Astounding Stories, July, 1931 Part 22

"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 G.o.ddard 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 s.p.a.ce 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 G.o.d!" 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 s.p.a.ce, 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-gla.s.s 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 sh.e.l.l toward the earth.

"My G.o.d!" 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 Kra.s.snov," 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 geography, 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-gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s, 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...."