Dorothy, Peggy, and Crane were at breakfast; Seaton joined them. They ate the gayest, most carefree meal they had had since leaving earth. Some of the worst bruises still showed a little, but, under the influence of the potent if painful amylophene, all soreness, stiffness, and pain had disappeared.
After they had finished eating, Seaton said, “You suggested, Mart, that those gyroscope bearings may have been stressed beyond the yield-point. I’ll take an integrating goniometer . . .”
“Break that down to our size, Dick—Peggy’s and mine,” Dorothy said.
“Can do. Take some tools and see if anything got bent out of shape back there. It might be an idea, Dot, to come along and hold my head while I think.”
“That is an idea—if you never have another one.”
Crane and Margaret went over and sat down at one of the crystal-clear ports. She told him her story frankly and fully, shuddering with horror as she recalled the awful, helpless fall during which Perkins had been killed.
“We have a heavy score to settle with that Steel crowd and with DuQuesne,” Crane said, slowly. “We can convict him of abduction now. . . . Perkins’ death wasn’t murder, then?”
“Oh, no. He was just like a mad animal. He had to kill him. But the doctor, as they call him is just as bad. He’s so utterly heartless and ruthless, so cold and scientific, it gives me the compound shivers, just to think about him.”
“And yet Dorothy said he saved her life?”
“He did, from Perkins; but that was just as strictly pragmatic as everything else he has ever done. He wanted her alive: dead, she wouldn’t have been any use to him. He’s as nearly a robot as any human being can be, that’s what I think.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you. . . . Nothing would please Dick better than a good excuse for killing him.”
“He isn’t the only one. And the way he ignores what we all feel shows what a machine he is. . . . What’s that?” The Skylark had lurched slightly.
“Just a swing around a star, probably.” He looked at the board, then led her to a lower port. “We are passing the star Dick was heading for, far too fast to stop. DuQuesne will pick out another. See that planet over there”—he pointed—”and that smaller one, there?”
She saw the two planets—one like a small moon, the other much smaller—and watched the sun increase rapidly in size as the Skylark flew on at such a pace that any earthly distance would have been covered as soon as it was begun. So appalling was their velocity that the ship was bathed in the light of that strange sun only for moments, then was surrounded again by darkness.
Their seventy-two-hour flight without a pilot had seemed a miracle; now it seemed entirely possible that they could fly in a straight line for weeks without encountering any obstacle, so vast was the emptiness in comparison with the points of light scattered about in it. Now and then they passed closely enough to a star so that it seemed to move fairly rapidly; but for the most part the stars stood, like distant mountain peaks to travelers in a train, in the same position for many minutes.
Awed by the immensity of the universe, the two at the window were silent, not with the silence of embarrassment but with that of two friends in the presence of a thing far beyond the reach of words. As they stared out into infinity, each felt as never before the pitiful smallness of the whole world they had known, and the insignificance of human beings and their works. Silently their minds reached out to each other in understanding.
Unconsciously Margaret half shuddered and moved closer to Crane; and a tender look came over Crane’s face as he looked down at the beautiful young woman at his side. For she was beautiful. Rest and food had erased the marks of her imprisonment. Dorothy’s deep and unassumed faith in the ability of Seaton and Crane had quieted her fears. And finally, a costume of Dorothy’s well-made—and exceedingly expensive!—clothes, which fitted her very well and in which she looked her best and knew it, had completely restored her self-possession.
He looked up quickly and again studied the stars; but now, in addition to the wonders of space, he saw a mass of wavy black hair, high-piled upon a queenly head; deep brown eyes veiled by long, black lashes; sweet, sensitive lips; a firmly rounded, dimpled chin; and a beautifully formed young body.
“How stupendous . . . how unbelievably great this is. . . .” Margaret whispered. “How vastly greater than any perception one could possibly get on Earth . . . and yet . . .”
She paused, with her lip caught under two white teeth, then went on, hesitatingly, “But doesn’t it seem to you, Mr. Crane, that there is something in man as great as even all this? That there must be, or Dorothy and I could not be sailing out here in such a wonderful thing as this Skylark, which you and Dick Seaton have made?”
Days passed. Dorothy timed her waking hours with those of Seaton—preparing his meals and lightening the tedium of his long vigils at the board—and Margaret did the same thing for Crane. But often they assembled in the saloon, while DuQuesne was on watch, and there was much fun and laughter, as well as serious discussion, among the four. Margaret, already adopted as a friend, proved a delightful companion. Her ready tongue, her quick, delicate wit, and her facility of expression delighted all three.
One day Crane suggested to Seaton that they should take notes, in addition to the photographs they had been taking.
“I know comparatively little of astronomy, but, with the instruments we have, we should be able to get data, especially on planetary systems, which would be of interest to astronomers. Miss Spencer, being a secretary, could help us?”
“Sure,” Seaton said. “That’s an idea—nobody else ever had a chance to do it before.”
“I’ll be glad to—taking notes is the best thing I do!” Margaret cried, and called for pad and pencils.
After that, the two worked together for several hours on each of Martin’s off shifts.
The Skylark passed one solar system after another, with a velocity so great that it was impossible to land. Margaret’s association with Crane, begun as a duty, became a very real pleasure for them both. Working together in research, sitting together at the board in easy conversation or in equally easy silence, they compressed into days more real companionship than is usually possible in months.
Oftener and oftener, as time went on, Crane found the vision of his dream home floating in his mind as he steered the Skylark in her meteoric flight or as he lay strapped into his narrow bunk. Now, however, the central figure of the vision, instead of being a blur, was clear and sharply defined. And for her part, Margaret was drawn more and more to the quiet and unassuming, but steadfast young inventor, with his wide knowledge and his keen, incisive mind.
The Skylark finally slowed down enough to make a landing possible, and course was laid toward the nearest planet of a copper-bearing sun. As vessel neared planet a wave of excitement swept through four of the five. They watched the globe grow larger, glowing white, its outline softened by the atmosphere surrounding it. It had two satellites; its sun, a great, blazing orb, looked so big and so hot that Margaret became uneasy.
“Isn’t it dangerous to get so close, Dick?”
“Uh-uh. Watching the pyrometers is part of the pilot’s job. Any overheating and he’d snatch us away in a hurry.”
They dropped into the atmosphere and on down, almost to the surface. The air was breatheable, its composition being very similar to that of Earth’s air, except that the carbon dioxide was substantially higher. Its pressure was somewhat high, but not too much; its temperature, while high, was endurable. The planet’s gravitational pull was about ten per cent higher than Earth’s. The ground was almost hidden by a rank growth of vegetation, but here and there appeared glade-like openings.
Landing upon one of the open spaces, they found the ground solid and stepped out. What 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 being longer at the top than at the bottom and having broad, dark-green leaves, long thorns, and odd, flexible, shoot-like tendrils. It stood as an outpost of the dense vegetation beyond. The fern-trees, towering two hundred feet or more into the air were totally unlike the forests of Earth. They were an intensely vivid green and stood motionless in the still, hot air. Not a sign of animal life was to be seen; the whole landscape seemed to be asleep.