"You think we've got everything in it?" Frannie asked anxiously.
We had gotten the vehicle back to a size normal to our own stature;
and all day had been working to equip it. The instrument room--its
Space and Time and size mechanisms were complete. I had learned now
that it was to be transported through Space by very similar principles
to those commonly in use--a controlled attraction or repulsion
of the faces of its cube for the heavenly body nearest to it; in
effect, an intensification--a neutralization--or reversal at will of
the electronic force which flows between and mutually attracts all
material bodies; the force which once--in centuries past--was called
gravitation. It needed no word of explanation. Its velocity and
distance dials, its direction indicators, were familiar, though rather
more intricate than those I had seen in the Interplanetary Service.
Beyond that, there was a bank of dials upon which a changing size was
recorded--with the vehicle's present starting dimensions to be the
standard unit. And other dials for its Time-change. Of these there were
two distinct sets. One, a record of the normal Time-change, inevitable
to a change of size; another, a comparison of that Time-distance with
the normal Time-progress of the earth, so that the Time-position of the
vehicle into the earth's Past or Future could be seen.
In a subsidiary instrument-room was a variety of modern astronomical
apparatus; the myrdoscope, and a receiver for an aural ray which, as
a guide to Brett, Dr. Gryce was to send from earth. Of this, in more
detail, they later explained.
In a smaller room were the apparatus for air renewal, the making of
various necessary gases, water and synthetic foods; a store-room
of provisions; rooms furnished comfortably so that the vehicle was
complete in its living quarters. A thousand details, until at the last
I felt as Frannie did--wondering how we could have failed to overlook a
score of things we had intended to do.
It was nightfall when we finished; and all that evening we spent
checking up the equipment. Dr. Gryce's home had not been seriously
damaged by the morning's mishap; and as midnight approached we gathered
in the little observation and instrument room he had built in its upper
story. Brett and Martt, it had been decided, were to make the journey;
we others were to watch and wait. It seemed the more difficult role.
All that evening Dr. Gryce had been increasingly silent, careworn
of manner and aspect. And though Brett was excited in his mature,
repressed fashion--and Martt frankly exuberant--I saw that little
Frannie was solemn, perturbed as her father.
It was a soft, brilliant, cloudless night, with no moon to pale the
gleaming stars. And at last every detail was settled, and the midnight
hour we had set for departure was at hand. We went forth with them to
the waiting vehicle. There was nothing more to say. They stood--Brett
and Martt--in the opened doorway as we gathered about them.
"Well--good-bye, Father--good-bye, Frannie dear." Brett held her close;
then released her, pushed her away. "Good-bye, Frank." His hand-clasp
was warm and steady.
Martt was jocular, but now at the last I could hear a tremble to his
voice. "When we get to that girl out there--well, I'm going to tell her
how interested you all are in her." His laugh was high-pitched. "That
is, if we can handle that giant."
"Good-bye, Brett. Good-bye, Martt."
Our words were so futile, so inadequate to the surge of feeling within
us! The door slid closed upon them. The vehicle, not to change size
until it was far into the realms of outer interstellar Space, beyond
our crowding little planets--lifted gently, soared upward, slid away
from us, a glistening white shape up there in the quiet starlight.
Gravely, silently, with what sinking of heart I could only imagine, Dr.
Gryce stood regarding it. Beside me Frannie was crying softly.
Explorers into infinity! And they were gone, to encounter--what?
_CHAPTER 4_