 What effects do the Green Flame rocks have?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. The Spacemen's was a sanctuary, a rest club where in-coming pilots and crewmen could relax before leaving for another voyage. The rule that no females could pass its portals was strictly enforced. There she stood before a frantically gesticulating desk clerk, leaning on her faded green umbrella. Pure fiddle-faddle, that's what they are. To her publishers and her readers she might be Annabella C. Flowers, author of a long list of science fiction novels. If Annabella C. Flowers wrote a novel, and the locale was the desert of Mars, she packed her carpet bag and hopped a liner for Craterville. If she cooked up a feud between two expeditions on Callisto, she went to Callisto. Grannie spilled a few shreds of Martian tobacco onto a paper and deftly rolled herself a cigarette. A theater to the grizzled colonials on this side of the planet meant a shack on stilts over the muck, zilcon wood seats and dingy atobide lamps. But the place was packed with miners, freight-crew-men—all the tide and wash of humanity that made Swamp City the frontier post it is. "I'm sorry about all this rush, but I'm one of the players in this shindig. "That damned fossilized dynamo," I muttered. The piano struck a chord in G, and the curtain went rattling up. On the stage four Earthmen, two Martians, two Venusians, and one Mercurian sat on an upraised dais. The Mercurian, a huge lump of granite-like flesh, sprawled there, palpably uncomfortable. On the right were nine visi sets, each with its new improved pantascope panel and switchboard. Before each set stood an Earthman operator. When it had subsided, the man continued: "As most of you are familiar with our program, it will be unnecessary to give any advance explanation. I will only say that on this stage are nine visi sets, each tuned to one of the nine planets. At transmitting sets all over these planets listeners will appear and voice questions. For every question missed, the sender will receive a check for one thousand planetoles . The operator of the Earth visi twisted his dials and nodded. Questions from Mars, from Earth, from Saturn flowed in the visi sets. Isolated miners on Jupiter, dancers in swank Plutonian cafes strove to stump the experts.
 It makes people lethargic and easily manipulated.
 It makes people lethargic and easily manipulated.  They spread radioactivity to people and make them ill.  They influence people to take power over other people.  They are electromagnetic and shock people.