by Various
"Mars?" gasped the professor.
"Yes, or Venus, or even Jupiter, not to mention the moon! Or how about the sun? That would be an interesting sphere for exploration."
"We don't know what you're talking about," said Stoddard growing nettled. "Why mince matters? Call a spade a spade, if you're going to! What do you propose to do with us, now that you have us in your power?"
The prince paused, drew forth a long Russian cigarette from an exquisite platinum case.
"I propose," he smiled, when he had lit it, "to turn over my rocket to you, my fellow scientists, since I shall have no further use for it and it might be embarrassing to be found with it in my possession."
And the way he proposed to turn it over to them, as they had already suspected, was to lock them in it and fire it off into space.
* * * * *
Within the hour, the man's diabolical plan had been put into operation.
Led to the rocket, the luckless pair were locked within a small metal room somewhere within its recesses. There sounded again the peculiar rasping that told them its doors were being sealed. And then came the roar of that mighty exhaust beating down.
There followed the lifting, rushing sensation they had experienced before, and again they were flung violently to the flooring by the force of the upward impulse.
When the pressure slacked, they staggered to their feet and groped around the dark, stuffy little room.
"Well, this is the end, I guess," sighed Professor Prescott. "I had never thought," with a grim attempt at humor, "that I would meet quite such a scientific fate as this!"
"Nor had I!" Stoddard agreed. "But I'm not quite ready to cash in my checks yet. The game isn't over!" He was pacing around the room, knocking on the metal walls with something that gave back a strident ring. "Have you any idea what composition this stuff is?"
* * * * *
The professor rapped on one of the panels; felt of it.
"Aluminum, I would say."
"Nothing so lucky! If it were, I could cut it like cheese. But duralumin, probably, a very light, strong alloy; and what I have here is a hunting knife with a can-opener on one end! If I'm not mistaken, we'll be out of this sardine box before long."
Whereupon he applied himself to the thin metal wall of their cell, working determinedly, while Professor Prescott held his cigarette lighter for a torch.
"You see, duralumin yields to heat, like aluminum," he exclaimed, as finally his knife thrust through. "Now then, let's get the can opener working."
The progress was slow but sure. Within an hour, he had cut out a jagged section some two feet square, through which they squeezed into an equally dark corridor.
"Now then!" Stoddard's mood was exultant. "There must be switches around here somewhere. There were lights, I remember, so let's find them. Once we get a little light on the subject--"
"Here!" called the professor, who had groped down the corridor with the cigarette lighter. "How's that?"
As he pressed a switch, a row of small bulbs glowed overhead.
"Fine!" was the answer. "Now let's see if we can find the engine-room, or whatever they call it."
* * * * *
Jubilant now, they continued on down the corridor, which ended in a flight of stairs.
"I fancy it must be below," said Professor Prescott. "From what I have seen of experimental models, the propulsion impulse must originate from the base."
So they descended the stairs, entered another dark corridor, found another switch and pressed it, and thus they proceeded, lighting the interior of the rocket as they went. And as they descended, the roar of the exhaust increased in volume, indicating that they were nearing its source.
Presently they entered a large, circular room with an illuminated dial at the far end. Drawing near, they saw a confusion of instruments that for a moment left them dazed.
While Stoddard studied them in bewilderment, Prescott circled the room till he found a switch. Pressing it, he produced a brilliant flood of illumination.
"Now then, let me have a look at this," he said, returning to the dial. "Professor Goddard once explained to me the workings of one of his experimental models. The motive force must be some liquefied mixture, possibly oxygen and hydrogen. Some of these instruments--most of them, in fact--must be valves."
He touched one, turned it, and the rocket responded with a sickening burst of speed.
"No, that won't do! We're going plenty fast enough now!"
He touched another, and they slacked off dizzyingly.
"Well, there are two controls, anyway. Now then, how do they steer this thing? That is the next problem we must solve."
But though he touched this instrument and that, producing weird effects, their course continued in the direction set. And meanwhile, they were hurtling outward through space at a rate of speed he knew would presently carry them beyond the gravitational pull of the earth.
Then, as he grasped and swung down a curious lever that worked in a quadrant, they felt a violent lunge to the left, and for a moment it seemed they would shoot to the ceiling.
"Good God!" gasped Stoddard. "What's happened?"
"Nothing--only that I've found how to steer this wild steed!" cried the professor, exultantly.
* * * * *
It was really quite simple, he explained, as he eased up on the lever. In application, it was a development of the gyroscope principle, that a wheel revolving freely within a freely suspended frame tends to make the frame revolve in the other direction.
"You see, the rocket is the freely suspended frame," he went on, "while this lever controls a gyroscopic wheel somewhere. To set it spinning to the right causes us to turn to the left, and vice versa."
"But you almost stood us on our heads, a moment ago! How did that happen?"
"Simply because I threw the lever too far to the right. We are in interstellar space, obviously, where every change of direction involves an adjustment of equilibrium."
And if Stoddard didn't exactly understand, being first a secret service man and only secondarily a scientist, at least he showed his ignorance no further. If the professor could bring this astounding machine back to Earth, that was all he wanted.
Prescott said he could, he thought, providing they had fuel enough left. So for the next few minutes, while the younger man held his breath, the professor labored with the various instruments on that complicated dial.
"Now then, I think we're headed back," he said at length, relaxing. "But we've got to have visibility, otherwise we will land with a velocity of about twenty thousand miles an hour, which is what I figure we're making at the present time."
"Good Lord!" gasped Stoddard. "I'll say we've got to have visibility! Wait a minute! Let me look around!"
He searched the room for further instruments--to find nothing that in any way met the purpose.
But even as he returned dejected, the professor cried out:
"Here--I've got it! Take a look at this!"
Bending over a small table beside the dial, Stoddard saw mirrored, in its ground-glass surface a hazy circular panorama that at first had no significance. But as he continued to peer down upon the scene, certain familiar aspects loomed out. It was the Earth--and what he was looking at was a view of the North and South American continents!
* * * * *
For some moments Stoddard stared at this amazing panorama in silence; saw it grow rapidly clearer, as the careening rocket plunged like a giant shell toward the earth.
"My God!" he whispered at length in awe. "Do you think you can ever check our speed?"
"I think so," the professor replied, busy over his instruments. "But where do we want to land? How do we know what state we were in?"
Whereupon Stoddard told him of that Texas license plate.
"But we don't want to land anywhere near that fiend Krassnov," he added, with a shudder. "I suggest, if it's possible, that you pick out some aerodrome, preferably in the western part of the state--for if I remember my geo
graphy, Texas isn't mountainous in the east."
"I will do the best I can," said Prescott, grimly.
There followed tense minutes as the panorama in that ground-glass narrowed and grew more intense. Now they could see only North America, now only the United States and a portion of Mexico, and now only Texas.
"Back--back!" cried Stoddard, as the rugged land loomed up, spread into a panorama of towns and ranches. "We're descending too fast! We're bound to crash, unless--"
But already the professor had touched the ascending valve and swung the steering lever.
Up they zoomed again. Once more a portion of Mexico was visible on the glass, and along the international border now they could see a winding thread of silver.
"The Rio Grande!" exclaimed the young geologist. "Just follow it up toward its source till we come to El Paso. There'll be a landing-field there."
"Yes, undoubtedly." The professor was working in abstraction over the unfamiliar controls. "Now if I can just hold us on our course...."
* * * * *
He succeeded, and presently a white city gleamed over the curving rim of the horizon to the northwest, the tall chimneys of its smelters throwing long shadows from the lowering sun beyond.
In a minute or two they were over it, at a height of perhaps twelve miles--and now, as they began descending, its patchwork of buildings and plazas unfolded like some great quilt below.
"There's the field!" cried Stoddard, pointing in the glass to a wide clear space on the outskirts. "Can you make it, do you think?"
"We'll know soon!" was the grim answer, as Prescott worked frantically now with his valves and levers. "It's a matter of balancing off our flow of gases, of holding up buoyancy to the very last. A little too much, or not enough, and--"
Breathlessly, as they descended, Stoddard peered into the glass. Now a scene of excitement was visible below. Figures could be seen gazing up, waving their arms, running about this way and that.
"They must think they're getting a visit from another planet," said Stoddard. "Or that the end of the world has come!"
"Maybe it has, for us!" agreed the professor, gravely. "I'm afraid we're going to crash. I can't seem to--"
Whatever he was going to add was lost in a sudden, rending concussion that flung them violently down, and plunged the room into darkness.
* * * * *
Staggering to his feet a moment later, bruised and shaken, Stoddard gasped out:
"Professor are you there? Are you all right?"
A groan answered him, and for a moment his heart sank, but then came the reassuring call:
"Yes--all right, I guess. And you?"
"O.K. Let's get out of here, quick!"
An ominous hissing sound beat on their ears, as they groped their way toward the door. Evidently escaping gases from the deranged mechanism, thought Stoddard. The floor rose at an angle, indicating that the rocket was half over on its side.
They found the door, and struggled along the twisted corridor toward a flight of stairs that would lead below; found it, descended, and groped along another dark corridor, seeking an exit; when suddenly, around a bend, daylight confronted them, and to their joy they saw that one of the main doors had been burst open by the impact.
Approaching it, they peered out--to be greeted by an awed group of officials and mechanics from the field.
As they climbed through, dropped to the ground, the group retreated, taking no chances.
"Back!" called Professor Prescott, warning and reassuring them with a word. Then, turning to his companion: "Come on, Jack--run! This thing is likely to explode at any moment."
Following this advice, Stoddard raced from the rocket with the rest.
At a safe distance, he turned and peered back--to see it standing there at a crazy angle, dust and fumes issuing from under it in a blast that was hollowing a deep crater to the far side.
Even as they looked, the strange craft quivered, tottered, and fell over on its side, and the next instant was enveloped in a blinding sheet of flame that brought with it a dull detonation and a blast of dazing heat.
The party backed still farther away.
"A nasty mixture, oxygen and hydrogen," muttered the professor, feeling of his singed eyebrows. "We got out of there just in time, Jack."
"I'll say we did!" Stoddard agreed, with a shudder.
* * * * *
By now the higher officials of the field were on the scene, among them a number of Army men.
Curiosity ran high, not unmingled with indignation. Who were these strange visitors? Where had they come from? What did they mean by endangering the lives of everyone, with their damned contraption?
Inquiring for the commandant, they were taken to him--Major Clark Hendricks, U.S.A.--and Stoddard briefly outlined their astounding story, producing credentials, whereupon a squadron of fast military planes was assembled.
From the way they described the mountainous region where the rocket had first landed, mentioning the town Martin's Bluff, that Henry of the ancient Ford had named, the major declared that it must have been the Guadalupe Mountains a hundred miles to the east--and sure enough, a government map showed such a town there.
So it was that presently the squadron lifted into the late afternoon skies, with Major Hendricks in the leading plane, accompanied by the two weary adventurers.
Swiftly the squadron winged eastward. They reached the mountains in less than an hour, and circled them in search of that little wooden shack which Prince Krassnov and his Cossacks had made their rendezvous....
* * * * *
It was like finding a needle in a haystack, and for a time Stoddard despaired of success. But those rugged mountains were an open book to the planes circling high overhead, and with Martin's Bluff once located, the rest was not so hard.
At last, as twilight was falling, they found the shack and brought their planes to rest near it.
But as the party approached the shack, after posting a heavy guard over their planes, they saw that it was deserted.
This, after all, was only what Stoddard had feared, but nevertheless they forced their way inside--and there, had Major Hendricks had any doubt of their story, it was dispelled.
As Stoddard had told them, it was furnished like an Oriental hunting-lodge, with evidences of the recent occupation of the Russians on all sides.
But where were they? Had they got away or were they hiding somewhere?
Proceeding from room to room until they had searched it thoroughly, the party paused baffled.
But not for long, for suddenly Stoddard discovered something that gave him a clue. It was a barred door, within a closet, covered over with clothes and uniforms so as to be fairly well concealed. On battering it in, they found that it led into a passage below.
* * * * *
As the party entered the passage, leaving further guards above, it became obvious that what they had found was the shaft of an old mine.
It led down abruptly, for a while, then more gradually, with many windings and twistings, and ending presently in another barred door.
This they in turn battered in--to be greeted suddenly by a volley of rifle-fire that dropped three of them in their tracks.
Stoddard was one of those who fell.
Bending over him, Professor Prescott lifted up his head.
"Jack!" he called. "Where are you hit? Answer me!"
"I--it seems to be in the shoulder," came the weak reply. "If you've got a handkerchief--"
The professor produced one and staunched the flow of blood as best he could, working with the aid of his flashlight.
Meanwhile, ahead, the crash of pistols and rifles continued to split the stillness of the passage, as the attacking party pressed forward.
"There--that does it!" gasped Stoddard, at length. "Help me up. I'll be all right."
Prescott steadied him to his feet. They continued on.
* * * * *
Now the firing ceased, and in a moment Major Hendricks appeared, at the
head of his party.
"Well, we've got them," he said, saluting Stoddard. "How are you, old man?"
"All right," was the gritted reply. "Let's have a look at them."
A flashlight was swept across the stolid group of Cossack prisoners, but as Stoddard peered into one face after another, he realized that Krassnov was not among them.
"You haven't got the leader," he said. "See here, you birds," he addressed the Cossacks, "where is he, eh?"
If they understood, they gave no indication of it, but shook their heads sullenly.
"Well, damn it, we'll find him!" Stoddard wheeled and strode past them. "Give me three or four men, Major. I'll smoke out that Russian bear. He must be here somewhere."
Hendricks sent the main body above, with their prisoners, and gave him the men he wanted, putting himself at their head.
"You'd better go on up, too, Professor," said Stoddard, addressing Prescott. "You've risked enough, in my behalf."
But the older man shook his head.
"No, I'll come along, if you don't mind," he insisted. "I want to see the end of this thing."
* * * * *
It was an end that came with dramatic suddenness.
Pausing before a barred door some fifty paces down the passage, they were debating what their next move would be--when suddenly it was flung open.
"Come in, gentlemen," came a suave, ironical voice. "Sorry my servants were so uncivil."
In the glare of light from beyond, Stoddard and the professor saw that it was Prince Krassnov.
He stood there unarmed, smiling.
"Is this the fellow?" rasped Major Hendricks, his automatic levelled.
"It is," said Stoddard.
Slowly, cautiously, they followed the man into the room, which in reality was merely the end of the passage sealed off, though its walls were richly panelled and it was luxuriously furnished.
Pausing beside a small, heavy table, he swept his hand over it, indicating a heap of rough diamonds that must have represented millions.
"Merely a fraction of my treasure, gentlemen," he told them, with a deprecating shrug. "I hadn't quite finished storing away the last shipment, when you interrupted me."
He strode to one of the walls, drew out a small drawer from a built-in cabinet and dumped its glittering contents on the table with the rest.