The Black Star Passes - John W. Campbell (reading cloud ebooks txt) 📗

flashed on its way under the control of the instruments that would guide it across all the millions of miles of space and land it on Venus with unerring certainty. The photoelectric telescopic eye watched the planet constantly, keeping the ship surely and accurately on the course that would get them to the distant planet in the shortest possible time.

Work thereafter became routine requiring a minimum of effort, and the men could rest and use their time to observe the beauties of the skies as no man had ever seen them during all the billions of years of time that this solar system has existed. The lack of atmosphere made it possible to use a power of magnification that no terrestrial telescope may use. The blurred outlines produced by the shifting air prohibits magnifications of more than a few hundred diameters, but here in space they could use the greatest power of their telescope. With it they could look at Mars and see it more clearly than any other man had ever seen it, despite the fact that it was now over two hundred million miles away.

But though they spent much time taking photographs of the planets and of the moon, and in making spectrum analyses of the sun, time passed very slowly. Day after day they saw measured on the clocks, but they stayed awake, finding they needed little sleep, for they wasted no physical energy. Their weightlessness eliminated fatigue. However, they determined that during the twelve hours before reaching Venus they must be thoroughly alert, so they tried to sleep in pairs. Arcot and Morey were the first to seek slumber⁠—but Morpheus seemed to be a mundane god, for he did not reward them. At last it became necessary for them to take a mild opiate, for their muscles refused to permit their tired brains to sleep. It was twelve hours later when they awoke, to relieve Wade and Fuller.

They spent most of the twelve hours of their routine watch in playing games of chess. There was little to be done. The silver globe before them seemed unchanging, for they were still so far away it seemed little larger than the Moon does when seen from Earth.

But at last it was time for the effects of the mild drug to wear off, and for Wade and Fuller to awaken from their sleep.

“Morey⁠—I’ve an idea!” There was an expression of perfect innocence on Arcot’s face⁠—but a twinkle of humor in his eyes. “I wonder if it might not be interesting to observe the reactions of a man waking suddenly from sleep to find himself alone in space?” He stared thoughtfully at the control that would make the ship perfectly transparent, perfectly invisible.

“I wonder if it would?” said Morey grasping Arcot’s idea. “What do you say we try it?” Arcot turned the little switch⁠—and where there had been the ship, it was no more⁠—it was gone!

Fuller stirred uneasily in his bed, tightly strapped as he was. The effects of the drug were wearing off. Sleepily he yawned⁠—stretched, and blindly, his heavy eyes still closed, released the straps that held him in bed. Yawning widely he opened his eyes⁠—with a sudden start sat upright⁠—then, with an excellent imitation of an Indian on the warpath, he leaped from his bed, and started to run wildly across the floor. His eyes were raised to the place where the ceiling should have been⁠—he called lustily in alarm⁠—then suddenly he was flying up⁠—and crashed heavily against the invisible ceiling! His face was a picture of utter astonishment as he fell lightly to the floor⁠—then slowly it changed, and took on a chagrined smile⁠—he understood!

He spun around as loud cries suddenly resounded from Wade’s room across the hall⁠—then there was a dull thud, as he too, forgetting the weightlessness, jumped and hit the ceiling. Then the cries were gone, like the snuffing of a candle. From the control room there rose loud laughter⁠—and a moment later they felt more normal, as they again saw the four strong walls about them.

Wade sighed heavily and shook his head.

They were approaching the planet visibly now. In the twelve hours that had passed they had covered a million miles, for now they were falling toward the planet under its attraction. It glowed before them now in wonderous splendour, a mighty disc of molten silver.

For the last twenty-four hours they had been reducing their speed relative to Venus, to insure their forming an orbit about the planet, rather than shoot around it and back into space. Their velocity had been over a hundred miles a second part of the way, but now it had been reduced to ten. The gravity of the planet was urging them forward at ever increasing speed, and their problem became more acute moment by moment.

“We’ll never make it on the power units alone, out here in space,” said Arcot seriously. “We’ll just shoot around the planet. I’ll tell you how we can do it, though. We’ll circle around it, entering its atmosphere on the daylight side, and shoot into the upper limits of its atmosphere. There the power units can find some heat to work on, and we can really slow down. But we’ll have to use the rocket tubes to get the acceleration we’ll need to drive the ship into the air.”

There was a sudden clanging of a bell, and everyone dived for a hold, and held on tightly. An instant later there was a terrific wrench as the rocket jets threw the plane out of the way of a meteor.

“We’re getting near a planet. This is the third meteor we’ve met since we were more than a million miles from Earth. Venus and Earth and all the planets act like giant vacuum cleaners of space, pulling into themselves all the space debris and meteors within millions of miles by their gravitational attraction.”

Swiftly the planet expanded below them⁠—growing vaster with each passing moment. It had changed from a disc to a globe, and now, as