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"THE RAT RACE"
By Jay Franklin
When an atomic explosion destroys the battleship
Alaska, Lt. Commander Frank Jacklin returns to con­
sciousness in New York and is shocked to find himself
in the body of Winnie Tomkins, a dissolute stock­
broker. Unable to explain his real identity, Jacklin
attempts to fit into Tomkin's w ay of life. Complications
develop when Jacklin gets involved with Tomkin's
wife, his red-haired mistress and his luscious secretary.
Three too many women for Jacklin to handle.
His foreknowledge of the Alaska sinking and other
top secret matters plunges him into a mad world of
intrigue and excitement in Washington— that place
where anything can happen and does! Where is the
real Tomkins is a mystery explained in the smashing
climax.
Completely delightful, wholly provocative, the Rat
Race is a striking novel of the American Scene.
RAT
by
J A Y
F R A N K L I N
The Astonishing
Narrative of a
Man
Who Was
Somebody
Else . . * Mixed Up With Politics and Three Luscious Women!
☆
A C O M PL E TE N O V E L
G A L A X Y
P U B L IS H IN G
C O R P.
421 H UDSON S T R E E T
N EW
YORK
1 4 , N .Y .
GA LA XY
Science Fiction
Novels, selected by the editors of
GA LA XY
Science Fiction
Magazine, are the choice of sci­
ence fiction novels both published and original. This novel
has been slightly abridged for the sake of better pacing.
*
GA LA XY
Science Fiction
Novel No. 10
35^ a copy. One year (six issues) $2.00
A
Copyright 1947 by Crowetl-Cotlier Publishing Company
Copyright 1950 by John Franklin Carter
■r
A
Reprinted by arrangement with the publishers
*
P R IN T E D IN T H E U N ITED S T A T E S O F A M ERIC A
by
THE GUINN COMPANY, INC.
NEW YORK 1 . N. Y.
4
CHAPTER 1
H EN the bomb exploded,
U.S.S. Alaska, was steam­
ing westward, under com­
plete radio silence, somewhere near
the international date-line on the
Great Circle course south of the
Aleutian Islands.
It was either the second or the
third o f April, 1945, depending on
whether the Alaska, the latest light
carrier to be added to American
naval forces in the Pacific, had passed
the 180th meridian.
1 was in. the carrier, in fact, in the
magazine, when the blast occurred
and I am the only person who can
tell how and why the Alaska disap­
peared without a trace in the Arctic
waters west of Adak. I had been
assigned by Navy Public Relations
to observe and report on Operation
Octopus — the plan to blow up the
Jap naval base at Paramushiro in
Kuriles with the Navy’s recently de­
veloped thorium bomb.
My name, by the way, is Frank
Jacklin, Lieutenant-Commander, U.S.
N .R. I had been commissioned short­
ly after Pearl Harbor, as a result of
my vigorous editorial crusade on the
Hartford (Conn.) Courant to Aid
America by Defending the Allies. I
was a life-long Republican and a per­
sonal friend o f Frank Knox, so 1 had
no trouble with Navy Intelligence in
getting a reserve commission in the
summer of 1940. ( I never told them
that I had voted for Roosevelt twice,
so I was never subjected to the usual
double-check by which the Navy kept
its officer-corps purged o f subver­
3
sive taints and doubtful loyalties.)
So I had a first-rate assignment, by
the usual combination o f boot-licking
and "yessing" which marks a good
P.R.O.
It was on the first night in Jap
waters, after we had cleared the ra­
dius o f the Naval Air Station at Adak,
that Professor Chalmis asked me to
accompany him to the magazine. He
said that his orders were to make
effective disclosure o f the mechanics
o f the thorium bomb as soon as we
were clear o f the Aleutians. Inci­
dentally, he, I and Alaska’s com­
mander, Captain Horatio McAllister,
U .S.N ., were the only people aboard
who knew the real nature o f Opera­
tion Octopus. The others had been
alerted, via latrine rumor, that we
were engaged in a sneak-raid on
Hokkaido.
The thorium bomb, Chalmis told
me, had been developed by-the Navy,
parallel to ocher hitherto unsuccess­
ful experiments conducted by the
Army with uranium. The thorium
bomb utilized atomic energy, on a
rather low and inefficient basis by sci­
entific standards, but was yet suffi­
ciently explosive to destroy a whole
city. He proposed to show me the
bomb itself, so that I could describe
its physical appearance, and to brief
me on the mechanics o f its detona­
tion, leaving to the Navy scientists at
Washington’ a fuller report on the
whole subject o f atomic weapons. He
had passes, signed by Captain Mc­
Allister, to admit us to the maga­
zine and proposed, after supper, that
we go to examine his gadget.
It was cold as professional charity

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