimmy is a realist, and Grannie Annie is a science fiction writer, so his pragmatic thinking and her creativity work well together to put a stop to Antlers Park's plot to sabotage Jimmy's business. Because of her stubborn insistence of carefully observing each setting for her potential novels, Grannie Annie has developed a quick and keen understanding of unusual phenomena she discovers in her travels. This helps her determine the cause of the 3D duplicates of themselves the cockatoos create and also helps her to quickly deduce Antlers' scheme. When Antlers attempts to force the Red-Spot Fever upon Annie, Jimmy, and Xartal, Annie's creativity leads her to pretend to contract the plague, so that Antlers will leave them to enact the rest of his plot. With Antlers gone, Jimmy and Annie work together to develop the plan to remove the windscreen from his kite car and replace it with an ultra-violet radiator that could be used to guide his lost workers back to Larynx Incorporated.

Jimmy is thankful that Grannie Annie and her friends have come to help him solve the mystery of the Red Spot Fever. His business, Larynx Incorporated, will no longer exist if they can’t find the route cause of the illness. Jimmy needs his workers to stay on task and mine the ore, Acoustix, so that he can sell his product. Without the miners, Interstellar Voice will undoubtedly win the race and Larynx Incorporated will become obsolete. Jimmy explains that he pays his workers well and sends them on a nice vacation every year, so he can’t figure out why they are all walking off the job.

Although Antlers Park tries to scare Grannie Annie away from going to the Baldric to help her friend, Grannie Annie isn’t buying what he’s selling. She’s there to research her new novel and help out Jimmy, and nothing is going to stop her from completing her task. It is Grannie Annie’s idea to set up the ultraviolet screen that will counteract the infrared-rays that cause Red Spot Fever, and she does it all to get Jimmy’s workers back to the mines.

What is the importance of Acoustix in the story?

It is a precious, lightweight ore found on at least one of Jupiter’s moons (eighth moon) that is highly valuable on Mars, but of no value on Earth. Martians are able to speak out loud as Earthlings do by supersonically amplifying their thoughts. As Martians grow beyond middle age, they are no longer able to do this amplification without the assistance of the Acoustix ore. Thus, it is highly valuable to them.

The ore is the only reason for colonization of Jupiter’s moons, and there are two main companies that mine it - Interstellar Voice, Larynx Incorporated. It becomes a source of greed, which causes the manager of Interstellar Voice (Antlers Karn) to attempt sabotage against the other company, serving as the main climax of the story.

Acoustix is an ore found on Jupiter's eighth moon that helps older martians continue to amplify their thoughts with their supersonic communication methods that usually deteriorate once the Martian hits middle age. Although there is no use for it on Earth, it is the entire reason there is colonial presence on the moon, and the reason for the presence of the companies Interstellar Voice and Larynx Incorporated. The ore is therefore the primary point of competition between the two companies, and when Larynx Incorporated finds a new, rich source of the ore, Antlers Park decides he has to take action to keep Jimmy Baker's company from getting ahead. This is why Antlers made a small device to make the rays more concentrated, to shine them on the workers in the barracks, to give them Red Spot Fever. This would allow him to take over the area that is rich in ore.

Acoustix is an ore unique to Jupiter's Eighth Moon and is the reason for the presence of the mining operations of Intersteller Voice and Larynx Incorporated. As Antlers Park informs Billy, although the ore is useless to Earthmen, the Martians highly value it. Because Martians speak using a supersonic method, they are able to amplify their thoughts via high-frequency wavelengths. As they get older, this ability decreases, and the Acoustix has the ability to restore that ability to its previous strength. Jimmy Baker's company, Larynx Incorporated, has discovered a massive reserve of Acoustix that would essentially put them far ahead of their competition, and therefore Antlers Park works to sabotage them by spreading Red-Spot fever amongst his workers, knowing their discovery would hurt his own business, Interstellar Voice. Jimmy worries that the labor shortage will impair his company's ability to mine Shaft Four, which produces their largest share of Acoustix, and will lead to the termination of his charter through Spacolonial.

Acoustix is the ore that Larynx Incorporated and Interstellar Voice are both harvesting and selling. As far as anyone knows, Acoustix can only be found on this moon of Jupiter's. The ore is useless on Earth, but Martians use it to continue to communicate with Earthmen after they have reached old age. Martians create wave lengths with their thoughts using vibrations. After they become older, they are unable to create the same frequency of vibrations, and therefore lose the ability to speak with others. The Acoustix ore revitalizes the organ they use to create the vibrations, and it gives them the gift of communication once more.

Antlers Park does not want Jimmy Baker and his company to outdo his business, Interstellar Voice. The men share access to the Baldric, which is where the miners are harvesting Acoustix. If Park can get Baker out of the way, he will have the whole stretch of land to harvest for himself, and he will be the sole person profiting off of the moon. He hatches a plan to make Baker's employees sick with Red Spot Fever so that they walk off the job and leave the Acoustix to his miners to gather and sell.

The symptoms of the fever are described as “garrulousness” followed by the victims leaving their post and walking into the Baldric desert.

The fever is brought on by infra-red rays from Jupiter’s great spot. Normally, people on this moon aren’t coming down with the fever from their regular activities. However, a lens-like device mounted in the window of the worker barracks at Larynx Incorporated projects the infra-red rays from the great spot around the room onto the sleeping workers which puts them into this trance-like state.

Antlers Karn is responsible for causing the Red Spot Fever by having the devices installed in his competitors' barracks. He also claims to have developed an antitoxin that would reverse the fever, however, it is implied that this was only a lie to cover up his actions.

Red Spot Fever makes the people who catch it start to talk a lot, and after rambling for a while the people wander into the Baldric as long as they can do so unnoticed. When someone is watching them to try to see where they are going, they stop until they can slip away. This is a big issue for the mining companies that rely on their workers for survival. The Fever comes about by the infra-red rays from Jupiter's great spot, and exposure to these rays over time causes the Fever in humans. The good news is that the infra-red rays can be combated with ultra violet light, which we see Jimmy Baker and Xartal use at the end of the story, shining the light on the miners to counteract the exposure.

Jimmy Baker believes he is losing his workers to onset Red Spot Fever, the symptoms of which include extreme talkativeness followed by a tendency to wander away and disappear. Following the discovery of the massive store of Acoustix around Shaft Four, his workers began wandering into the vastness of the Baldric. Billy and Ezra confirm Jimmy's suspicions when they discover a device hidden in the barracks at Larynx Incorporated that concentrates and amplifies the power of the infra-red rays from nearby Jupiter's great spot. The device operates on a timer so that it beams onto the workers as they sleep. Antlers Park admits to having installed the device because he feared the resultant competition from Jimmy Baker's discovery of the deep Acoustix vein. In order to combat the Red Spot Fever, Annie and Jimmy concoct a plan to utilize Jimmy's kite car as a makeshift beam from which to cast ultraviolet rays upon the wandering workers. Since the rays are at the opposite end of the vibratory scale, they can be used to subvert the symptoms of Red Spot Fever and draw the workers back to Larynx Incorporated.

Red Spot Fever is an illness that Jimmy Baker's workers come down with after Antlers Park hatches a plan to make them sick. He or one of his minions sneaks into the workers' barracks and places a piece of metal with a lens on the wall. The lens works to amplify Jupiter's infrared-rays, and the rays hit the men while they are sleeping. The workers are affected by this contraption because it makes them extremely talkative and forces them to walk out of their mines. Importantly, Billy looks through Jimmy Baker's folder of victims and makes a connection that the men are becoming sick while they are sleeping, and not while they are working. This gives Ezra and Billy the idea to go to the barracks and look around, and that's when they find the lens that amplifies the harmful rays.

Grannie Annie is able to solve the problem by hitting the infected men with ultraviolet light which counteracts against the infrared-rays. When the men are no longer poisoned by the infrared, they walk right back to their work stations.