The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hammer of Thor, by Charles Willard Diffin

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Title: The Hammer of Thor

Author: Charles Willard Diffin

Release Date: June 22, 2009 [EBook #29202]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Astounding Stories March 1932.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

[Illustration: _He could see, above them, the belly of
a white ship_]

The Hammer of Thor

By Charles Willard Diffin

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Like the Hammer of Thor was the clash of Danny O'Rourke
with the mysterious giant of space.]

The Director General of District Three, Ural Division of the Russian
States, was a fool. Danny O'Rourke had reached that conclusion some
time before--a conclusion, however, that he was most careful to keep
unexpressed.

And then Danny not only thought it; he knew the Director was a fool;
and the amazing incident that proved it took place in Stobolsk, the
Governmental Headquarters of District Three. Although Danny's regular
station was on a lonely peak in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the
United States, the occurrence was nevertheless observed by him; and
this happened for two reasons.

The New Soviet Government that took over control of all the Russias in
1943 wanted, among other things, to install the most modern
fire-fighting system, the equal of anything in the world. They turned,
quite naturally, to the United States of America for their
instruction; and this was reason number one why Danny O'Rourke, pilot
of the Air Fire Force, was where he was on the morning of June 13th.

The second reason was the tremendous timber wealth in the Ural
Division and the threat to destroy it by fire.

Perhaps there might be mentioned a third reason: that this