“Half of it! You haven’t a twentieth of it here. Seaton had about four hundred milliliters—almost a pint—of it. I wonder . . . who’s holding out on—or double-crossing—whom?
“No, not you,” he went on, as Brookings protested innocence. “That wouldn’t make sense. Your thief turned in only this much. Could he be holding out on us . . . no, that doesn’t make sense, either.”
“No. You know Perkins.”
“His crook missed the main bottle, then. That’s where your methods give me an acute bellyache. When I want anything done I do it myself. But it isn’t too late yet. I’ll take a couple of your goons tonight and go out there.”
“And do exactly what?”
“Shoot Seaton, open the safe, take their solution, plans, and notes. Loose cash, too, of
course—I’ll give that to the goons.”
“No, no, doctor. That’s too crude altogether. I could permit that only as the last possible resort.”
“I say do it first. I’m afraid of pussyfooting and gum-shoeing around Seaton and Crane. Seaton has developed a lot of late, and Crane never was anybody’s fool. They’re a hard combination to beat, and we’ve done plenty worse and got away with it”
“Why not work it out from the solution we have, and then get the rest of it? Then, if Seaton had an accident, we could prove that we discovered the stuff long ago.”
“Because development work on that stuff is risky, as you found out. Also, it’d take too much time. Why should we go to all that trouble and expense when they’ve got the worst of it done? The police may stir around for a few days, but they won’t know anything or find out anything. Nobody will suspect anything except Crane—if he is still alive—and he won’t be able to do anything.”
So the argument raged. Brookings agreed with DuQuesne in aim, but would not sanction his means, holding out for quieter, more devious, less actionable methods. Finally he ended the discussion with a flat refusal and called Perkins. He told him of the larger bottle of solution; instructing him to secure it and to bring back all plans, notes, and other material pertaining to the matter in hand. Then, after giving DuQuesne an instrument like the one he himself carried, Brookings took his leave.
Late in the afternoon of the day of the explosion, Seaton came up to Crane with a mass of notes in his hand.
“I’ve got some of it, Mart. The power is what we figured—anything you want short of infinity. I’ve got the three answers you wanted most. First, the transformation is complete. No loss, no residue, no radiation or other waste. Thus, no danger and no shielding or other protection is necessary. Second, X acts only as a catalyst and is not itself consumed. Hence, an infinitesimally thin coating is all that’s necessary. Third, the power is exerted as a pull along the axis of the X figure, whatever that figure is, focused at infinity.
“I also investigated those two border-line conditions. In one it generates an attractive force focused on the nearest object in line with its axis of X. In the second it’s an all-out repulsion.”
“Splendid, Dick” Crane thought for a minute or two. “Data enough, I think, to go ahead on. I particularly like that first border-line case. You could call it an object-compass. Focus one on the earth and we would always find our way back here, no matter how far away we get.”
“Say, that’s right—I never thought of anything like that. But what I came over here for was to tell you that I’ve got a model built that will handle me like small change. It’s got more oof than a ramjet, small as it is—ten G’s at least. Want to see it in action?”
“I certainly do.”
As they were walking out toward the field Shiro called to them and they turned back toward the house, learning that Dorothy and her father had just arrived.
“Hello, boys.” Dorothy smiled radiantly, her dimples very much in evidence. “Dad and I came out to see how—and what—you’re doing.”
“You came at exactly the right time,” Crane said. “Dick has built a model and was just going to demonstrate it. Come and watch.”
On the field, Seaton buckled on a heavy harness, which carried numerous handles, switches, boxes, and other pieces of apparatus. He snapped the switch of the whatsitron. He then moved a slider on a flashlight-like tube which was attached to the harness by an adjustable steel cable and which he was gripping with both hands.
There was a creak of straining leather and he shot into the air for a couple of hundred feet, where he stopped and remained motionless for several seconds. Then he darted off; going forward and backward, up and down, describing zig-zags and loops and circles and figures-of-eight. After a few minutes of this display he came down in a power dive, slowing up spectacularly to a perfect landing.
“There, Oh beauteous damsel and esteemed sirs—” he began, with a low bow and a sweeping flourish, then there was a sharp snap and he was jerked sidewise off his feet. In the flourish his thumb had moved the slider a fraction of an inch and the power-tube had torn itself out of his grasp. It was now out at the full length of the cable, dragging him helplessly after it, straight toward a high stone wall.
But Seaton was helpless only for a second. Throwing his body sideways and reaching out along the taut cable, he succeeded in swinging the thing around so that he was galloping back toward the party and the field. Dorothy and her father were standing motionless, staring; Crane was running toward the shop.
“Don’t touch that switch!” Seaton yelled. “I’ll handle the bloody thing myself!”
At this evidence that Seaton thought himself master of the situation Crane began to laugh, but held one finger lightly on the whatsitron switch; and Dorothy, relieved of her fear, burst into a fit of the giggles. The bar was straight out in front of him, going somewhat faster than a man could normally run, swinging now right, now left as his weight was thrown from one side to the other. Seaton, dragged along like a boy holding a runaway calf by the tail, was covering the ground in prodigious leaps, at the same time pulling himself up hand over hand toward the tube. He reached it, grabbed it in both hands, again darted into the air, and came down lightly near the others, who were rocking with laughter.
“I said it would be undignified,” said Seaton, somewhat short of breath, but laughing, too, “but I didn’t think it would end up like this.”
Dorothy seized his hand. “Are you hurt anywhere, Dick?”
“Uh-uh. Not a bit”
“I was scared green until you told Martin to lay off, but it was funny then. How about doing it again and I’ll shoot it in full color?”
“Dorothy !” her father chided. “Next time it might not be funny at all.”
“There’ll be no next time for this rig,” Seaton declared. “From here we ought to be able to go to a full-scale ship.”
Dorothy and Seaton set out toward the house and Vaneman turned to Crane.
“What are you going to do with it commercially? Dick, of course, hasn’t thought of anything except his spaceship. Equally of course, you have.”
Crane frowned. “Yes. I’ve had a crew of designers working for weeks. In units of half-million to a million kilowatts we could sell power for a small fraction of a mil. However, the deeper we go into it the more likely it appears that it will make all big central power plants obsolete.”
“How could that be?”
“Individual units on individual spots—but it will be some time yet before we have enough data for the machines to work on.”
The evening passed rapidly. As the guests were getting ready to leave, Dorothy asked, “What are you going to call it? You both have called it forty different things this evening, and none of them were right”
“Why, ‘spaceship,’ of course,” Seaton said.
“Oh, I didn’t mean the class, I meant this particular one. There’s only one possible name for her: The Skylark.”
“Exactly right, Dorothy,” Crane said.
“Perfect!” Seaton applauded. “And you’ll christen it, Dottie, with a fifty-liter flask full of hard vacuum. ‘I christen thee The Skylark—bang!’ ”
As an afterthought, Vaneman pulled a newspaper out of his pocket.
“Oh yes, I bought a Clarion on our way out here. It tells about an extraordinary explosion—at least, the story is extraordinary. It may not be true, but it may make interesting reading for you two scientific sharps. Good night”
Seaton walked Dorothy to the car. When he came back Crane handed him the paper without a word. Seaton read.
“It’s X, all right. Not even a Clarion reporter could dream that up. Some poor devil tried it without my rabbit’s foot in his pocket.”