Again Morey and Arcot were looking at the great Jersey aerodrome, out on
the fields that had been broad marshes centuries before. Now they had
been filled in, and stretched for miles, a great landing field, close to
the great city across the river.
The men in the car above were watching the field, hanging inert, a point
of glistening metal, high in the deep velvet of the purple sky, for
fifteen miles of air separated them from the Transcontinental machine
below. Now they saw through their field glasses that the great plane was
lumbering slowly across the field, gaining momentum as it headed
westward into the breeze. Then it seemed to be barely clearing the great
skyscrapers that towered twenty-four hundred feet into the air, arching
over four or five city blocks. From this height they were toys made of
colored paper, soft colors glistening in the hot noon sunlight, and
around and about them wove lines of flashing, moving helicopters, the
individual lost in the mass of the million or so swiftly moving
machines. Only the higher, steadily moving levels of traffic were
visible to them.
"Just look at that traffic! Thousands and thousands coming back into the
city after going home to lunch--and every day the number of helicopters
is increasing! If it hadn't been for your invention of this machine,
conditions would soon be impossible. The airblast in the cities is
unbearable now, and getting worse all the time. Many machines can't get
enough power to hold themselves up at the middle levels; there is a down
current over one hundred miles an hour at the 400-foot level in downtown
New York. It takes a racer to climb fast there!
"If it were not for gyroscopic stabilizers, they could never live in
that huge airpocket. I have to drive in through there. I'm always afraid
that somebody with an old worn-out bus will have stabilizer failure and
will really smash things." Morey was a skillful pilot, and realized, as
few others did, the dangers of that downward airblast that the countless
whirring blades maintained in a constant roar of air. The office
buildings now had double walls, with thick layers of sound absorbing
materials, to stop the roar of the cyclonic blast that continued almost
unabated twelve hours a day.
"Oh, I don't know about that, Morey," replied Arcot. "This thing has
some drawbacks. Remember that if we had about ten million of these
machines hung in the air of New York City, there would be a noticeable
drop in the temperature. We'd probably have an Arctic climate year in
and year out. You know, though, how unbearably hot it gets in the city
by noon, even on the coldest winter days, due to the heating effect of
the air friction of all those thousands of blades. I have known the
temperature of the air to go up fifty degrees. There probably will have
to be a sort of balance between the two types of machines. It will be a
terrific economic problem, but at the same time it will solve the
difficulties of the great companies who have been fermenting grain
residues for alcohol. The castor bean growers are also going to bring
down their prices a lot when this machine kills the market. They will
also be more anxious to extract the carbon from the cornstalks for
reducing ores of iron and of other metals."
As the ship flew high above the Transcontinental plane, the men
discussed the economic values of the different applications of Arcot's
discoveries from the huge power stations they could make, to the cooling
and ventilating of houses.
"Dick, you mentioned the cooling effect on New York City; with the
millions on millions of these machines that there will be, with huge
power plants, with a thousand other different applications in use, won't
the terrific drain of energy from the air cause the whole world to
become a little cooler?" asked Fuller.
"I doubt it, Bob," said Arcot slowly. "I've thought of that myself.
Remember that most of the energy we use eventually ends up as heat
anyway. And just remember the decillions of ergs of energy that the sun
is giving off! True, we only get an infinitesimal portion of that
energy--but what we do get is more than enough for us. Power houses can
be established very conveniently in the tropics, where they will cool
the air, and the energy can be used to refine metals. That means that
the surplus heat of the tropics will find a use. Weather control will
also be possible by the direction-control of great winds. We could set
huge director tubes on the tops of mountains, and blow the winds in
whatever direction best suited us. Not the blown wind itself, but the
vast volume of air it carried with it, would be able to cool the
temperate zones in the summer from the cold of the poles, and warm it in
winter with the heat of the tropics."
After a thoughtful silence, Arcot continued, "And there is another thing
it may make possible in the future--a thing that may be hard to accept
as a commercial proposition. We have a practically inexhaustible source
of energy now, but we have no sources of minerals that will last
indefinitely. Copper is becoming more and more rare. Had it not been for
the discoveries of the great copper fields of the Sahara and in Alaska,
we wouldn't have any now. Platinum is exhausted, and even iron is
becoming more and more valuable. We are facing a shortage of metals. Do
you realize that within the next two centuries we will be unable to
maintain this civilization unless we get new sources of certain basic
raw materials?
"But we have one other chance now. The solution is--there are nine
planets in this solar system! Neptune and Uranus are each far vaster
than Earth; they are utterly impossible for life as we know it, but a
small colony might be established there to refine metals for the distant
Earth. We might be able to build domed and sealed cities. But first we
could try the nearer planets--Mars, Venus, or some satellites such as
our Moon. I certainly hope that this machine will make it possible."
For some time they sat in silence as they sped along, high above the
green plains of Indiana. Chicago lay like some tremendous jewel far off
on the horizon to the right and ahead. Five miles below them the huge
bulk of the Transcontinental plane seemed a toy as it swung slowly
across the fields--actually traveling over six hundred miles an hour.
At last Morey spoke.
"You're right, Arcot. We'll have to think of the interplanetary aspects
of this some day. Oh, there's Chicago! We'd better start the vacuum gas
protector. And the radar. We may soon see some action."
The three men immediately forgot the somewhat distant danger of the
metal shortage. There were a number of adjustments to be made, and these
were quickly completed, while the machine forged evenly, steadily ahead.
The generator was adjusted to maximum efficiency, and the various tubes
were tested separately, for though they were all new, and each good for
twenty-five thousand hours, it would be inconvenient, to say the least,
if one failed while they were in action. Each tested perfect; and they
knew from the smooth functioning of the various relays that governed the
generator, as the loads on it varied, that it must be working perfectly,
at something less than one-half maximum rating.
Steadily they flew on, waiting tensely for the first sign of a glow from
the tiny neon tube indicator on the panel before Morey.
"This looks familiar, Dick," said Morey, looking about at the fields and
the low line of the blue mountains far off on the western horizon. "I
think it was about here that we took our little nap in the 'Flying Wheel
chair', as the papers called it. It would be about here th-- LOOK! It is
about here! Get ready for action, Fuller. You're taking the machine gun,
I'll work the invisibility disrupter, and Arcot will run the ship. Let's
go!"
On the board before him the tiny neon tube flickered dully, glowed
briefly like a piece of red-hot iron, then went out. In a moment it was
glowing again, and then quickly its brilliance mounted till it was a
line of crimson. Morey snapped the switch from the general radar to the
beam receiver, that he might locate the machine exactly. It was fully a
minute before the neon tube flashed into life once more. The pirate was
flying just ahead of the big plane, very likely gassing them. All
around him were the Air Guardsmen, unaware that the enemy was so near.
As the disrupter beam could be projected only about a mile, they would
have to dive down on the enemy at once; an instant later the great plane
beneath them seemed to be rushing upward at a terrific speed.
The two radar beams were kept focused constantly on the Pirate's craft.
When they were about two miles from the two planes, the neon tube blazed
brilliantly with a clash of opposing energy. The Pirate was trying to
maintain his invisibility, while the rapidly growing strength of the
machine above strove to batter it down. In moments the ammeter connected
with the disrupter beam began to rise so rapidly that Morey watched it
with some concern. Despite the ten-kilowatt set being used to project
the beam, the resistance of the apparatus on board the pirate ship was
amazing.
Abruptly the three became aware of a rapidly solidifying cloud before
them. The interference of the beam Morey was sending had begun breaking
down the molecular oscillation that permitted the light to pass freely
through the pirate's craft. Suddenly there was a circle of blue light
about the shadow form, and a moment later the ionized air relapsed into
normal condition as the pirate's apparatus broke down under the strain.
At once Morey shut off his apparatus, convinced by the sudden change
that the pirate's apparatus had blown out. He glanced up quickly as
Arcot called to him, "Morey--look at him go!"
Too late. Already the plane had shot off with terrific speed. It had
flashed up and to their left, at a rate of climb that seemed
unbelievable--except that the long trail of flaming gas told the story!
The plane was propelled by rockets! The terrific acceleration carried it
out of their range of vision in an instant, and as Arcot swung the ship
to bring him again within sight of the windows, they gasped, for already
he was many miles away.
There was a terrific wrench as Arcot threw on all the power he dared,
then quickly leveled the machine, following the pirate at lightning
speed. He increased the acceleration further as the men grew accustomed
to the force that weighed them down. Ahead of them the pirate was racing
along, but quickly now they were overhauling him, for his machine had
wings of a sort! They produced a tremendous amount of head resistance at
their present velocity, for already the needle of the radio speedometer
had moved over to one mile a second. They were following the fleet plane
ahead at the rate of 3600 miles an hour. The roar of the air outside was
a tremendous wave of sound, yet to them, protected by the vacuum of the
double walls, it was detectable only by the vibration of the car.
Rapidly the pirate's lead was cut down. It seemed but a moment before he
would be within range of their machine gun. Suddenly he nosed down and
shot for the ground, ten miles below, in a power dive. Instantly Arcot
swung his machine in a loop that held him close to the tail of the
pirate. The swift maneuvers at this speed were a terrific strain on both
men and machines--the acceleration seemed crushing them with the weight
of four men, as Arcot followed the pirate in a wide loop to the right
that ended in a straight climb, the rocket ship standing on its tail,
the rocket blast roaring out behind a stream of fire a half mile long.
The pirate was climbing at a speed that would have distanced any other
machine the world had ever seen, but the tenacious opponent behind him
clung ever tighter to the tiny darting thing. He had released great
clouds of his animation suspending gas. To his utter surprise, the ship
behind him had driven right through it, entirely unaffected! He, who
knew most about the gas, had been unable to devise a material to stop
it, a mask or a tank to store it, yet in some way these men had
succeeded! And that hurtling, bullet-shaped machine behind! Like some
miniature airship it was, but with a speed and an acceleration that put
even his ship to shame! It could twist, turn, dive, rise and shoot off
on the straight-away with more flashing speed than anything aloft. Time
and again he tried complicated maneuvers that strained him to the
utmost, yet that machine always followed after him!
There was one more thing to do. In outer space his rockets would support
him. In a straight climb he shot up to the blazing sun above, out into
space, while the sky around him grew black, and the stars shone in
solemn splendor around him. But he had eyes for only one thing, the
shining car that was rising with more than equal speed behind him. He
knew he must be climbing over two thousand miles an hour, yet the
tracker came ever closer. Just out of sighting range for the machine gun
now ... in a moment ... but, she was faltering!
The men in the machine behind sat white-lipped, tense, as the whirling
shocks of sudden turns at terrific speed twisted the gyroscopic seats
around like peas in a rolling ball. Up, down, left, right, the darting
machine ahead was twisting with unbelievable speed. Then suddenly the
nose was pointed for the zenith again, and with a great column of flame
shooting out behind him, he was heading straight toward space!
"If he gets there, I lose him, Morey!" said Arcot. The terrific
acceleration of the climb seemed to press them to their seats with a
deadly weight. It was labor to talk--but still the car ahead shot
on--slowly they seemed to be overhauling him. Now that the velocities
were perforce lowered by the effects of gravity, and the air resistance
of the atmosphere was well nigh gone, only the acceleration that the
human body could stand was considered. The man ahead was pushing his
plane ahead with an acceleration that would have killed many men!
Slowly the acceleration of the machine was falling. Arcot pushed the
control over to the last ampere, and felt the slight surge, as greater
power rushed through the coils momentarily. Soon this was gone too, as
the generator behind faltered. The driving power of the atmospheric heat
was gone. More than sixty miles below them they could see the Earth as a
greenish brown surface, slightly convex, and far to the east they could
distinguish a silvery line of water! But they had no eyes but for the
column of shooting flame that represented the fleeing raider! Out in
airless space now, he was safe from them. They could not follow. Arcot
turned the plane once more, parallel to the Earth, watching the plane
above through the roof window. Slowly the machine sank to the fifty-mile
level, where there was just sufficient air to maintain it in efficient
operation.
"Well, he beat us! But there is only one thing for us to do. He must
hang there on his rockets till we leave, and we can hang here
indefinitely, if we can only keep this cabin decently warm. He has no
air to cool him, and he has the sun to warm him. The only thing that is
worrying him right now is the heat of his rockets. But he can throw most
of that out with the gases. Lord, that's some machine! But eventually
his rockets will give out, and down he will come, so we'll just hang
here beneath him and--whoa--not so fast--he isn't going to stay there,
it seems; he is angling his ship off a bit, and shooting along, so that,
besides, holding himself up, he is making a little forward progress.
We'll have to follow! He's going to do some speeding, it seems! Well, we
can keep up with him, at our level."
"Dick, no plane ever made before would have stood the terrific pulls and
yanks that his plane got. He was steering and twisting on the standard
type air rudders, and what strains he had! The unique type of plane must
be extremely strong. I never saw one shaped like his before, though--it
is the obvious shape at that! It was just a huge triangular arrowhead!
Did you ever see one like it?"
"Something like it, yes, and so have you. Don't you recognize that as
the development of the old paper gliders you used to throw around as a
kid? It has the same shape, the triangular wings with the point in the
lead, except that he undoubtedly had a slight curve to the wings to
increase the efficiency. Something like the flying wings of fifty years
ago. I hope that man is only a kleptomaniac, because he can be cured of
that, and I may then have a new laboratory partner. He has some
exceedingly intelligent ideas!
"He's an ingenious man, but I wish he didn't store quite so much fuel
in his rocket tubes! It's unbearably cold in here, and I can't sacrifice
any power just for comfort. The rocket ship up there seems to be getting
more and more acceleration in the level. He has me dropping steadily to
get air to run the generator. He is going fast enough!"
They followed beneath the pirate, faster and faster as the rockets of
the ship began to push it forward more and more.
"Dick, why is it he didn't use all his rockets at first instead of
gradually increasing the power this way?"
"If you were operating the ship, Morey, you'd understand. Look at the
speedometer a moment and see if you can figure it out."
"Hmmm--4.5 miles per second--buzzing right along--but I don't see what
that--good Lord! We never will get him at this rate! How do you expect
to get him?"
"I have no idea--yet. But you missed the important point. He is going
4.5 miles a second. When he reaches 5 miles a second he will never come
down from his hundred and fifty mile high perch! He will establish an
orbit! He has so much centrifugal force already that he has very little
weight. We are staying right beneath him, so we don't have much either.
Well, there he goes in a last spurt. We are falling behind pretty
fast--there we are catching up now--no--we are just holding parallel!
He's done it! Look!"
Arcot pulled out his watch and let go of it. It floated motionless in
the air for a moment, then slowly drifted back toward the rear of the
room. "I am using a bit of acceleration--a bit more than we need to
maintain our speed. We are up high enough to make the air resistance
almost nothing, even at this velocity, but we still require some power.
I don't know--"
There was a low buzz, repeated twice. Instantly Morey turned the dials
of the radio receiving set--again the call signal sounded. In a moment a
voice came in--low, but distinct. The power seemed fading rapidly.
"I'm Wade--the Pirate--help if you can. Can you get outside the
atmosphere? Exceed orbital speed and fall out? Am in an orbit and can't
get out. Fuel reserve gage stuck, and used all my rockets. No more
power. Can not slow down and fall. I am running out of compressed air
and the generator for this set is going--will take animation suspending
gas--will you be able to reach me before entering night?"
"Quick, Morey--answer that we will."
"We will try, Pirate--think we can make it!"
"O.K.--power about gone--"
The last of his power had failed! The pirate was marooned in space! They
had seen his rockets go out, leaving the exhaust tube glowing for a
moment before it, too, was dark, and only the sun shining on the silvery
ship made it visible.
"We have to hurry if we want to do anything before he reaches night!
Radio the San Francisco fields that we will be coming in soon, and we
need a large electro-magnet--one designed to work on about 500 volts
D.C., and some good sized storage cells; how many will have to be
decided later, depending on the room we will have for them. I'll start
decelerating now so we can make the turn and circle back. We are
somewhere west of Hawaii, I believe, but we ought to be able to do the
trick if we use all the power we can."
Morey at once set to work with the radio set to raise San Francisco
airport. He was soon in communication with them, and told them that he
would be there in about an hour. They promised all the necessary
materials; also that they would get ready to receive the pirate once he
was finally brought in to them.
It was nearer an hour and a quarter later that the machine fell to the
great San Francisco landing field, where the mechanics at once set to
work bolting a huge electro-magnet on the landing skids on the bottom of
the machine. The most serious problem was connecting the terminals
electrically without making holes in the hull of the ship. Finally one
terminal was grounded, and the radio aerial used as the other. Fuller
was left behind on this trip, and a large number of cells were installed
in every possible position. In the power room, a hastily arranged motor
generator set was arranged, making it possible to run the entire ship
from the batteries. Scarcely had these been battened down to prevent
sliding under the accelerations necessary, than Arcot and Morey were
off. The entire operation had required but fifteen minutes.
"How are you going to catch him, Arcot?"
"I'll overtake him going west. If I went the other way I'd meet him
going at over 10 miles a second in relation to his machine. He had the
right idea. He told me to fall out to him at a greater than orbital
speed. I will go just within the Earth's atmosphere till I get just
under him, holding myself in the air by means of a downward acceleration
on the part of the regular lifting power units. I am going to try to
reach eight miles a second. We will be overhauling him at three a
second, and the ship will slow down to the right speed while falling out
to him. We must reach him before he gets into the shadow of the Earth,
though, for if he reaches 'night' he will be without heat, and he'll die
of cold. I think we can reach him, Dick!"
"I hope so. Those spare cells are all right, aren't they? We'll need
them! If they don't function when we get out there, we'll fall clear off
into space! At eight miles a second, we would leave Earth forever!"
The ship was accelerating steadily at the highest value the men aboard
could stand. The needle of the speedometer crept steadily across the
dial. They were flying at a height of forty miles that they might have
enough air and still not be too greatly hindered by air resistance. The
black sky above them was spotted with points of glowing light, the
blazing stars of space. But as they flew along, the sensation of weight
was lost; they had reached orbital speed, and as the car steadily
increased its velocity, there came a strange sensation! The Earth loomed
gigantic above them! Below them shone the sun! The direction of up and
down was changed by the terrific speed! The needle of the speedometer
was wavering at 7.8 miles a second. Now it held steady!
"I thought you were going to take it up to eight miles a second, Dick?"
"Air resistance is too great! I'll have to go higher!"
At a height of fifty miles they continued at 8.1 miles a second. It
seemed hours before they reached the spot where the pirate's machine
should be flying directly above them, and they searched the black sky
for some sign of the shining dot of light. With the aid of field glasses
they found it, far ahead, and nearly one hundred miles above.
"Well, here we go! I'm going to fall up the hundred miles or so, till
we're right in his path; the work done against gravity will slow us down
a little, so I'll have to use the power units somewhat. Did you notice
what I did to them?"
"Yes, they're painted a dull black. What's the idea?"
"We'll have no air from which to get heat for power out here, so we'll
have to depend on the sunlight they can absorb. I'm using it now to slow
us down as much as possible."
At last the tiny silver dot had grown till it became recognizable as the
pirate plane. They were drawing up to it now, slowly, but steadily. At
last the little machine was directly beneath them, and a scant hundred
yards away. They had long since been forced to run the machine on the
storage batteries, and now they applied a little power to the vertical
power units. Sluggishly, as they absorbed the sun's heat, the machine
was forced lower, nearer to the machine below. At last a scant ten feet
separated them.
"All right, Morey."
There was a snap, as the temporary switch was closed, and the current
surged into the big magnet on the keel. At once they felt the ship jump
a little under the impulse of the magnet's pull on the smaller machine.
In a moment the little plane had drifted up to the now idle magnet,
touched it and was about to bounce off, when Morey again snapped the
switch shut and the two machines were locked firmly together!
"I've got him, Dick!" Morey exclaimed. "Now slow down till it falls.
Then we can go and wait for it. Being a glider, it ought to be quite
manageable!"
Now the energy of the power units on the roof of the machine began to
slow down the two machines, the magnet grinding slightly as the momentum
of the plane was thrust upon it. They watched the speedometer drop. The
speed was sinking very slowly, for the area of the absorbing fins was
not designed to absorb the sun's heat directly, and was very
inefficient. The sun was indeed sinking below their horizon; they were
just beginning to watch that curious phenomenon of seeing dawn backward,
when they first struck air dense enough to operate the power units
noticeably. Quickly the power was applied till the machines sank rapidly
to the warmer levels, the only governing factor being the tendency of
the glider to break loose from the grip of the magnet.
At fifty miles the generator was started, and the heaters in the car at
once became more active. There was no heat in the car below, but that
was unavoidable. They would try to bring it down to warm levels quickly.
"Whew, I'm glad we reached the air again, Dick. I didn't tell you
sooner, for it wouldn't have done any good, but that battery was about
gone! We had something like twenty amp-hours left! I'm giving the
recharge generator all she will take. We seem to have plenty of power
now."
"I knew the cells were low, but I had no idea they were as low as that!
I noticed that the magnet was weakening, but thought it was due to the
added air strain. I am going to put the thing into a nose dive and let
the glider go down itself. I know it would land correctly if it had a
chance. I am going to follow it, of course, and since we are over the
middle of Siberia we'd better start back."
The return trip was necessarily in the lower level of the atmosphere,
that the glider might be kept reasonably warm. At a height of but two
miles, in the turbulent atmosphere, the glider was brought slowly home.
It took them nearly twenty hours to go the short distance of twelve
thousand miles to San Francisco, the two men taking turns at the
controls. The air resistance of the glider forced them to go slowly;
they could not average much better than six hundred an hour despite the
fact that the speed of either machine alone was over twelve hundred
miles an hour.
At last the great skyscrapers of San Francisco appeared on their
horizon, and thousands of private planes started out to meet them.
Frantically Arcot warned them away, lest the air blast from their props
tear the glider from the magnet. At last, however, the Air Guard was
able to force them to a safe distance and clear a lane through one of
the lower levels of the city traffic. The great field of the
Transcontinental lines was packed with excited men and women, waiting to
catch a glimpse of two of the greatest things the country had heard of
in the century--Arcot's molecular motion machine and the Air Pirate!
The landing was made safely in the circle of Air Guardsmen. There was a
small hospital plane standing beside it in a moment, and as Arcot's ship
released it, and then hung motionless, soundless above it, the people
watched it in wonder and excitement. They wanted to see Arcot perform;
they clamored to see the wonderful powers of this ship in operation. Air
Guardsmen who had witnessed the flying game of tag between these two
super-air machines had told of it through the press and over the radio.
* * * * *
Two weeks later, Arcot stepped into the office of Mr. Morey, senior.
"Busy?"
"Come on in; you know I'm busy--but not _too_ busy for you. What's on
your mind?"
"Wade--the pirate."
"Oh--hmm. I saw the reports on his lab out on the Rockies, and also the
psychomedical reports on him. And most particularly, I saw the request
for his employment you sent through channels. What's your opinion on
him? You talked with him."
Arcot frowned slightly. "When I talked to him he was still two different
identities dancing around in one body. Dr. Ridgely says the problem's
settling down; I believe him. Ridgely's no more of a fool in his line
than you and Dad are in your own lines, and Ridgely's business is
healing mental wounds. We agreed some while back that the Pirate must be
insane, even before we met him.
"We also agreed that he had a tremendously competent and creative mind.
As a personality in civilization, he'd evidently slipped several cogs.
Ridgely says that is reparable.
"You know, Newton was off the beam for about two years. Faraday was in a
complete breakdown for nearly five years--and after his breakdown, came
back to do some monumental work.
"And those men didn't have the help of modern psychomedical techniques.
"I think we'd be grade A fools ourselves to pass up the chance to get
Wade's help. The man--insane or not--figured out a way of stabilizing
and storing atomic hydrogen for his rockets. If he could do that in the
shape he was then in...!
"I'd say we'd be smart to keep the competition in the family."
Mr. Morey leaned back in his chair and smiled up at Arcot. "You've got a
good case there. I'll buy it. When Dr. Ridgely says Wade's got those
slipped cogs replaced--offer him a job in your lab staff.
"I'm a bit older than you are; you've grown up in a world where the
psychomedical techniques really work. When I was growing up,
psychomedical techniques were strictly rule of thumb--and the doctors
were all thumbs." Mr. Morey sighed. Then, "In this matter, I think your
judgment is better than mine."
"I'll see him again, and offer him the job. I'm pretty sure he'll take
it, as I said. I have a suspicion that, within six months, he'll be a
lot saner than most people around. The ordinary man doesn't realize what
a job of rechecking present techniques can do--and Wade is, naturally,
getting a very thorough overhaul.
"Somewhat like a man going in for treatment of a broken arm; in any
decent hospital they'll also check for any other medical problems, and
he'll come out healthier than if he had never had the broken arm.
"Wade seems to have had a mind that made friends with molecules, and
talked their language. After Ridgely shows him how to make friends with
people--I think he'll be quite a man on our team!"