The Black Star Passes by Jr. John W. Campbell (leveled readers .TXT) 📗

a mind that made friends with molecules, and talked their language. After Ridgely shows him how to make friends with people—I think he'll be quite a man on our team!”

[Pg. 70]

[Pg. 71]

BOOK TWO SOLARITE I

The lights of great Transcontinental Airport were blazing in cheering splendor. Out there in the center of the broad field a dozen men were silhouetted in the white brilliance, looking up at the sky, where the stars winked cold and clear on the jet background of the frosty night. A slim crescent of moon gleamed in the west, a sickle of light that in no way dimmed the cold flame of the brilliant stars.

One point of light now moved across the motionless field of far-off suns, flashing toward the airport in a long, swift curve. The men on the field murmured and pointed up at it as it swept low over the blazing lights of New York. Lower it swooped, the towering city behind it. Half a mile into the air the buildings rose in shining glory of colored tile that shone brightly in the sweeping play of floodlights.

One of them picked out the descending machine, and it suddenly leaped out of the darkness as a shining, streamlined cylinder, a cylinder with a great halo of blue fire, as the beam of the searchlight set it off from the jet black night.

In moments the ship was vast before the eyes of the waiting men; it had landed gently on the field, was floating smoothly, gracefully toward them.

[Pg. 72]

Twenty-four men climbed from the great ship, shivering in the icy blast that swept across the field, spoke a moment with the group awaiting their arrival, then climbed quickly into the grateful warmth of a field car. In a moment they were speeding toward the lights of the field house, half a mile off.

Behind them the huge ship leaped into the sky, then suddenly pointed its nose up at an angle of thirty degrees and shot high into the air at an unbelievable speed. In an instant it was gone.

At the field house the party broke up almost immediately.

“We want to thank you, Mr. Morey, for your demonstration of the new ship tonight, and you, Dr. Arcot, for answering our many questions about it. I am sure we all appreciate the kindness you have shown the press.” The reporters filed out quickly, anxious to get the news into the morning editions, for it was after one o'clock now. Each received a small slip of paper from the attendant standing at the exit, the official statement of the company. At last all had left but the six men who were responsible for the new machine.

This night had witnessed the official demonstration of the first of the Arcot-Morey molecular motion ships. Small as she was, compared to those that were to come, yet she could carry over three thousand passengers, as many as could any existing winged plane, and her speed was immensely greater. The trip from the west coast to the eastern had been made in less than one hour. At a speed close to one mile a second the great ship had shot through the thin air, twenty-five miles above the Earth.

In this vessel a huge bar of metal could be affected by an ultra-high-frequency generator. When so affected, its molecules all moved forward, taking the ship with them. Thus, a molecular motion drive vessel could, theoretically, approach the velocity of light as a limit.

“Arcot,” said Morey, Senior, after the pressmen had left the room, “as president of this company I certainly want to thank you for the tremendous thing you have given us to use. You have 'sold' us this machine—but how can we re[Pg. 73]pay you? Before this, time and time again, you have sold us your inventions, the ideas that have made it possible for Transcontinental to attain its present high position in world transportation. All you have ever accepted is the laboratory you use, its upkeep, and a small annual income. What can we do to show our appreciation this time?”

“Why,” answered Arcot smiling, “you haven't stated the terms correctly. Actually, I have a fully equipped lab to putter around in, all the time I want for my own amusement, and all the money I want. What more could I ask?”

“I suppose that's all true—but you draw only about six thousand a year for personal expenses—a good clerk could get that—and you, admittedly the most brilliant physicist of the Earth, are satisfied! I don't feel we're paying you properly!”

Arcot's expression became suddenly serious. “You can repay me this time,” he said, “for this latest discovery has made a new thing possible. I've always wanted to be able to visit other planets—as has many a scientist for the last three centuries. This machine has made it possible. If you are willing—we could start by the spring of 2117. I'm quite serious about this. With your permission, I want to start work on the first interplanetary ship. I'll need Fuller's help, of course. The proposition will be expensive, and that's where I must ask you to help me. I think, however, that it may be a paying proposition, at that, for there will certainly be something of commercial value on the other planets.”

They had walked out to the shed where Arcot's private molecular motion car stood, the first machine ever built that used the heat of the sun to drive it. Thoughtfully the president of the great Transcontinental Lines looked at it. It was small compared with the great machine that had just brought them east, but of the same swift type. It was a thing of graceful beauty even on the ground, its long curving streamlines giving it wonderful symmetry. They stood in thoughtful silence for a minute—the young men eager to hear the verdict of their prospective backer. Morey, [Pg. 74]always rather slow of speech, took an unusually long time to answer.

“If it were only money you asked for, Arcot, I'd gladly give you double the sum, but that isn't the case. I know perfectly well that if you do go, my son will go with you, and Fuller and Wade will naturally go too.” He looked at each in turn. “Each of you has come to mean a lot to me. You and Fuller have known Bob since college days. I've known Wade only three months, but every day I grow to like him more. There's no denying the fact that any such trip is a terrifically dangerous proposition. But if you were lost, there would be more than my personal loss. We would lose some of the most brilliant men on Earth. You, for instance, are conceded as being the world's most brilliant physicist; Fuller is one of the greatest designing engineers; Wade is rapidly rising into prominence as a chemist and as a physicist; and my son is certainly a good mathematician.”

He paused, frowning, weighing the situation. “But you men should know how to get out of scrapes just that much better. Certainly there are few men on Earth who would not be willing to back such a group of men—or any one of you, for that matter! I'll back your trip!” His words became more facetious. “I know that Arcot and you, Bob, can handle a gun fairly well, I don't know so much about Wade and Fuller. What experience have you two had?”

Fuller shook his head. “I think I'll fit best in the galley on the trip, Mr. Morey. I've done the cooking on a number of camping trips, and food is an important factor in the success of any expedition. I can shoot a bit, too.”

Wade spoke rather hesitantly. “I come from the west, and have had a good bit of fun with a gun in the Rockies; there are still some mountain lions and some deer there, you know. I also have a sneaking acquaintance with the new gun, which Arcot developed in connection with his molecular motion. But there is so little you know about me—and most of it bad—I don't see how I really get in on this opportunity—but,” he added hastily, “I certainly don't in[Pg. 75]tend to keep the old boy knocking—I'm with you, since I'm invited!”

Arcot smiled. “Then you'll definitely support us?”

“Yes, I will,” replied Morey, Senior, seriously, “for I think it's worth doing.”

The four young men climbed into the ship, to start for their apartment. Arcot was piloting, and under his sure touch the ship sped out into the cold night air, then up through the atmosphere, till they hung poised at a height of fifty miles on the upper edge of the airy blanket. They looked out in silent thought at the magnificent blazing stars of space. Here, where the dust-laden air could no longer mask their true colors, the stars shone unwinkingly, steadily, and in a glory that earth-bound men had never seen before. They shone in a wonderous riot of color, as varied and as beautiful as the display of colored floodlights in some great city. They were tiny pinpoints of radiance, red, green, orange, and yellow, shining with intense brilliance.

Slowly Arcot let the machine settle to the blazing city miles below.

“I love to come out here and look at those cold, pinpoint lights; they seem to draw me—the lure of other worlds. I've always had a sense of unfulfilled longing—the desire to go out there—and it's always been so hopeless. Now—I'll be out there by next spring!” Arcot paused and looked up at the mighty field of stars that arched over his head to be lost on either horizon. A wonderful night!

“Where shall we go first, Dick?” asked Wade softly as he gazed out at the far-off suns of space, his voice unconsciously hushed by the grandeur of the spectacle.

“I've thought of that for the last four months, and now that we are definitely going to go, we'll have to make a decision. Actually, it won't be too hard to decide. Of course we can't leave the solar system. And the outer planets are so far away that I think we had better wait till later trips. That leaves the choice really between Mars, Venus, and Mercury. Mercury isn't practical since it's so close to the sun. We know a fair bit about Mars from telescopic obser[Pg. 76]vation, while Venus, wrapped in perpetual cloud, is a mystery. What do you vote?”

“Well,” said Morey, “it seems to me it's more fun to explore a completely unknown planet than one that can be observed telescopically. I vote Venus.” Each of the others agreed with Morey that Venus was the logical choice.

By this time the machine had sunk to the roof of their apartment, and the men disembarked and entered. The next day they were to start the actual work of designing the space ship.

II

“When we start this work,” Arcot began next morning, “we obviously want to design the ship for the conditions we expect to meet, and for maximum convenience and safety. I believe I've thought about this trip longer than the rest of you, so I'll present my ideas first.

“We don't actually know anything about conditions on Venus, since no one has actually been there. Venus is probably a younger planet than Earth. It's far nearer the sun than we are, and it gets twice the heat we do. In the long-gone time when the planets were cooling I believe Venus required far longer than Earth, for the inpouring heat would retard its cooling. The surface temperature is probably about 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

“There is little land, probably, for with the cloud-mass covering Venus as it does, it's logical to visualize tremendous seas. What life has developed must be largely aquatic, and the land is probably far behind us in evolution. Of course, Venus is the planet of mystery—we don't know; we can only guess. But we do know what things we are going to need to cross space.

“Obviously, the main driving force will be the power units. These will get their energy from the rays of the sun by absorbing them in copper discs about twelve feet in diameter—the ship will have to be more of a disc than a [Pg. 77]cylinder. I think a ship a hundred and eighty feet long, fifty feet wide, and twenty feet deep will be about the best dimensions. The power units will be strung along the top of the ship in double rows—one down each side of the hull. In the middle will be a series of fused quartz windows, opening into a large room just under the outer shell. We'll obviously need some source of power to activate the power tubes that run the molecular motion power units. We'll have a generator run by molecular motion power units in here, absorbing its heat from the atmosphere in this room. The air will be heated by the rays of the sun, of course, and in this way we'll get all