The Red Moon Mystery

The Red Moon Mystery was a Dan Dare story which ran in the original Eagle comic from Volume 2, Issue 26 (Dated 5 October, 1951); to Volume 3, Issue 11 (Dated 20 June, 1952). It was drawn by Frank Hampson.

ynopsis

Dan and Digby are on a skiing holiday in North Mars, and take a day out to visit Dan's uncle Ivor. Ivor is an archaeologist, and is searching Martian ruins to find clues as to what destroyed the ancient civilisation there, turning the planet into a desert. He has found a message from the last Martian Emperor, Dortan-Uth-Alger, warning any visitors to beware the "Red Moon". Ivor does not know what the Red Moon was, but knows that Dortan left other clues.

Returning to their hotel, Dan and Dig are contacted by televiewer from Earth by Sir Hubert who tells them that he needs them to investigate a strange asteroid that seems to be being steered towards Earth: the newspapers are calling it the Red Moon.

Certain that this is a coincidence, Dan and Dig head for a satellite space station orbiting Mars, where passengers are transferred from deep space trains, to streamlined ferries to the Martian surface. Pierre is in charge of the station, and has arranged for Dan to use a ship called "Hirondelle" to investigate the Red Moon. He has taken the captain off the "Space Clipper", the train currently docked at the station, as an assistant for Dan - this is in fact Hank. Pierre has even discovered Peabody on holiday at the South Pole, and has called her in as scientific advisor.

As the "Hirondelle" heads for the Red Moon, Sir Hubert reports that the asteroid is definitely being steered at the Earth, and at variable speed. Something is definitely controlling it. As the ship approaches the Red Moon, it is pulled in at incredible speed - the asteroid is a giant magnet. They then discover that the asteroid is surrounded by a 100-mile deep dust cloud, and has atmosphere. Dan uses these to steer the ship with, to try to escape its magnetism. As the ship turns, just above the surface, the crew hear a strange throbbing noise, so loud it knocks them all unconscious.

When he comes around, Dan realises that the next investigation will have to be made in his own ship, "Anastasia". Designed by Sondar, she has Treen-style magnetic motors, which should be enough to counter the pull of the asteroid.

Dan returns to the Space Station. There, he contacts Sir Hubert with his report. Sir Hubert says that Ivor has noticed the Red Moon above Mars, and contacted him. From Dortan's records, Ivor knows that the Red Moon orbited Mars a number of times, causing electrical storms. This was followed, on the third day, by what Dortan called the "killing noise", and on the third day, the Red Moon "struck". Ivor does not know how, but knows that Dortan left a box somewhere which would offer a clue. The Red Moon is clearly the same one Dan has visited. Sir Hubert explains that Dan cannot make a second trip. The Red Moon has broken from its path and gone into an orbit of Mars. The planet must be evacuated, and Dan must take charge.

There is a problem with this. They have four days before the Red Moon strikes, so can only use ships currently within that range of Mars. Besides the "Space Clipper" are two other space trains, "Maryland" and "Lancastrian", and a Space Fleet maintenance ship called "Admiral Grosvenor". These, with the six ferries, can carry about 1000 people, but 1300 need to be rescued.

When the evacuees have been taken to the station, Dan, Dig, and the ferry pilot Captain Bryan search the Martian hotels. Nobody has been left behind but a little dog, which Digby adopts. Meanwhile, a group of evacuees panic and try to seize the "Space Clipper", but are foiled when Peabody switches off the station's artificial gravity.

Dan is contacted by Hank, who, with Pierre, has attempted a second trip to the Red Moon in "Anastasia". The magnetic motors have cancelled out the pull of the asteroid, but they could not land because of the noise, which has knocked Pierre out. Pierre saw something before this, and Hank can see lights flashing. The Red Moon is clearly crawling with life.

Back on the station, the evacuation is underway when the station is itself caught in the Red Moon's magnetic pull. Dan tries to use the ferries and "Lancastrian" to tow it to safety, but this fails. He then has one last idea: Sondar equipped "Anastasia" with gunnery. He has all the remaining evacuees taken to the station's loading platform, and then attempts to shoot away the supports that attach it to the station. Digby's dog jumps at him and fires the shot, but incredibly scores a perfect hit. The ships tow the platform away, with all lives apparently saved, except Ivor, who is still looking for Dortan's box. Dan, Dig and the dog, who Dan has named Sir William Tell, take "Anastasia" to collect him.

Ivor has found the box, which was ironically revealed by being attracted by the Red Moon's magnetism. Inside it, however, are what appear to be just six dirty stone slabs, completely blank. They then make another trip to the Red Moon, which has broken its orbit of Mars, and resumed its journey towards Earth. This time they can land as the throbbing noise has stopped. The Red Moon is craggy and mountainous, and very dark. They try looking with "Anastasia"'s infra-red search light, which causes pictures to appear on the slabs. These reveal the creatures that live on the Red Moon, and Dan and Dig set off to try to find one.

Back on Earth, a mass panic is brewing. On Venus, Kalon and Sondar have theorised that the Red Moon can be moved freely through space for reasons connected to its magnetism, and have devised rays that they hope will neutralise it. But their fleet cannot arrive in time to save the Earth. Sir Hubert decides to try atom bombing the asteroid off course.

On the Red Moon, Dan sees a flashing light, which he realises is a Morse message: S.O.S. P.E.A.B.O.D.Y. He takes "Anastasia" to the source of the light, while the first bombs strike, and discovers Peabody unconscious on top of the wreck of the space station. Realising that they must now be near Earth, they decide to leave, but a wing on "Anastasia" is damaged by one of the bombs, and Dan has to run emergency repairs on it.

The Red Moon begins orbiting Earth, and the storms begin. During one of the storms, Dan manages to pilot "Anastasia" to a crash landing outside Space Fleet headquarters. There, Ivor tells Sir Hubert his theory about the nature of the Red Moon.

The stone slabs were a type of naturally occurring, tar-covered slate found on Mars, whose properties enabled it to work like a camera if exposed to light. Crucially, one depicts a swarm of flying insects. Dan discovered the body of one such creature, blown into the damaged wing, when he fixed it. These are the creatures responsible for the Red Moon.

Ivor theorises that the "bees" were the dominant life form on their planet, and, like Earth bees, bred different "strains" of themselves. Eventually, they bred a strain capable of surviving in space, complete with air sacs. They flew to a moon of their planet, and used it as a space ship, moving it freely through space, though how they managed that remains a mystery. While they were away, the parent planet was destroyed, and the bees were forced to survive as raiders in space.

With so many planets to raid, the bees survived and flourished. But to survive the great distances in space, they needed to hibernate, so they burrowed into their moon, slowly creating the great dust cloud. This acts as a dynamo, turning the moon into a giant electro-magnet, which causes the storms on a victim planet, along with other disturbances caused by the Red Moon's gravity. As for the throbbing noise, the bees have sound-boards on their legs, like grasshoppers. They must sound these when they wake from hibernation. The sound might cross space by temporary conversion to light waves, which converts back on hitting metal, whereupon the sound kills by causing reverberations in the brain.

Once these effects have weakened the planet, the bees swarm. Each bee is capable of administering a fatal electric shock, so nothing can stop them as they strip the planet of all its vegetation. The storms exhaust the planet's oxygen, and any animal life left suffocates. The planet becomes a barren desert. And yet the whole thing is a tragic accident.

Sir Hubert decides to consult a stellar physicist called Bronstein. En route, Peabody explains that she has in idea for a solution. She had become trapped in the Space Station when she went to her cabin to collect some spectroscope readings. With these, she can tell which chemicals are present on a planet by whether or not the line their reflected light produces on the electromagnetic spectrum is recorded. Where there is vegetation, there is chlorophyll green. Before the attack, traces of this could be found on Mars. Afterwards, they were gone, and had moved to the Red Moon's spectrum. The bees had raided Mars for what little vegetation it possessed.

Peabody's crucial point is the matter of how the bees know which planets are fertile. Light is the only thing that can move through the vacuum of space, so it must be their clue. At first, the Red Moon headed for Earth, the largest of the inner planets, which gave the strongest signal. But it happened to pass close to Mars, and there the small amount of artificially cultivated vegetation swamped the signal from Earth. The bees attacked it, but found little, and so aborted the raid and moved on to Earth. Simply, to save Earth, they must swamp the signal again. If they build a giant light that shines brightly with chlorophyll green, they might be able to lure the Red Moon away.

Bronstein concludes that the idea is plausible. He also shows that the bees must move between the Red Moon and their victim planet by their magnetised wings, attracting or repelling the pull from the asteroid. He cannot promise that the light will work, but it is certainly practicable.

The light is quickly built, and Dan and Digby set off towing it in "Anastasia", taking the stowaway Peabody with them. The light stops the Red Moon for hours, but it finally takes the bait, and follows the light away from Earth.

Days later, "Anastasia" meets with Sondar's Treen fleet. Sondar plans to use his rays to paralyse the bees, so that the Red Moon can be examined, and its secret of free movement in space explained. The ray fails, and the Red Moon makes off towards the Sun. It is so dangerous that the Treen fleet must chase it, either out of the Solar System, or until they can destroy it with a Theron bomb.

Weeks pass, and Digby is sharing a cabin with an Atlantine cadet called Urb-Urtos when the Red Moon slows down, presumably to attack Mercury. The Earth people, including Sir William, and Urb, accompany Sondar in his ship to deliver the bomb, leaving the rest of the fleet behind. Sondar fires, and a huge explosion utterly destroys the Red Moon. As the crew watch, the cloud of debris comes closer, and engulfs the ship. The rest of the fleet search, but finally abandon, reporting no survivors. As news of the deaths is announced, a battered space ship plummets towards the surface of Mercury...

Notes

*The story arc commenced in this story was concluded in the following story, Marooned on Mercury.