“Set your engine to roll for a hyperbolic and give it full drive for . . . say an hour.”
“Full power,” Crane said, thoughtfully. “I can’t take that much. But if—”
“I can’t, either,” Dorothy said, foreboding in her eyes. “Nor Margaret.”
“—full power is necessary,” Crane continued as though the girl had not spoken, “full power it shall be. Is it really of the essence, DuQuesne?”
“Definitely. More than full would be better. And it’s getting worse every minute.”
“How much power can you take?” Seaton asked.
“More than full. Not much more, but a little.”
“If you can, I can.” Seaton was not boasting, merely stating a fact. “So here’s what let’s do. Double the engines up. DuQuesne and I will notch the power up until one of us has to quit. Run an hour on that, and then read the news. Check?”
“Check,” said Crane and DuQuesne simultaneously, and the three men set furiously to work. Crane went to the engines, DuQuesne to the observatory. Seaton rigged helmets to air- and oxygen-tanks through valves on his board.
Seaton placed Margaret upon a seat, fitted a helmet over her head, strapped her in, and turned to Dorothy.
Instantly they were in each other’s arms. He felt her labored breathing and the hard beating of her heart; saw the fear of the unknown in the violet depths of her eyes; but she looked at him steadily as she said : “Dick, sweetheart, if this is good-bye . . .”
“It isn’t, Dottie—yet—but I know. . .”
Crane and DuQuesne had finished their tasks, so Seaton hastily finished his job on Dorothy. Crane put himself to bed; Seaton and DuQuesne put on their helmets and took their places at the twin boards.
In quick succession twenty notches of power went on. The Skylark leaped away from the other ship, which continued its mad fall—a helpless hulk, manned by a corpse, falling to destruction upon the bleak surface of a dead star.
Notch by notch, slower now, the power went up. Seaton turned the mixing valve, a little with each notch, until the oxygen concentration was as high as they had dared to risk.
As each of the two men was determined that he would make the last advance, the duel continued longer than either would have believed possible. Seaton made what he was sure was his final effort and waited—only to feel, after a minute, the surge of the vessel that told him that DuQuesne was still able to move.
He could not move any part of his body, which was oppressed by a sickening weight. His utmost efforts to breathe forced only a little oxygen into his lungs. He wondered how long he could retain consciousness under such stress. Nevertheless, he put out everything he had and got one more notch. Then he stared at the clock-face above his head, knowing that he was all done and wondering whether DuQuesne could put on one more notch.
Minute after minute went by and the acceleration remained constant. Seaton, knowing that he was now in sole charge of the situation, fought off unconsciousness while the sweep-hand of the clock went around and around.
After an eternity of time sixty minutes had passed and Seaton tried to cut down his power, only to find that the long strain had so weakened him that he could not reverse the ratchet. He was barely able to give the lever the backward jerk which broke contact completely. Safety straps creaked as, half the power shut off, the suddenly released springs tried to hurl five bodies upward.
DuQuesne revived and shut down his engine. “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din,” he said, as he began to make observations.
“Because you were so badly bunged up, is all—one more notch would’ve pulled my cork,” and Seaton went over to liberate Dorothy and the stranger.
Crane and DuQuesne finished their computations.
“Did we gain enough?” Seaton asked.
“More than enough. One engine will take us past it”
Then, as Crane still frowned in thought, DuQuesne went on:
“Don’t you check me, Crane?”
“Yes and no. Past it, yes, but not safely past. One thing neither of us thought of, apparently—Roche’s Limit”
“That wouldn’t apply to this ship,” Seaton said, positively. “High-tensile alloy steel wouldn’t crumble.”
“It might,” DuQuesne said. “Close enough, it would. . . . What mass would you assume, Crane—the theoretical maximum?”
“I would. That star may not be that, quite, but it isn’t far from it” Both men again bent over their computers.
“I make it thirty-nine point seven notches of power, doubled,” DuQuesne said, when he had finished. “Check?”
“Closely enough—point six five,” Crane replied.
“Forty notches . . . Ummm . . .” DuQuesne paused. “I went out at thirty-two. . . . That means an automatic advance. It’ll take time, but it’s the only. . . .”
“We’ve got it already—all we have to do is set it. But that’ll take an ungodly lot of copper and what’ll we do to live through it? Plus pressure on the oxygen? Or what?”
After a short but intense consultation the men took all the steps they could to enable the whole party to live through what was coming. Whether they could do enough no one knew. Where they might lie at the end of this wild dash for safety; how they were to retrace their way with their depleted supply of copper, what other dangers of dead star, sun, or planet lay in their path, were terrifying questions that had to be ignored.
DuQuesne was the only member of the party who actually felt any calmness, the quiet of the others expressing their courage in facing fear.
The men took their places. Seaton started the motor which would automatically advance both power levers exactly forty notches and then stop.
Margaret Spencer was the first to lose consciousness. Soon afterward, Dorothy stifled an impulse to scream as she felt herself going under. A half minute later and Crane went out, calmly analyzing his sensations to the last. Shortly thereafter DuQuesne also lapsed into unconsciousness, making no effort to avoid it, as he knew that it would make no difference in the end.
Seaton, though he knew it was useless, fought to keep his senses as long as possible, counting the impulses as the levers were advanced.
Thirty-two. He felt the same as when he had advanced his lever for the last time.
Thirty-three. A giant hand shut off his breath, although he was fighting to the utmost for air. An intolerable weight rested upon his eyeballs, forcing them back into his head. The universe whirled about him in dizzy circles; orange and black and green stars flashed before his bursting eyes.
Thirty-four. The stars became more brilliant and of more wildly variegated colors, and a giant pen dipped in fire wrote equations and symbols upon his quivering brain.
Thirty-five. The stars and the fiery pen exploded in pyrotechnic coruscation of searing, blinding light and he plunged into a black abyss.
Faster and faster the Skylark hurtled downward in her not quite-hyperbolic path. Faster and faster, as minute by minute went by, she came closer and closer to that huge dead star. Eighteen hours from the start of that fantastic drop she swung around it in the tightest, hardest conceivable arc. Beyond Roche’s Limit, it is true, but so very little beyond it that Martin Crane’s hair would have stood an end if he had known.
Then, on the back leg of that incomprehensibly gigantic swing, the forty notches of doubled power began really to take hold. At thirty-six hours her path was no longer even approximately hyperbolic. Instead of slowing down, relative to the dead star that held her in an ever-weakening grip, she was speeding up at a tremendous rate.
At two days, that grip was very weak.
At three days the monster she had left was having no measurable effect.
Hurtled upward, onward, outward by the inconceivable power of the unleashed copper demons in her center, the Skylark tore through the reaches of interstellar space with an unthinkable, almost incalculable velocity, beside which the velocity of light was as that of a snail to that of a rifle bullet.
Chapter 14
SEATON opened his eyes and gazed about him wonderingly. Only half conscious, bruised and sore in every part, he could not remember what had happened. Instinctively drawing a deep breath, he coughed as the plus-pressure gas filled his lungs, bringing with it a complete understanding of the situation. He tore off his helmet and drew himself across to Dorothy’s couch.
She was still alive!
He placed her face downward upon the floor and began artificial respiration. Soon he was rewarded by the coughing he had longed to hear. Snatching off her helmet, he seized her in his arms, while she sobbed convulsively on his shoulder. The first ecstasy of their greeting over, she started guiltily.
“Oh, Dick! See about Peggy—I wonder if . . .”