Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (131 page)

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“What’s this?” asked DuQuesne. “Deviltry in the main office?”

“Yes. This Margaret Spencer claims that we swindled her father out of an invention and indirectly caused his death. She secured a position with us in search of evidence. She is an expert stenographer, and showed such ability that she was promoted until she became my secretary. Our detectives must have been asleep, as she made away with some photographs and drawings before they caught her. She has no real evidence, of course, but she might cause trouble with a jury, especially as she is one of the best-looking women in Washington. Perkins is holding her until she returns the stolen articles.”

“Why can’t you kill her off?”

“She cannot be disposed of until after we know where the stuff is, because she says, and Perkins believes, that the evidence will show up in her effects. We must do something about her soon, as the search for her is dying down and she will be given up for dead.”

“What’s the idea about her and the space-car?”

“If the car proves reliable we might actually take her out into space and give her the choice between telling and walking back. She has nerve enough here on earth to die before giving up, but I don’t believe any human being would be game to go it alone on a strange world. She’d wilt.”

“I believe you’re right, Perkins. Your suggestions are the best way out. Don’t you think so, Doctor?”

“Yes, I don’t see how we can fail—we’re sure to win, either way. You are prepared for trouble afterward, of course?”

“Certainly, but I don’t think there will be much trouble. They can’t possibly link the three of us together. They aren’t wise to you, are they, Doctor?”

“Not a chance!” sneered DuQuesne. “They ran themselves ragged trying to get something on me, but they couldn’t do it. They have given me up as a bad job. I am still as careful as ever, though—I am merely a pure scientist in the Bureau of Chemistry!”

All three laughed, and Perkins left the room. The talk then turned to the construction of the space-car. It was decided to rush the work on it, so that DuQuesne could familiarize himself with its operation, but not to take any steps in the actual abduction until such time as Seaton and Crane were nearly ready to take their first flight, so that they could pursue the abductors in case Seaton was still obdurate after a few days of his fiancee’s absence. DuQuesne insisted that the car should mount a couple of heavy guns, to destroy the pursuing car if the faulty members should happen to hold together long enough to carry it out into space.

After a long discussion, in which every detail of the plan was carefully considered, the two men left the restaurant, by different exits.

CHAPTER VII

The Trial Voyage

The great steel forgings which were to form the framework of the Skylark finally arrived and were hauled into the testing shed. There, behind closed doors, Crane inspected every square inch of the massive members with a lens, but could find nothing wrong. Still unsatisfied, he fitted up an electrical testing apparatus in order to search out flaws which might be hidden beneath the surface. This device revealed flaws in every piece, and after thoroughly testing each one and mapping out the imperfections he turned to Seaton with a grave face.

“Worse than useless, every one of them. They are barely strong enough to stand shipment. They figured that we would go slowly until we were well out of the atmosphere, then put on power—then something would give way and we would never come back.”

“That’s about the right dope, I guess. But now what’ll we do? We can’t cancel without letting them know we’re onto them, and we certainly can’t use this stuff.”

“No, but we will go ahead and build this ship, anyway, so that they will think that we are going ahead with it. At the same time we will build another one, about four times this size, in absolute secrecy, and.…”

“What d’you mean, absolute secrecy? How can you keep steel castings and forgings of that size secret from Steel?”

“I know a chap who owns and operates a small steel plant, so insignificant, relatively, that he has not yet been bought out or frozen out by Steel. I was able to do him a small favor once, and I am sure that he will be glad to return it. We will not be able to oversee the work, that is a drawback. We can get MacDougall to do it for us, however, and with him doing the work we can rest assured that there will be nothing off color. Even Steel couldn’t buy him.”

“MacDougall! The man who installed the Intercontinental plant? He wouldn’t touch a little job like this with a pole!”

“I think he would. He and I are rather friendly, and after I tell him all about it he will be glad to take it. It means building the first interplanetary vessel, you know.”

“Wouldn’t Steel follow him up if he should go to work on a mysterious project? He’s too big to hide.”

“No. He will go camping—he often does. I have gone with him several times when we were completely out of touch with civilization for two months at a time. Now, about the ship we want. Have you any ideas?”

“It will cost more than our entire capital.”

“That is easily arranged. We do not care how much it costs.”

Seaton began to object to drawing so heavily upon the resources of his friend, but was promptly silenced.

“I told you when we started,” Crane said flatly, “that your solution and your idea are worth far more than half a million. In fact, they are worth more than everything I have. No more talk of the money end of it, Dick.”

“All right. We’ll build a regular go-getter. Four times the size—she’ll be a bear-cat, Mart. I’m glad this one is on the fritz. She’ll carry a two-hundred-pound bar—Zowie! Watch our smoke! And say, why wouldn’t it be a good idea to build an attractor—a thing like an object-compass, but mounting a ten-pound bar instead of a needle, so that if they chase us in space we can reach out and grab ‘em? We might mount a machine-gun in each quadrant, shooting X-plosive bullets, through pressure gaskets in the walls. We should have something for defense—I don’t like the possibility of having that gang of pirates after us, and nothing to fight back with except thought-waves.”

“Right. We will do both those things. But we should make the power-plant big enough to avert any possible contingency—say four hundred pounds—and we should have everything in duplicate, from power-plant to push-buttons.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary, Mart. Don’t you think that’s carrying caution to extremes?”

“Possibly—but I would rather be a live coward than a dead hero, wouldn’t you?”

“You chirped it, old scout, I sure would. I never did like the looks of that old guy with the scythe, and I would hate to let DuQuesne feel that he had slipped something over on me at my own game. Besides, I’ve developed a lot of caution myself, lately. Double she is, with a skin of four-foot Norwegian armor. Let’s get busy!”

* * * *

They made the necessary alteration in the plans, and in a few days work was begun upon the huge steel shell in the little mountain steel-plant. The work was done under the constant supervision of the great MacDougall, by men who had been in his employ for years and who were all above suspicion. While it was being built Seaton and Crane employed a force of men and went ahead with the construction of the space-car in the testing shed. While they did not openly slight the work nearly all their time was spent in the house, perfecting the many essential things which were to go into the real Skylark. There was the attractor, for which they had to perfect a special sighting apparatus so that it could act in any direction, and yet would not focus upon the ship itself nor anything it contained. There were many other things.

It was in this work that the strikingly different temperaments and abilities of the two men were most clearly revealed. Seaton strode up and down the room, puffing great volumes of smoke from his hot and reeking briar, suggesting methods and ideas, his keen mind finding the way over, around, or through the apparently insuperable obstacles which beset their path. Crane, seated calmly at the drafting-table, occasionally inhaling a mouthful of smoke from one of his specially-made cigarettes, mercilessly tore Seaton’s suggestions to shreds—pointing out their weaknesses, proving his points with his cold, incisive reasoning and his slide-rule calculations of factors, stresses, and strains. Seaton in turn would find a remedy for every defect, and finally, the idea complete and perfect, Crane would impale it upon the point of his drafting pencil and spread it in every detail upon the paper before him, while Seaton’s active mind leaped to the next problem.

Not being vitally interested in the thing being built in the shed, they did not know that to the flawed members were being attached faulty plates, by imperfect welding. Even if they had been interested they could not have found the poor workmanship by any ordinary inspection, for it was being done by a picked crew of experts picked by Perkins. But to make things even, Perkins’ crew did not know that the peculiar instruments installed by Seaton and Crane, of which their foreman took many photographs, were not real instruments, and were made only nearly enough like them to pass inspection. They were utterly useless, in design and function far different from the real instruments intended for the Skylark.

Finally, the last dummy instrument was installed in the worthless space-car, which the friends referred to between themselves as “The Cripple,” a name which Seaton soon changed to “Old Crip.” The construction crew was dismissed after Crane had let the foreman overhear a talk between Seaton and himself in which they decided not to start for a few days as they had some final experiments to make. Prescott reported that Steel had relaxed its vigilance and was apparently waiting for the first flight. About the same time word was received from MacDougall that the real Skylark was ready for the finishing touches. A huge triplane descended upon Crane Field and was loaded to its capacity with strange looking equipment. When it left Seaton and Crane went with it, “to make the final tests before the first flight,” leaving a heavy guard over the house and the testing shed.

A few nights later, in inky blackness, a huge shape descended rapidly in front of the shed, whose ponderous doors opened to receive it and closed quickly after it. The Skylark moved lightly and easily as a wafted feather, betraying its thousands of tons of weight only by the hole it made in the hard-beaten earth of the floor as it settled to rest. Opening one of the heavy doors, Seaton and Crane sprang out into the darkness.

Dorothy and her father, who had been informed that the Skylark was to be brought home that night, were waiting. Seaton caught up his sweetheart in one mighty arm and extended his hand past her to Vaneman, who seized it in both his own. Upon the young man’s face was the look of a victorious king returning from conquest. For a few minutes disconnected exclamations were all that any of the party could utter. Then Seaton, loosening slightly his bear’s hold upon Dorothy, spoke.

“She flies!” he cried exultantly. “She flies, dearest, like a ray of light for speed and like a bit of thistledown for lightness. We’ve been around the moon!”

“Around the moon!” cried the two amazed visitors. “So soon?” asked Vaneman. “When did you start?”

“Almost an hour ago,” replied Crane readily; he had already taken out his watch. His voice was calm, his face quiet, but to those who knew him best a deeper resonance in his voice and a deeper blue sparkle in his eyes betrayed his emotion. Both inventors were moved more than they could have told by their achievement, by the complete success of the great space-cruiser upon which they had labored for months with all the power of their marvelous intellects. Seaton stood now at the summit of his pride. No recognition by the masses, no applause by the multitudes, no praise even from the upper ten of his own profession could equal for him the silent adulation of the two before him. Dorothy’s exquisite face was glorified as she looked at her lover. Her eyes wonderful as they told him how high he stood above all others in her world, how much she loved him. Seeing that look; that sweet face, more beautiful than ever in this, his hour of triumph; that perfect, adorable body, Seaton forgot the others and a more profound exaltation than that brought by his flight filled his being—humble thankfulness that he was the man to receive the untold treasure of her great giving.

“Every bit of mechanism we had occasion to use worked perfectly,” Crane stated proudly. “We did not find it necessary to change any of our apparatus and we hope to make a longer flight soon. The hour we took on this trip might easily have been only a few minutes, for the Lark did not even begin to pick up speed.”

* * * *

Shiro looked at Crane with an air of utter devotion and bowed until his head approached the floor.

“Sir,” he said in his stilted English. “Honorable Skylark shall be marvelous wonder. If permitting, I shall luxuriate in preparing suitable refreshment.”

The permission granted, he trotted away into the house, and the travelers invited their visitors to inspect the new craft. Crane and the older man climbed through the circular doorway, which was at an elevation of several feet above the ground. Seaton and Dorothy exchanged a brief but enthusiastic caress before he lifted her lightly up to the opening and followed her up a short flight of stairs. Although she knew what to expect, from her lover’s descriptions and from her own knowledge of “Old Crip,” which she had seen many times, she caught her breath in amazement as she stood up and looked about the brilliantly-lighted interior of the great sky-rover. It was a sight such as had never before been seen upon earth.

She saw a spherical shell of hardened steel armor-plate, fully forty feet in diameter; though its true shape was not readily apparent from the inside, as it was divided into several compartments by horizontal floors or decks. In the exact center of the huge shell was a spherical network of enormous steel beams. Inside this structure could be seen a similar network which, mounted upon universal bearings, was free to revolve in any direction. This inner network was filled with machinery, surrounding a shining copper cylinder. From the outer network radiated six mighty supporting columns. These, branching as they neared the hull of the vessel, supported the power-plant and steering apparatus in the center and so strengthened the shell that the whole structure was nearly as strong as a solid steel ball. She noticed that the floor, perhaps eight feet below the center, was heavily upholstered in leather and did not seem solid; and that the same was true of the dozen or more seats—she could not call them chairs—which were built in various places. She gazed with interest at the two instrument boards, upon which flashed tiny lights and the highly-polished plate glass, condensite, and metal of many instruments, the use of which she could not guess.