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

wonderful. He knows more now than that Doctor DuQuesne will ever learn in all his life, and he will find us in a few days. I feel it in my bones. Besides, I picked Perkins’ pockets of these two pistols. Can you shoot an automatic?”

“Yes,” replied the other girl, as she seized one of the guns, assured herself that its magazine was full, and slipped it into her pocket. “I used to practise a lot with my father’s. This makes me feel a whole lot better. And call me Peggy, won’t you? It will seem good to hear my name again. After what I’ve been through lately, even this trip will be a vacation for me.”

“Well, then, cheer up, Peggy dear, we’re going to be great friends. Let’s go get us all something to eat. I’m simply starved, and I know you are, too.”

The presence of the pistol in her pocket and Dorothy’s unwavering faith in her lover, lifted the stranger out of the mood of despair into which the long imprisonment, the brutal treatment, and the present situation had plunged her, and she was almost cheerful as they drew themselves along the handrail leading to the tiny galley.

“I simply can’t get used to the idea of nothing having any weight⁠—look here!” laughed Dorothy, as she took a boiled ham out of the refrigerator and hung it upon an imaginary hook in the air, where it remained motionless. “Doesn’t it make you feel funny?”

“It is a queer sensation. I feel light, like a toy balloon, and I feel awfully weird inside. If we have no weight, why does it hurt so when we bump into anything? And when you throw anything, like the Doctor did Perkins, why does it hit as hard as ever?”

“It’s mass or inertia or something like that. A thing has it everywhere, whether it weighs anything or not. Dick explained it all to me. I understood it when he told me about it, but I’m afraid it didn’t sink in very deep. Did you ever study physics?”

“I had a year of it in college, but it was more or less of a joke. I went to a girls’ school, and all we had to do in physics was to get the credit; we didn’t have to learn it.”

“Me too. Next time I go to school I’m going to Yale or Harvard or some such place, and I’ll learn so much mathematics and science that I’ll have to wear a bandeau to keep my massive intellect in place.”

During this conversation they had prepared a substantial luncheon and had arranged it daintily upon two large trays, in spite of the difficulty caused by the fact that nothing would remain in place by its own weight. The feast prepared, Dorothy took her tray from the table as carefully as she could, and saw the sandwiches and bottles start to float toward the ceiling. Hastily inverting the tray above the escaping viands, she pushed them back down upon the table. In doing so she lifted herself clear from the floor, as she had forgotten to hold herself down.

“What’ll we do, anyway?” she wailed when she had recovered her position. “Everything wants to fly all over the place!”

“Put another tray on top of it and hold them together,” suggested Margaret. “I wish we had a birdcage. Then we could open the door and grab a sandwich as it flies out.”

By covering the trays the girls finally carried the luncheon out into the main compartment, where they gave DuQuesne and Perkins one of the trays and all fell to eating hungrily. DuQuesne paused with a glint of amusement in his one sound eye as he saw Dorothy trying to pour ginger ale out of a bottle.

“It can’t be done, Miss Vaneman. You’ll have to drink it through a straw. That will work, since our air pressure is normal. Be careful not to choke on it, though; your swallowing will have to be all muscular out here. Gravity won’t help you. Or wait a bit⁠—I have the control board fixed and it will be a matter of only a few minutes to put in another bar and get enough acceleration to take the place of gravity.”

He placed one of the extra power bars in the chamber and pushed the speed lever into the first notch, and there was a lurch of the whole vessel as it swung around the bar so that the floor was once more perpendicular to it. He took a couple of steps, returned, and advanced the lever another notch.

“There that’s about the same as gravity. Now we can act like human beings and eat in comfort.”

“That’s a wonderful relief, Doctor!” cried Dorothy. “Are we going back toward the earth?”

“Not yet. I reversed the bar, but we will have to use up all of this one before we can even start back. Until this bar is gone we will merely be slowing down.”

As the meal progressed, Dorothy noticed that DuQuesne’s left arm seemed almost helpless, and that he ate with great difficulty because of his terribly bruised face. As soon as they had removed the trays she went into her room, where she had seen a small medicine chest, and brought out a couple of bottles.

“Lie down here, Doctor DuQuesne,” she commanded. “I’m going to apply a little first-aid to the injured. Arnica and iodine are all I can find, but they’ll help a little.”

“I’m all right,” began the scientist, but at her imperious gesture he submitted, and she bathed his battered features with the healing lotion and painted the worst bruises with iodine.

“I see your arm is lame. Where does it hurt?”

“Shoulder’s the worst. I rammed it through the board when we started out.”

He opened his shirt at the throat and bared his shoulder, and Dorothy gasped⁠—as much at the size and power of the muscles displayed, as at the extent and severity of the man’s injuries. Stepping into the gallery, she brought out hot water and towels and