Authors: E. E. 'Doc' Smith
The result was startling. With the terrific power instantly cut off, and with not even the ordinary force of gravity to counteract the force DuQuesne was exerting, his own muscular effort hurled him upward, toward the center of the ship and against the instrument board. The switch, still in his grasp, was again closed. His shoulder crashed against the knobs which controlled the direction of the power-bar, swinging it through a wide arc. As the ship darted off in a new direction with all its former acceleration he was hurled back against the board, tearing one end loose from its supports, and falling unconscious to the floor on the other side. After what seemed like an eternity, Dorothy and the other girl felt their senses slowly leave them.
With its four unconscious passengers the ship hurtled through empty space, its already inconceivable velocity being augmented every second by a quantity almost equal to the velocity of light – driven furiously onward by the prodigious power of the disintegrating copper bar.
Seaton had gone only a short distance from his
sweetheart’s home when, over the purring of his engine, he thought he heard Dorothy scream. He did not wait to make sure, but whirled his machine around and its purring changed to a bellowing roar as he opened the throttle. Gravel flew under skidding wheels as he made the turn into the Vaneman grounds at suicidal speed. He arrived at the scene just in time to see the door of the spaceship close. Before he could reach it the vessel disappeared, with nothing to mark its departure except a violent whirl of grass and sod, uprooted and carried high into the air by the vacuum of its wake. To the excited tennis players and the screaming mother of the abducted girl it seemed as though the great metal ball had vanished utterly. Only Seaton traced the line of debris in the air and saw, for a fraction of an instant, an infinitesimal black dot in the sky before it disappeared.
Interrupting the clamor of the young people, each of whom was trying to tell him what had happened, he spoke to Mrs Vaneman rapidly but gently. ‘Mother, Dottie’s all right. Steel’s got her, but they won’t keep her long. Don’t worry, we’ll get her. It may be a week or it may take a year; but we’ll bring her back!’
He leaped upon his motorcycle and shattered all speed laws on the way to Crane’s house.
‘Mart!’ he yelled. ‘They’ve got Dottie, in a ship made from our plans. Let’s go!’
‘Slow down – don’t go off half-cocked. What do you plan?’
‘Plan! Just chase ’em and kill ’em!’
‘Which way did they go, and when?’
‘Straight up. Full power. Twenty minutes ago.’
‘Too long ago. Straight up has moved five degrees. They may have covered a million miles, or they may have come down only a few miles away. Sit down and think – use your brain.’
Seaton sat down and pulled out his pipe, fighting for self-possession. Then he jumped up and ran into his room, coming back with an object compass whose needle pointed upward.
‘DuQuesne did it!’ he cried, exultantly. ‘This is still looking right at him. Now let’s go, and snap it up!’
‘Not yet. How far away are they?’
Seaton touched the stud that set the needle swinging and snapped on the millisecond timer. Both men watched in strained attention as second after second went by and the needle continued to oscillate. It finally came to rest and Crane punched keys on the computer.
‘Three hundred and fifty million miles. Halfway out of the solar system. That means a constant acceleration of about one light.’
‘Nothing
can
go that fast, Mart. E equals M C square.’
‘Einstein’s Theory is still a theory. This distance is an observed fact.’
‘And theories are modified to fit facts. Hokay.
He’s out of control – something went haywire.’
‘Undoubtedly.’
‘We don’t know how big a bar he’s got, so we can’t figure how long it’ll take us to catch him. For Pete’s sake, Mart, let’s get at it!’
They hurried out to the
Skylark
and made a quick check. Seaton was closing the lock when Crane stopped him with a gesture toward the power plant.
‘We have only four bars, Dick – two for each engine. It will take at least one to overtake them, and at least one to stop. If we expect to get back within our lifetime it will take the other two to get us back. Even with no allowance at all for the unexpected, we are short on power.’
Seaton, though furiously eager to be off, was stopped cold. ‘Check. We’d better get a couple more – maybe four. We’d better load up on grub and X-plosive ammunition, too.’
‘And water,’ Crane added. ‘Especially water.’
Seaton called the brass foundry. The manager took his order, but blandly informed him that there was not that much copper in the city, that it would be ten days or two weeks before such an order could be filled. Seaton suggested that they melt up some finished goods – bus bars and the like – price no object; but the manager was obdurate. He could not violate the priority rule.
Seaton then called other places, every place he could think of or find in the yellow pages, trying to buy anything made of copper. Bar – sheet – shapes – trolley wire – cable – house wire
– anything.
There was nothing available in any quantity large enough to be of any use.
After an hour of fruitless telephoning he reported, in fulminating language, to Crane.
‘I’m not too surprised. Steel might not want us to have too much copper.’
Sparks almost shot from Seaton’s eyes. ‘I’m going to see Brookings. He’ll give me some copper or a few of the atoms of his carcass will land in Andromeda.’ He started for the door.
‘No, Dick,
no
!’ Crane seized Seaton by the arm. ‘That wouldn’t – couldn’t – get us anything except indefinite delay.’
‘What else, then? How?’
‘We can be at Wilson’s in five minutes. He has some copper on hand, and can get more. The
Skylark
is ready to travel.’
In a few minutes they were in the office of the plant in which their vessel had been built. When they had made their wants known the ironmaster shook his head.
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ve got over a hundred pounds of copper in the place, and no non-ferrous equipment …
Seaton started to explode, but Crane silenced him and told Wilson the whole story.
Wilson slammed his fist down onto his desk and
roared, ‘I’ll get copper if I have to tear the roof off the church!’ Then, more quietly, ‘We’ll have to cobble up a furnace and crucible … and hand-make patterns and molds … and borrow a big lathe … but you’ll get your bars just as fast as I can possibly get them out.’
Two days passed before the gleaming copper cylinders were ready. During this time Crane added to their equipment every article for which he could conceive any possible use, while Seaton raged up and down in a black fury of impatience. While the bars were being loaded they made another reading on the object compass. Their faces grew tense and their hearts turned sick as minute followed minute and the needle still would not settle down. Finally, however, it came to rest. Seaton’s voice almost failed him as he said, ‘About two hundred and thirty-five light-years. Couldn’t nail the exact end-point, but that’s fairly close. They’re lost like nobody was ever lost before. So long, guy.’ He held out his hand. ‘It’s been mighty nice knowing you. Tell Vaneman if I come back I’ll bring her with me.’
Crane refused the hand. ‘Since when am I not going along, Dick?’
‘As of just now. No sense in it. If Dottie’s gone I’m going too; but M. Reynolds Crane very positively is not.’
‘Nonsense. This is somewhat further than we had planned for the first trip, but there is no real difference. It is just as safe to go a thousand light-years as one, and we have ample supplies. In any event, I am going.’
‘Who do you think you’re kidding? … Thanks, ace.’ This time, hands met in a crushing grip. ‘You’re worth three of me.’
‘I’ll call Vaneman,’ Crane said, hastily.
He did not tell the lawyer the truth, or any close approximation of it – merely that the chase would probably be longer than had been supposed, that communication could very well be impossible, that they would in all probability be gone a long time, and that he could not even guess at how long that time would be.
They closed the locks and took off. Seaton crowded on power until Crane, reading the prometers, warned him to cut back – the skin was getting too hot.
Free of atmosphere, Seaton again advanced the lever, notch by notch, until he could no longer support the weight of his hand, but had to resort to the arm-support designed for that emergency. He pushed the lever a few notches farther, and was forced violently down into his seat, which had automatically moved upward so that his hand still controlled the ratchet handle. Still he kept the ratchet clicking, until he knew that he could not endure much more.
‘How … you … coming?’ he wheezed into his microphone. He could not really talk.
‘Paas … s … sing … ou … u … t.’ Crane’s reply was barely audible. ‘If … f … y … y … o … uu … c … c … ss … t … a … n … g … g … o … a … h … e … d … d …
Seaton cut back a
few notches. ‘How about this?’
‘I can take this much, I think. I was right on the edge.’
‘I’ll let her ride here, then. How long?’
‘Four or five hours. Then we had better eat and take another reading.’
‘All right. Talking’s too much work, so if it gets too much for you, yell while you still can. I’m sure glad we’re on our way at last.’
For forty-eight hours the uncontrolled engine dragged DuQuesne’s vessel through the empty reaches of space with an awful and constantly-increasing velocity. Then, when only a few traces of copper remained, the acceleration began to decrease. Floor and seats began to return to their normal positions. When the last particle of copper was gone, the ship’s speed became constant. Apparently motionless to those inside her, she was in reality moving with a velocity thousands of times greater than that of light.
DuQuesne was the first to gain control of himself. His first effort to get up lifted him from the floor and he floated lightly upward to the ceiling, striking it with a gentle bump and remaining, motionless and unsupported, in the air. The others, none of whom had attempted to move, stared at him in amazement.
DuQuesne reached out, clutched a hand-grip, and drew himself down to the floor. With great caution he removed his suit, transferring two automatic pistols as he did so. By feeling gingerly of his body he found that no bones were broken. Only then did he look around to see how his companions were faring.
They were all sitting up and holding onto something. The girls were resting quietly; Perkins was removing his leather costume.
‘Good morning, Dr DuQuesne. Something must have happened when I kicked your friend.’
‘Good morning, Miss Vaneman.’ DuQuesne smiled, more than half in relief. ‘Several things happened. He fell into the controls, turning on all the juice, and we left considerably faster than I intended to. I tried to get control, but couldn’t. Then we all went to sleep and just woke up.’
‘Have you any idea where we are?’
No … but I can make a fair estimate.’ He glanced at the empty chamber where the copper cylinder had been; took out notebook,
pencil, and slide rule; and figured for minutes.
He then drew himself to one of the windows and stared out, then went to another window, and another. He seated himself at the crazily-tilted control board and studied it. He worked the computer for a few moments.
‘I don’t know exactly what to make of this,’ he told Dorothy, quietly. ‘Since the power was on exactly forty-eight hours, we should not be more than two light-days away from our sun. However, we certainly are. I could recognize at least some of the fixed stars and constellations from anywhere within a light-year or so of Sol, and I can’t find even one familiar thing. Therefore we must have been accelerating all the time. We must be somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred thirty-seven light-years away from home. For you two who don’t know what a light-year is, about six quadrillion – six thousand million million – miles.’
Dorothy’s face turned white; Margaret Spencer fainted; Perkins merely goggled, his face working convulsively. ‘Then we’ll never get back?’ Dorothy asked.
‘I wouldn’t say that—’
‘You got us into this!’ Perkins screamed, and leaped at Dorothy, murderous fury in his glare, his fingers curved into talons. Instead of reaching her, however, he merely sprawled grotesquely in the air. DuQuesne, bracing one foot against the wall and seizing a hand-grip with his left hand, knocked Perkins clear across the room with one blow of his right.
‘None of that, louse,’ DuQuesne said, evenly. ‘One more wrong move out of you and I’ll throw you out. It isn’t her fault we’re here, it’s our own. And mostly yours – if you’d had three brain cells working she couldn’t have kicked you. But that’s past. The only thing of interest now is getting back.’
‘But we can’t get back.’ Perkins whimpered. ‘The power’s gone, the controls are wrecked, and you just said you’re lost.’
‘I did not.’ DuQuesne’s voice was icy. ‘What I said was that I don’t know where we are – a different statement entirely.’
‘Isn’t that a distinction without a difference?’ Dorothy asked acidly.
‘By no means, Miss Vaneman. I can repair the control board. I have two extra power-bars. One of them, with direction exactly reversed, will stop us, relative to the Earth. I’ll burn half of the last one, then coast until, by recognizing fixed stars and triangulating them, I can fix our position. I will then know where our solar system is and will go there. In the meantime, I suggest that we have something to eat.’
‘A beautiful and timely thought!’ Dorothy exclaimed. ‘I’m famished. Where’s your refrigerator? But something else comes first. I’m a mess, and she must be, too. Where’s our room … that is, we
have a
room?’
‘Yes. That one, and there’s the galley, over there. We’re cramped, but you’ll be able to make out. Let me say, Miss Vaneman, that I really admire your nerve. I didn’t expect that lunk to disintegrate the way he did,
but I thought you girls might. Miss Spencer will, yet, unless you …