the mode of the moment, indicated that Nature had intended her to be a creamy blonde,
but as she turned to be introduced to him Stevens received another surprise—for she
was one of those rare, but exceedingly attractive beings, a natural blonde with brown
eyes and black eyebrows. Sun and wind had tanned her satin skin to a smooth and
even shade of brown, and every movement of her lithe and supple body bespoke to the
discerning mind a rigidly-trained physique.
“Doctor Stevens, you haven’t met Miss Newton, I hear,” the captain introduced
them informally. “All the officers who are not actually tied down at their posts are
anxious to do the honors of the vessel, but as I have received direct orders from the
owners I am turning her over to you—you are to show her around.”
“Thanks, Captain, I won’t mutiny a bit against such an order as that. I’m mighty
glad to know you, Miss Newton.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you, Doctor. Dad and Breckie here are always talking
about the Big Three—what you have done and what you are going to do. I want to meet
Doctor Brandon and Doctor Westfall, too,” and her hand met his in a firm and friendly
clasp. She turned to the captain, and Stevens, noticing that the pilot, with a quizzical
expression, was about to say something, silenced him with a fierce aside.
“Clam it, ape, or I’ll climb up you like a squirrel!” he hissed, and the grinning
Breckenridge nodded assent to this demand for silence concerning children and
nursemaids.
“Since you’ve never been out, Miss Newton, you’ll want to see the whole works,”
Stevens addressed the girl. “Where do you want to begin? Shall we start at the top and
work down?”
“All x,” she agreed, and fell into step behind him. She was dressed in dove-gray
from head to foot—toque, blouse, breeches, heavy stockings, and shoes were of the
one shade of smooth, lustrous silk; and as they strolled together down the passage-way
the effortless ease and perfect poise of her carriage called aloud to every hard-schooled
fiber of his own being.
“We’re a lot alike, you and I—do you know it?” he asked, abruptly and
unconventionally.
“Yes, I’ve felt it, too,” she replied frankly, and studied him without affectation. “It
has just come to me what it is. We’re both trained down fine. You’re an athlete of some
kind, and I’m sure you’re a star—I ought to recognize you, but I’m ashamed to say I
don’t. What do you do?”
“Swim.”
“Oh, of course—Stevens, the great Olympic high and fancy diver! I’d never have
connected our own Doctor Stevens, the eminent mathematical physicist, with the King
of the Springboard. Say, ever since I quit being afraid of the water I’ve had a yen to do
that two-and-a-half thing of yours, but I’ve never seen anybody that knew it well enough
to teach it to me, and I’ve almost broken my back forty times trying to learn it alone!”
“I’ve got you, now, too—American and British Women’s golf champion. Shake!”
and the two shook hands vigorously, in mutual congratulation. “Tell you what—I’ll give
you some pointers on diving, and you can show me how to make a golf ball behave.
Next to Norman Brandon I’ve got the most vicious hook in captivity—and Norm can’t
help himself. He’s left-handed, you know, and, being a southpaw, he’s naturally wild. He
slices all his woods and hooks all his irons. I’m consistent, anyway—I hook everything,
even my putts.”
“It’s a bargain! What do you shoot?”
“Pretty dubby. Usually in the middle eighties—none of us play much, being out in
space most of the time, you know—sometimes, when my hook is going particularly well,
I go up into the nineties.”
“We’ll lick that hook,” she promised, as they entered an elevator and were borne
upward, toward the prow of the great interplanetary cruiser.
CHAPTER 2 — But Does Not Arrive
All out—we climb the rest of the way on foot,” Stevens told his companion, as the
elevator stopped at the uppermost passenger floor. They walked across the small
circular hall and the guard on duty came to attention and saluted as they approached
him.
“I have orders to pass you and Miss Newton, sir. Do you know all the
combinations?”
“I know this good old tub better than the men that built her—I helped calculate
her,” Stevens replied, as he stepped up to an apparently blank wall of steel and deftly
manipulated an almost invisible dial set flush with its surface. “This is to keep the
passengers where they belong,” he explained, as a section of the wall swung backward
in a short arc and slid smoothly aside. “We will now proceed to see what makes her
tick.”
Ladder after ladder of steel they climbed, and bulkhead after bulkhead opened at
Stevens’ knowing touch. At each floor the mathematician explained to the girl the
operation of the machinery there automatically at work—devices for heating and
cooling, devices for circulating, maintaining, and purifying the air and the water—in
short, all the complex mechanism necessary for the comfort and convenience of the
human cargo of the liner.
Soon they entered the conical top compartment, a room scarcely fifteen feet in
diameter, tapering sharply upward to a hollow point some twenty feet above them. The
true shape of the room, however, was not immediately apparent, because of the
enormous latticed beams and girders which braced the walls in every direction. The air
glowed with the violet light of the twelve great ultra-light projectors, like searchlights with
three-foot lenses, which lined the wall. The floor beneath their feet was not a level steel
platform, but seemed to be composed of many lenticular sections of dull blue alloy.
“We are standing upon the upper lookout lenses, aren’t we ?” asked the girl. “Is
that perfectly all x ?”
“Sure. They’re so hard that nothing can scratch them, and of course Roeser’s
Rays go right through our bodies, or any ordinary substance, like a bullet through a hole
in a Swiss cheese. Even those lenses wouldn’t refract ’em if they weren’t solid fields of
force.”
As he spoke one of the ultra-lights flashed around in a short, quick arc, and the
girl saw that instead of the fierce glare she had expected, it emitted only a soft violet
light. Nevertheless she dodged involuntarily and Stevens touched her arm reassuringly.
“All x, Miss Newton—they’re harmless like mice. They hardly ever have to swing
past the vertical, and even if one shines right through you you can look it right in the eye
as long as you want to—it can’t hurt you a bit.”
“No ultra-violet at all?”
“None whatever. Just a color—one of the many remaining crudities of our ultra-
light vision. A lot of good men are studying this thing of direct vision, though, and it won’t
be long until we’ll have a system that will really work.”
“I think it’s all perfectly wonderful!” she breathed. “Just think of traveling in
comfort through empty space, and of actually seeing through seamless steel walls,
without even a sign of a window! How can such things be possible ?”
“I’ll have to go pretty well back,” he warned, “and any adequate explanation is
bound to be fairly deep wading in spots. How technical can you stand it ?”
“I can go down with you middling deep—I took a lot of general science, and
physics through advanced mechanics. Of course I didn’t get into any such highly
specialized stuff as sub-electronics or Roeser’s Rays, but if you start drowning me I’ll
stop you.”
“Fine—with that to go on you can get the idea all x. Let’s sit down on this girder.
Roeser didn’t do it all, by any means, even though he got popular credit for it—he
merely helped the Martians do it. The whole thing started, of course, when the first
space-rocket hit the moon. It was intensified when Roeser—working up, or rather down,
from radar—so perfected his system that signals were exchanged with Mars; signals
that neither side could develop into intelligible communication.
“The rocketeers made bigger and better rockets until they finally built one that
could land people safely upon Mars. Roeser, who was a mighty keen bird, was one of
the first voyagers, and he didn’t come back. He stayed there, living in a space-suit for
five years, and got a brand-new education. Martian science always was hot, you know,
but they were impractical. They were desperately hard up for water and air, and while
they had a lot of wonderful ideas and theories, they couldn’t overcome the practical
technical and technological difficulties in the way of making their ideas work. Now
putting other peoples’ ideas to work was Roeser’s long suit—don’t think that I’m belittling
Roeser at all, either, for he was a brave and far-sighted man, was no mean scientist,
and was certainly one of the best organizers and synchronizers the world has ever