SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: SUB-SATELLITE

 "Sub-Satellite" by Charles Cloukey  (first published in Amazing Stories, March 1928; reprinted n Amazing Stories, December 1967; in The Best of Amazing Stories:  The 1928 Anthology, edited by Steve Davidson & Jean Marie Stine, 2016; in Moonrise, edited by Mike Ashley, 2018; e-book version, (2019) available at Roy Glashan's Library; and in Charles Cloukey:  The Short Story Collection:  "If the Fates Will Have It So, So Be It", undated, probably 2023)

There are child prodigies and there are child prodigies.  In the science fiction field the first to hold claim to that title was probably Charles Cloukey.  Cloukey was born on April 15, 1912 and sold his first story, "Sub-Satellite" when he was fifteen.  When the story first appeared, the editors of Amazing wrote, "Here is a novel type of interplanetary story, with some excellent science mixed throughout.  Possibly the only practical space flyer that has come up for consideration so far, that is considered seriously by science, is the Goddard type pf rocket flyer.  This is based on sound scientific premises and sooner or later, one of these space-flyers will come into being.  The curious idea of Sub-Satellite itself , is excellent, and you will enjoy it."  [Remember, this was back in the early days of Science fiction, when Uncle Hugo was still calling it 'Scientifiction," and when "Sub-Satellite" shared space with reprints of "The Flowering of the Strange Orchid" by H. G. Wells, the final part of a two-part reprinting of "Master for the World" by Jules Verne, and two of Gernsback's own "Adventures of Baron Munchausen"; the only other stories in that issue were one by Geoffrey Hewelcke (who published a dozen stories -- some as "Hugh Jeffries" -- but none of the others were science fiction) and W. F. Hammond (who, per FictionMags Index, published only two stories, both featuring somebody named Diske Errill.  So when something new, unique, and interesting was published, readers took notice, and that was the case with "Sub-Satellite.")

When the story was reprinted in December 1967 issue of Amazing (the first issue edited by Harry Harrison), the editorial blurb read, "How large must a satellite be?  The size of a grain of sand?  Or of an orange?  Or, perhaps, as the murderous Duseau discovers,  a satellite can be of any size at all, given enough velocity and mass to orbit a given celestial body!"

Back in 1928, science fiction fandom (such as it was) sat up and took notice.  In July, Cloukey followed it up with a sequel, "Super-Radio."  Then followed six more stories through June of 1931 whose "writing and plotting were of someone ahead of their years," according to Mike Ashley.  But in 1931, young Cloukey entered Haverford College where he won first honors as a freshman in the intelligent test, studying to be a chemical engineer; just a few months later he was dead of typhoid fever.  He was nineteen.  One poem and one three-part serialized novel were published posthumously in Amazing.  A writer with tremendous potential was silenced.

{SPOILER ALERT] :  "Sub-Satellite" tells the tale of the death of Duseau.  "In the hour of his triumph, Duseau had been killed.  Consider the tremendous power of the Marvite gun.  Long ago men calculated that a bullet shot from a gun with a muzzle velocity of 6,500 feet a second would, if there were no obstacles in its path, completely encircle the moon!  And that is what happened!  One of the bullets Duseau shot from the summit of 'Mount Olympus' traveled all the way around the moon, and hit him in the back!  And that, Kornfield, is what I was thinking about when I spoke of a sub-satellite."  A plot device that has been used countless time since then, but in 1928 it was cutting-edge gosh-wow!

The story still holds up today.  you can read it here, courtesy of the ever-fascinating Roy Glashan's Library:

https://freeread.com.au/@RGLibrary/CharlesCloukey/Stories/SubSatellite.html