The Skylark of Space - E. E. Smith (e book reading free txt) 📗

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