E.E. 'Doc' Smith SF Gateway Omnibus: The Skylark of Space, Skylark Three, Skylark of Valeron, Skylark DuQuesne

by E. E. 'Doc' Smith

  ‘I was refraining heroically from mentioning the fact.’

  ‘Thanks so much. Well, the knotty point, you remember, was what could be the possible effect of a small electric current in liberating the power. I think I’ve got it. It must shift the epsilon-gamma-zeta plane – and if it does, the rate of liberation must be zero when the angle theta is zero, and approach infinity as theta approaches pi over two.’

  ‘It does not,’ Crane contradicted, flatly. ‘It can’t. The orientation of that plane is fixed by temperature – by nothing except temperature.’

  ‘That’s so, usually, but that’s where the X comes in. Here’s the proof …’

  On and on the argument raged. Reference works littered the table and overflowed onto the floor, scratch-paper grew into piles, both computers ran almost continuously.

  Since the mathematical details of the Seaton-Crane Effect are of little or no interest here, it will suffice to mention a few of the conclusions at which the two men arrived. The power could be controlled. It could drive – or pull – a spaceship. It could be used as an explosive, in violences ranging from that of a twenty-millimeter shell up to any upper limit desired, however fantastic when expressed in megatons of T.N.T. There were many other possibilities inherent in their final equations, possibilities which the men did not at that time explore.

  VII

  ‘Say, Blackie,’ Scott called from the door of DuQuesne’s laboratory, ‘did you get the news flash that just came over on KSKM-TV? It was right down your alley.’

  ‘No. What about it?’

  ‘Somebody piled up a million tons of tetryl, T.N.T., picric acid, nitroglycerine, and so forth up in the hills and touched it off. Blooie! Whole town of Bankerville, West Virginia – population two hundred – gone. No survivors. No debris, even, the man said. Just a hole in the ground a couple of miles in diameter and God only knows how deep.’

  ‘Baloney!’ DuQuesne snapped. ‘What would anybody be doing with an atomic bomb up there?’

  ‘That’s the funny part of it – it wasn’t an atomic bomb No radioactivity anywhere, not even a trace. Just skillions and whillions of tons of high explosive and nobody can figure it. “All scientists baffled,” the flash said. How about you Blackie? You baffled, too?’

  ‘I would be, if I believed any part of it.’ DuQuesne turned back to his work.

  ‘Well, don’t blame me for it, I’m just telling you what Fritz Habelmann just said.’

  Since DuQuesne showed no interest at all in his news, Scott wandered away.

  ‘The fool did it. That will cure him of sucking eggs – I hope,’ he muttered, and picked up his telephone.

  ‘Operator? DuQuesne speaking. I am expecting a call here this afternoon. Please have the party call me at my home, Lincoln six four six two oh … Thank you.’

  He left the building and got his car out of the parking lot. In less than half an hour he reached his house on Park Road, overlooking beautiful Rock Creek Park, in which he lived alone save for an elderly colored couple who were his servants.

  In the busiest part of the afternoon Chambers rushed unannounced into Brookings’ private office, his face white, a newspaper in his hand.

  ‘Read that, Mr Brookings!’ he gasped.

  Brookings read, his face turning gray. ‘Ours, of course.’

  ‘Ours,’ Chambers agreed, dully.

  ‘The fool! Didn’t you tell him to work with very small quantities?’

  ‘I did. He said not to worry, he was taking no chances he wouldn’t have more than one gram of copper on hand at once in the whole laboratory.’

  ‘Well … I’ll … be … jiggered!’ Turning slowly to the telephone, Brookings called a number and asked for Dr DuQuesne, then he called another.

  ‘Brookings. I would like to see you as soon as possible … I’ll be there in about an hour … Goodbye.’

  Brookings arrived and was shown into DuQuesne’s study. The two shook hands perfunctorily and sat down. The scientist waited for the other to speak.

  ‘You were right, doctor,’ Brookings said. ‘Our man couldn’t handle it. I have contracts here …’

  ‘At twenty and ten?’ DuQuesne’s lips smiled, a cold, hard smile.

  ‘Twenty and ten. The Company expects to pay for its mistakes. Here they are.’

  DuQuesne glanced over the documents and thrust them into a pocket. ‘I’ll go over them with my attorney tonight and mail one copy back to you if he says to. In the meantime we may as well get started.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘First, the solution. You stole it, I—’

  ‘Don’t use such language, doctor!’

  ‘Why not? I’m for direct action, first, last, and all the time. This thing is too important to mince words. Have you got it with you?’

  ‘Yes. Here it is.’

  ‘Where’s the rest of it?’

  ‘All that we found is here, except for half a teaspoonful our expert had in his laboratory. We didn’t get it all; only half of it. The rest was diluted with water, so it wouldn’t be missed. We can get the rest of it later. That will cause a disturbance, but it may become …

  ‘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 gumshoeing 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 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-l
ine 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 could 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 zigzags 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, O 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 sideways 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. Goodnight.’

  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.’

  ‘But think, Dick! Something is very seriously wrong. Two people did not discover X at the same time. Someone stole your idea, but the idea is worthless without the metal. Where did he get it?’

  ‘That’s right. The stuff is extremely rare. In fact, it isn’t supposed even to exist. I’d bet my case buck that we had every microgram of it known to science.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said the practical Crane, ‘We’d better find out if we have all we started with.’

  The storage bottle was still almost full, its seal unbroken; the vial was apparently exactly as Seaton had left it. ‘It seems to be all here,’ Crane said.

  ‘It can’t be,’ Seaton declared. It’s too rare – coincidence can’t go that far … I can tell by taking the densities.’

  He did so, finding that the solution in the vial was only half as strong as that in the reserve bottle.

  ‘That’s it, Mart. Somebody stole half of this vial. But he’s gone where the … say, do you suppose …?’

  ‘I do indeed. Just that.’

  ‘And the difficulty will lie in finding out which one, among the dozens of outfits who would want the stuff, is the one that actually got it?’

  ‘Check. The idea was – must have been – taken from your demonstration. Or, rather, one man knew, from the wreckage of your laboratory, that your demonstration would not have failed had all the factors then operative been present. Who was there?’

  ‘Oh, a lot of people came around at one time or another, but your specifications narrow the field to five men – Scott, Smith, Penfield, DuQuesne, and Roberts. Hmmm, let’s see – if Scott’s brain was solid cyclonite, the detonation wouldn’t crack his skull; Smith is a pure theoretician; Penfield wouldn’t dare quote an authority without asking permission; DuQuesne is … umm … that is, DuQuesne isn’t … I mean, Du—’

  ‘DuQuesne, then, is suspect number one.’

  ‘But wait a minute! I didn’t say …’

  ‘Exactly. That makes him suspect number one. How about the fifth man, Roberts?’

  ‘Not the type – definitely. He’s a career man. If he got blasted out of the Civil Service all the clocks in the city would stop.

  Crane picked up his telephone and dialed.

  ‘This is Crane. Please give m
e a complete report on Dr Marc C. DuQuesne of the Rare Metals Laboratory as soon as possible … Yes, full coverage … no limit … and please send two or three guards out here right now, men you can trust … Thanks.’

  VIII

  Seaton and Crane spent some time in developing the ‘object-compass.’ They made several of them, mounted in gymbals on super-shock-proof jeweled bearings. Strictly according to Seaton’s Theory, the instruments were of extreme sensitivity; the one set on the smallest object at the greatest distance – a tiny glass bead at three thousand miles – registering a true line in less than one second.

  Having solved the problem of navigation, they made up graduated series of ‘X-plosive’ bullets, each one matching perfectly its standard .45-caliber counterpart. They placed their blueprints and working notes in the safe as usual, taking with them only those dealing with the object-compass and the X-plosive bullet, on which they were still working. They cautioned Shiro and the three guards to watch everything closely until they got back. Then they set out in the helicopter, to try out the new weapon in a place where the explosions could do no damage.

  It came fully up to expectations. A Mark One charge, fired by Crane at a stump over a hundred yards from the flat-topped knoll that had afforded them a landing-place, tore it bodily from the ground and reduced it to splinters. The force of the explosion made the two men stagger.

  ‘Wow!’ Seaton exclaimed. ‘Wonder what a Mark Five will do?’

  ‘Careful, Dick. What are you going to shoot at?’

  ‘That rock across the valley. Range-finder says nine hundred yards. Bet me a buck I can’t hit it?’

  ‘The pistol champion of the District? Hardly!’

  The pistol cracked, and when the bullet reached its destination the boulder was obliterated in a vast ball of … of something. It was not exactly – nor all – flame. It had none of the searing, killing, unbearable radiance of an atomic bomb. It did not look much, if any, hotter than the sphere of primary action of a massive charge of high explosive. It did not look, even remotely, like anything either man had ever seen before.