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

“It will be as interesting as Egyptian hieroglyphics,” Margaret replied, as she opened her notebook and showed him pages of figures and symbols.

“May I see it, Miss Spencer?” asked DuQuesne from across the small table, extending his hand.

She looked at him, hot hostility in her brown eyes, and he dropped his hand.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, with amused irony.

After the meal Seaton and Crane held a short consultation, and the former called to the girls, asking them to join in the “council of war.” There was a moment’s silence before Crane said diffidently:

“We have been talking about DuQuesne, Miss Spencer, trying to decide a very important problem.”

Seaton smiled in spite of himself as the color again deepened in Margaret’s face, and Dorothy laughed outright.

“Talk about a redheaded temper! Your hair must be dyed, Peggy!”

“I know I acted like a naughty child,” Margaret said ruefully, “but he makes me perfectly furious and scares me at the same time. A few more remarks like that ‘I beg your pardon’ of his and I wouldn’t have a thought left in my head!”

Seaton, who had opened his mouth, shut it again ludicrously, without saying a word, and Margaret gave him a startled glance.

“Now I have said it!” she exclaimed. “I’m not afraid of him, boys, really. What do you want me to do?”

Seaton plunged in.

“What we were trying to get up nerve enough to say is that he’d be a good man on the astronomy job,” and Crane added quickly:

“He undoubtedly knows more about it than I do, and it would be a pity to lose the chance of using him. Besides, Dick and I think it rather dangerous to leave him so much time to himself, in which to work up a plan against us.”

“He’s cooking one right now, I’ll bet a hat,” Seaton put in, and Crane added:

“If you are sure that you have no objections, Miss Spencer, we might go below, where we can have it dark, and all three of us see what we can make of the stargazing. We are really losing an unusual opportunity.”

Margaret hid gallantly any reluctance she might have felt.

“I wouldn’t deserve to be here if I can’t work with the Doctor and hate him at the same time.”

“Good for you, Peg, you’re a regular fellow!” Seaton exclaimed. “You’re a trump!”

Finally, the enormous velocity of the cruiser was sufficiently reduced to effect a landing, a copper-bearing sun was located, and a course was laid toward its nearest planet.

As the vessel approached its goal a deep undercurrent of excitement kept all the passengers feverishly occupied. They watched the distant globe grow larger, glowing through its atmosphere more and more clearly as a great disk of white light, its outline softened by the air about it. Two satellites were close beside it. Its sun, a great, blazing orb, a little nearer than the planet, looked so great and so hot that Margaret became uneasy.

“Isn’t it dangerous to get so close, Dick? We might burn up, mightn’t we?”

“Not without an atmosphere,” he laughed.

“Oh,” murmured the girl apologetically, “I might have known that.”

Dropping rapidly into the atmosphere of the planet, they measured its density and analyzed it in apparatus installed for that purpose, finding that its composition was very similar to the Earth’s air and that its pressure was not enough greater to be uncomfortable. When within one thousand feet of the surface, Seaton weighed a five-pound weight upon a spring-balance, finding that it weighed five and a half pounds, thus ascertaining that the planet was either somewhat larger than the Earth or more dense. The ground was almost hidden by a rank growth of vegetation, but here and there appeared glade-like openings.

Seaton glanced at the faces about him. Tense interest marked them all. Dorothy’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes shone. She looked at him with awe and pride.

“A strange world, Dorothy,” he said gravely. “You are not afraid?”

“Not with you,” she answered. “I am only thrilled with wonder.”

“Columbus at San Salvador,” said Margaret, her dark eyes paying their tribute of admiration.

A dark flush mounted swiftly into Seaton’s brown face and he sought to throw most of the burden upon Crane, but catching upon his face also a look of praise, almost of tenderness, he quickly turned to the controls.

“Man the boats!” he ordered an imaginary crew, and the Skylark descended rapidly.

Landing upon one of the open spaces, they found the ground solid and stepped out. What had appeared to be a glade was in reality a rock, or rather, a ledge of apparently solid metal, with scarcely a loose fragment to be seen. At one end of the ledge rose a giant tree wonderfully symmetrical, but of a peculiar form. Its branches were longer at the top than at the bottom, and it possessed broad, dark-green leaves, long thorns, and odd, flexible, shoot-like tendrils. It stood as an outpost of the dense vegetation beyond. Totally unlike the forests of Earth were those fern-like trees, towering two hundred feet into the air. They were of an intensely vivid green and stood motionless in the still, hot air of noonday. Not a sign of animal life was to be seen; the whole landscape seemed asleep.

The five strangers stood near their vessel, conversing in low tones and enjoying the sensation of solid ground beneath their feet. After a few minutes DuQuesne remarked:

“This is undoubtedly a newer planet than ours. I should say that it was in the Carboniferous age. Aren’t those trees like those in the coal-measures, Seaton?”

“True as time, Blackie⁠—there probably won’t be a human race here for ages, unless we bring out some colonists.”

Seaton kicked at one of the loose lumps of metal questioningly with his heavy shoe, finding that it was as immovable as though it were part of the ledge. Bending over, he found that it required all his great strength to lift it and he stared at it with an expression of surprise, which turned to amazement as he peered closer.

“DuQuesne! Look at