TO THE FAR REACHES OF SPACE

 

Hair-raising explorations and strange ventures into faraway worlds as Man breaks the light-speed barrier

and heads into the black depths of interstellar space.

 

For forty-eight hours the uncontrolled engine dragged DuQuesne's vessel through the empty reaches of space with

an awful and constantly increasing velocity. Then, when only a few traces of copper remained, the acceleration

began to decrease. Floor and seats began to return to their normal positions. When the last particle of copper was

gone, the ship's speed became constant. Apparently motionless to those inside her, she was in reality moving with a

velocity thousands of times greater than that of light.

 

DuQuesne was the first to gain control of himself. His first effort to get up lifted him from the floor and he

floated lightly upward to the ceiling, striking it with a gentle bump and remaining, motionless and unsupported, in

the air. The others, none of whom had attempted to move, stared at him in amazement.

 

DuQuesne reached out, clutched a hand-grip, and drew himself down to the floor. With great caution he removed

his suit, transferring two automatic pistols as be did so. By feeling gingerly of his body he found that no bones

were broken. Only then did he look around to see how his companions were faring.

 

They were all sitting up and holding onto something. The girls were resting quietly; Perkins was removing his

leather costume.

 

"Good morning, Dr. DuQuesne. Something must have happened when I kicked your friend."

 

"Good morning, Miss Vaneman." DuQuesne smiled, more than half in relief. "Several things happened. He fell into

the controls, turning on all the juice, and we left considerably faster than I intended to. I tried to get control, but

couldn't. Then we all went to sleep and just woke up." "Have you any idea where we are?"

 

"No . . . but I can make a fair estimate." He glanced at the empty chamber where the copper cylinder had been; took

out notebook, pencil, and slide rule; and figured for minutes.

 

He then drew himself to one of the windows and stared out, then went to another window, and another. He seated

himself at the crazily tilted control board and studied it. He worked the computer for a few moments.

 

"I don't know exactly what to make of this," he told Dorothy, quietly. "Since the power was on exactly fortyeight

hours, we should not be more than two light-days away from our sun. However, we certainly are. I could recognize

at least some of the fixed stars and constellations from anywhere within a light-year or so of Sol, and I can't find

even one familiar thing. Therefore we must have been accelerating all the time. We must be somewhere in the

neighborhood of two hundred thirty-seven light-years away from home. For you two who don't know what a

light-year is, about six quadrillion-six thousand million millionmiles."

 

Dorothy's face turned white; Margaret Spencer fainted; Perkins merely goggled, his face working convulsively.

"Then we'll never get back?" Dorothy asked.

 

"I wouldn't say that--"

 

"You got us into this!" Perkins screamed, and leaped at Dorothy, murderous fury in his glare, his fingers curved

into talons. Instead of reaching her, however, he merely sprawled grotesquely in the air. DuQuesne, braced one

foot against the wall and seizing a hand-grip with his left hand, knocked Perkins clear across the room with one

blow of his right.

 

"None of that, louse," DuQuesne said, evenly. "One more wrong move out of you and I'll throw you out. It isn't her

fault we're here, it's our own. And mostly yours-if you'd had three brain cells working she couldn't have kicked you.

But that's past. The only thing of interest now is getting back."

 

"But we can't get back," Perkins whimpered. "Me power's gone, the controls are wrecked, and you said you're lost."

 

"I did not." DuQuesne's voice was icy. "What I said was that I don't know where we are-a different statement

entirely."

 

"Isn't that a distinction without a difference?" Dorothy asked acidly.

 

"By no means, Miss Vaneman. I can repair the control board. I have two extra power bars. One of them, with

direction exactly reversed, will stop us, relative to the earth. I'll bum half of the last one, then coast until, by recog-

 

nizing fixed stars and triangulating them, I can fix our position. I will then know where our solar system is and will

go there. In the meantime, I suggest that we have something to eat."

 

"A beautiful and timely thought!" Dorothy exclaimed. "I'm famished. Where's your refrigerator? But something else

comes first. I'm a mess, and she must be, too. Where's our room ... that is, we have a room?"

 

"Yes. That one, and there's the galley, over there. We're cramped, but you'll be able to make out. Let me say, Miss

Vaneman, that I really admire your nerve. I didn't expect that lunk to disintegrate the way he did, but I thought you

girls might. Miss Spencer will, yet, unless you . . ."

 

"I'll try to. I'm scared, of course, but falling apart won't help ... and we've simply got to get back.'

 

"We will. Two of us, at least."

 

Dorothy nudged the other girl, who had not paid any attention to anything around her, and led her along a handrail.

As she went, she could not help but think-with more than a touch of admiration-of the man who had abducted her.

Calm, cool, master of himself and the situation, disregarding completely the terrible bruises that disfigured half

his face and doubtless half his body as well-she admitted to herself that it was only his example which had enabled

her to maintain her self-control.

 

As she crawled over Perkins' suit she remembered that he had not taken any weapons from it, and a glance assured

her that Perkins was not watching her. She searched it quickly, finding two automatics. She noted with relief that

they were standard .45's and stuck them into her pockets.

 

In the room, Dorothy took one look at the other girl, then went to the galley and back.

 

"Here, swallow this," she ordered.

 

The girl did so. She shuddered uncontrollably, but did begin to come to life.

 

"That's better. Now, snap out of it," Dorothy said, sharply. "We aren't dead and we aren't going to be."

 

"I am," came the wooden reply. "You don't know that beast Perkins."

 

"I do so. And better yet, I know things that neither DuQuesne nor that Perkins even guess. Two of the smartest men

that ever lived are on our tail, and when they catch up with us . . . well, I wouldn't be in their shoes for anything."

 

"What?" Dorothy's confident words and bearing, as much the potent pill, were taking effect. The strange girl was

coming back rapidly to sanity and normality. "Not really?"

 

"Really. We've got a lot to do, and we've got to clean up first. And with no weight . . . does it make you sick?" "It did,

dreadfully, but I've got nothing left to be sick with. Doesn't it you?"

 

"Not very much. I don't like it, but I'm getting used to it. And I don't suppose you know anything about it." "No. All I

can feel is that I'm falling, and it's almost unbearable."

 

"It isn't pleasant. I've studied it a lot-in theory-and the boys say all you've got to do is forget that falling sensation.

Not that I've been able to do it, but I'm still trying. The first thing's a bath, and then-"

 

"A bath! Here? How?"

 

"Sponge-bath. I'll show you. Then . . . they brought along quite a lot of clothes to fit me, and you're just about my

size ... and you'll look nice in green......

 

After they had put themselves to rights, Dorothy said, "That's a lot better." Each girl looked at the other, and each

liked what she saw.

 

The stranger was about twenty-two with heavy, wavy black hair. Her eyes were a rich, deep brown; her skin clear,

smooth ivory. Normally a beautiful girl, thought Dorothy, even though she was now thin, haggard, and worn.

 

"Let's get acquainted before we do anything else," she said. "I'm Margaret Spencer, formerly private secretary to

His High Mightiness, Brookings of Steel. They swindled my father out of an invention worth millions and then

killed him. I got the job to see if I could prove it, but I didn't get much evidence before they caught me. So, after

two months of things you wouldn't believe, here I am. Talking never would have done me any good, and I'm certain

it won't now. Perkins will kill me . . . or maybe, if what you say is true, I should add 'if he can.' This is the first time

I've had that much hope."

 

"But how about Dr. DuQuesne? Surely he wouldn't let him."

 

"I've never met DuQuesne before, but from what I heard around the office, he's worse than Perkins-in a different

way, of course. He's absolutely cold and utterly hard-a perfect fiend."

 

"Oh, come, you're too hard on him. Didn't you see him knock Perkins down when he came after me?"

 

"No-or perhaps I did, in a dim sort of way. But that doesn't mean anything. He probably wants you left alive of

course that's it, since he went to all the trouble of kidnapping you. Otherwise he would have let Perkins do anything

he wanted to with you, without lifting a finger."

 

"I can't believe that." Nevertheless, a chill struck at Dorothy's heart as she remembered the inhuman crimes

attributed to the man. "He has treated us with every consideration so far-let's hope for the best. Anyway, I'm sure

we'll get back safely."

 

"You keep saying that. What makes you so sure?" "Well, I'm Dorothy Vaneman, and I'm engaged to Dick Seaton, the

man who invented this spaceship, and I'm as sure as can be that he is chasing us right now."

 

"But that's just what they want!" Margaret exclaimed. "I heard some Top Secret stuff about that. Your name and

Seaton's brings it back to me. Their ship is rigged, some way or other, so it will blow up or something the first time

they go anywhere!"

 

"That's what they think." Dorothy's voice dripped scorn. "Dick and his partner-you've heard of Martin Crane, of

course?"

 

"I heard the name mentioned with Seaton's, but that's all."

 

"Well, he's quite a wonderful inventor, and almost as smart as Dick is. Together they found out about that sabotage

and built another ship that Steel doesn't know anything about. Bigger and better and faster than this one."

 

"That makes me feel better." Margaret really brightened for the first time. "No matter how rough this trip will be,

it'll be a vacation for me now. If I only had a gun . . ."

 

"Here," and as Margaret stared at the proffered weapon, "I've got another. I got them out of Perkins' suit." "Glory

be!" Margaret fairly beamed. "There is balm in Gilead, after all! Just watch, next time Perkins threatens to cut my

heart out with his knife . . . and we'd better go make those sandwiches, don't you think? And call me Peggy, please."

 

"Will do, Peggy my dear-we're going to be great friends. And I'm Dot or Dottie to you."

 

In the galley the girls set about making dainty sandwiches, but the going was very bard indeed. Margaret was

particularly inept. Slices of bread went one way, bits of butter another, ham and sausage in several others. She

seized two trays and tried to trap the escaping food between them-but in the attempt she released her hold and

floated helplessly into the air.

 

"Oh, Dot, what'll we do anyway," she wailed. "Everything wants to fly all over the place!"

 

"I don't quite know-I wish we had a bird-cage, so we could reach in and grab anything before it could escape. We'd

better tie everything down, I guess, and let everybody come in and cut off a chunk of anything they want. But what

I'm wondering about is drinking. I'm simply dying of thirst and I'm afraid to open this bottle." She had a bottle of

ginger ale clutched in her left hand, an opener in her right; one leg was hooked around a vertical rail. "I'm afraid it'll

go into a million drops and Dick says if you breathe them in you're apt to choke to death."

 

"Seaton was right-as usual." Dorothy whirled around. DuQuesne was surveying the room, a glint of amusement in

his one sound eye. "I wouldn't recommend playing with charged drinks while weightless. Just a minute-I'll get the

net."

 

He got it; and while he was deftly clearing the air of floating items of food he went on. "Charged stuff could be

murderous unless you're wearing a mask. Plain liquids you can drink through a straw after you learn how. Your

swallowing has got to be conscious, and all muscular with no gravity. But what I came here for. was to tell you I'm

ready to put on one G of acceleration so we'll have normal gravity. I'll put it on easy, but watch it."

 

"What a heavenly relief!" Margaret cried, when everything again stayed put. "I never thought I'd ever be grateful for

just being able to stand still in one place, did you?"

 

Preparing the meal was now of course simple enough. As the four ate, Dorothy noticed that DuQuesne's left arm

was almost useless and that he ate with difficulty because of his terribly bruised face. After the meal was done she

went to the medicine chest and selected containers, swabs, and gauze.

 

"Come over here, doctor. First aid is indicated."

 

"I'm all right . . ." he began, but at her imperious gesture he got up carefully and came toward her.

 

"Your arm is lame. Where's the damage?"

 

"The shoulder is the worst. I rammed it through the board."

 

"Take off your shirt and lie down here."

 

He did so and Dorothy gasped at the extent and severity of the man's injuries.

 

"Will you get me some towels and hot water, please, Peggy?" She worked busily for minutes, bathing away clotted

blood, applying antiseptics, and bandaging. "Now for those bruises-I never saw anything like them before. I'm not

really a nurse. What would you use? Tripidiagen o r    .    .    . "

 

"Amylophene. Massage it in as I move the arm."

 

He did not wince and his expression did not change; but he began to sweat and his face turned white. She paused.

"Keep it up, nurse," he directed, coolly. "That stuff's murder in the first degree, but it does the job and it's fast."

When she had finished and he was putting his shirt back on: "Thanks, Miss Vaneman-thanks a lot. It feels a hundred

per cent better already. But why did you do it? I'd think you'd want to bash me with that basin instead."

 

"Efficiency." She smiled. "As our chief engineer it won't do to have you laid up."

 

"Logical enough, in a way ... but ... I wonder. . . :' She did not reply, but turned to Perkins.

 

"How are you, Mr. Perkins? Do you require medical attention?"

 

"No," Perkins growled. "Keep away from me or I'll cut your heart out."

 

"Shut up!" DuQuesne snapped. "I haven't done anything!"

 

"Maybe it didn't quite constitute making a break, so I'll broaden the definition. If you can't talk like a man, keep

still. Lay off Miss Vaneman-thoughts, words, and actions. I'm in charge of her and I will have no interference what-

 

ever. This is your last warning."

 

"How about Spencer, then?"

 

"She's your responsibility, not mine."

 

An evil light appeared in Perkins' eyes. He took out a wicked-looking knife and began to strop it carefully on the

leather of the seat, glaring at his victim the while.

 

Dorothy started to protest, but was silenced by a gesture from Margaret, who calmly took the pistol out of her

pocket. She jerked the slide and held the weapon up on one finger.

 

Don't worry about his knife. He's been sharpening it for my benefit for the last month. It doesn't mean a thing. But

you shouldn't play with it so much, Perkins, you might be tempted to try to throw it. So drop it on the floor and

kick it over here to me. Before I count three. One." The heavy pistol steadied into line with his chest and her finger

tightened on the trigger.

 

"Two." Perkins obeyed and Margaret picked up the knife.

 

"Doctor!" Perkins appealed to DuQuesne, who had watched the scene unmoved, a faint smile upon his saturnine

face. "Why don't you shoot her? You won't sit there and see me murdered!"

 

"Won't I? It makes no difference to me which of you kills the other, or if you both do, or neither. You brought this

on yourself. Anyone with any fraction of a brain doesn't leave guns lying around loose. You should have seen Miss

Vaneman take them-I did."

 

"You saw her take them and didn't warn me?" Perkins croaked.

 

"Certainly. If you can't take care of yourself I'm not going to take care of you. Especially after the way you bungled

the job. I could have recovered the stuff she stole from that ass Brookings inside an hour."

 

"How?" Perkins sneered. "If you're so good, why did you have to come to me about Seaton and Crane?" "Because

my methods wouldn't work and yours would. It isn't on planning that you're weak, as I told Brookings it's on

execution."

 

"Well, what are you going to do about her? Are you going to sit there and lecture all day?"

 

"I am going to do nothing whatever. Fight your own battles."

 

Dorothy broke the silence that followed. "You did see me take the guns, doctor?"

 

"I did. You have one in your right breeches pocket now."

 

"Then why didn't you, or don't you, try to take it away from me?" she asked, wonderingly.

 

" 'Try' is the wrong word. If I had not wanted you to take them you wouldn't have. If I didn't want you to have a gun

now I would take it away from you," and his black eyes stared into her violet ones with such calm certainty that she

felt her heart sink.

 

"Has Perkins got any more knives or guns or things in his room?" Dorothy demanded.

 

"I don't know," indifferently. Then, as both girls started for Perkins' room DuQuesne rapped out, "Sit down, Miss

Vaneman. Let them fight it out. Perkins has his orders about you; I'm giving you orders about him. If he oversteps,

shoot him. Otherwise, hands off completely-in every respect."

 

Dorothy threw up her bead in defiance; but, meeting his cold stare, she paused irresolutely and sat down, while the

other girl went on.

 

"That's better," DuQuesne said. "Besides, it would be my guess that she doesn't need any help."

 

Margaret returned from the search and thrust her pistol back into her pocket. "That ends that," she declared. "Are

you going to behave yourself or do I chain you by the neck to a post?"

 

"I suppose I'll have to, if the doe's gone back on me," Perkins snarled. "But I'll get you when we get back, you-"

"Stop it!" Margaret snapped. "Now listen. Call me names any more and I'll start shooting. One name, one shot; two

names, two shots; and so on. Each shot in a carefully selected place. Go ahead."

 

DuQuesne broke the silence that followed. "Well, now that the battle's over and we're fed and rested, I'll put on

some power. Everybody into seats."

 

For sixty hours he drove through space, reducing the acceleration only at mealtimes, when they ate and exercised

their stiffened, tormented bodies. The power was not cut down for sleep; everyone slept as best he could.

 

Dorothy and Margaret were together constantly and a real intimacy grew up between them. Perkins was for the

most part sullenly quiet. DuQuesne worked steadily during all his waking hours, except at mealtimes when he

talked easily and well. There was no animosity in his bearing or in his words; but his discipline was strict and his

reproofs merciless.

 

When the power bar was exhausted DuQuesne lifted the sole remaining cylinder into the engine, remarking "Well,

we should be approximately stationary, relative to Earth. Now we'll start back."

 

He advanced the lever, and for many hours the regular routine of the ship went on. Then DuQuesne, on walking, saw

that the engine was no longer perpendicular to the floor, but was inclined slightly. He read the angle of inclination

on the great circles, then scanned a sector of space. He reduced the current, whereupon all four felt a lurch as the

angle was increased many degrees. He read the new angle hastily and restored touring power. He then sat down at

the computer and figured-with that much power on, a tremendous unnerving job.

 

"What's the matter, doctor?" Dorothy asked. "We're being deflected a little from our course." "Is that bad?"

 

"Ordinarily, no. Every time we pass a star its gravity pulls us a little out of line. But the effects are slight, do not

last long, and tend to cancel each other out. This is too big and has lasted altogether too long. If it keeps on, we

could miss the solar system altogether; and I can't find anything to account for it."

 

He watched the bar anxiously, expecting to see it swing back into the vertical, but the angle grew steadily larger. He

again reduced the current and searched the heavens for the troublesome body.

 

"Do you see it yet?" Dorothy asked, apprehensively. "No . . . but this optical system could be improved. I could do

better with night-glasses, I think."

 

He brought out a pair of grotesque-looking binoculars and stared through them out of an upper window for perhaps

five minutes.

 

"Good God!" he exclaimed. "It's a dead star and we're almost onto it!"

 

Springing to the board, he whirled the bar into and through the vertical, then measured the apparent diameter of the

strange object. Then, after cautioning the others, he put on more power than he had been using. After exactly

fifteen minutes he slackened off and made another reading. Seeing his expression, Dorothy was about to speak, but

he forestalled her.

 

"We lost more ground. It must be a lot bigger than anything known to our astronomers. And I'm not trying to pull

away from it; just to make an orbit around it. We'll have to put on full power-take seats!"

 

He left full power on until the bar was nearly gone and made another series of observations. "Not enough," he said,

quietly.

 

Perkins screamed and flung himself upon the floor; Margaret clutched at her heart with both hands; Dorothy,

though her eyes looked like black holes in her white face, looked at him steadily and asked, "This is the end, then?"

 

"Not yet." His voice was calm and level. "It'll take two days, more or less, to fall that far, and we have a little copper

left for one last shot. I'm going to figure the angle to make that last shot as effective as possible."

 

"Won't the repulsive outer coating do any good?" "No; it'll be gone long before we hit. I'd strip it and feed it to the

engine if I could think of a way of getting it off." He lit a cigarette and sat at ease at the computer. He sat there,

smoking and computing, for over an hour. He then changed, very slightly, the angle of the engine. "Now we look for

copper," he said. "There isn't any in the ship itself-everything electrical is silver, down to our flashlights and the

bases of the lamps. But examine the furnishings and all your personal stuff-anything with copper or brass in it.

That includes metallic money-pennies, nickels, and silver."

 

They found a few items, but very few. DuQuesne added his watch, his heavy signet ring, his keys, his tie-clasp, and

the cartridges from his pistol. He made sure that Perkins did not hold anything out. The girls gave up not only their

money and cartridges but their jewelry, including Dorothy's engagement ring.

 

"I'd like to keep it, but ... " she said, as she added it to the collection.

 

"Everything goes that has any copper in it; and I'm glad Seaton's too much of a scientist to buy platinum jewelry.

But, if we get away, I doubt very much if you'll be able to see any difference in your ring. Very little copper in it

but we need every milligram we can get."

 

He threw all the metal into the power chamber and advanced the lever. It was soon spent; and after the final

observation, while the others waited in suspense, he made his curt announcement.

 

"Not quite enough."

 

Perkins, his mind already weakened, went completely insane. With a wild howl he threw himself at the unmoved

scientist, who struck him on the head with the butt of his pistol as he leaped. The force of the blow crushed

Perkin's head and drove his body to the other side of the ship. Margaret looked as though she were about to faint.

Dorothy and DuQuesne looked at each other. To the girl's amazement the man was as calm as though he were in his

own room at home on earth. She made an effort to hold her voice steady. "What next, doctor?"

 

"I don't exactly know. I still haven't been able to work out a method of recovering that plating. . . . It's so thin that

there isn't much copper, even on a sphere as big as this one."

 

"Even if you could get it, and it were enough, we'd starve anyway, wouldn't we?" Margaret, holding herself together

desperately, tried to speak lightly.

 

"Not necessarily. That would give me time to figure out something else to do."

 

"You wouldn't have to figure anything else," Dorothy declared. "Maybe you won't, anyway. You said we have two

days?"

 

"My observations were crude, but it's a little over two days-about forty-nine and a half hours now. Why?" "Because

Dick and Martin Crane will find us before very long. Quite possibly within two days."

 

"Not in this life. If they tried to follow us they're both dead now."

 

"That's where even you are wrong!" she flashed. "They knew all the time exactly what you were doing to our old

Skylark, so they built another one, that you never knew anything about. And they know a lot about this new metal

that you never heard of, too, because it wasn't in those plans you stole!"

 

DuQuesne went directly to the heart of the matter, paying no attention to her barbs. "Can they follow us in space

without seeing us?" he demanded.

 

"Yes. At least, I think they can." "How do they do it?"

 

"I don't know. I wouldn't tell you, if I did!"

 

"You think not? I won't argue the point at the moment. If they can find us-which I doubt-I hope they detect this dead

star in time to keep away from it-and us."

 

"But why?" Dorothy gasped. "You've been trying to kill both of them-wouldn't you be glad to take them with us?"

"Please try to be logical. Far from it. There's no connection. I tried to kill them, yes, because they stood in the way

of my development of this new metal. If, however, I am not going to be the one to do it-I certainly hope Seaton

goes ahead with it. It's the greatest discovery ever made, bar none; and if both Seaton and I, the only two men able

to develop it properly, get killed it will be lost, perhaps for hundreds of years."

 

"If he must go, too, I hope he doesn't find us ... but I don't believe it. I simply know he could get us away from here."

 

She continued more slowly, almost speaking to herself, her heart sinking with her voice, "He's following us and he

won't stop even if he knows he can't get away." "There's no denying the fact that our situation is critical; but as long

as I'm alive I can think. I'm going to dope out some way of getting that copper."

 

"I hope you do." Dorothy kept her voice from breaking only by a tremendous effort. "I see Peggy's fainted. I wish I

could. I'm worn out."

 

She drew herself down upon one of the seats and stared at the ceiling, fighting an almost overpowering impulse to

scream.

 

Thus time wore on-Perkins dead; Margaret unconscious; Dorothy lying in her seat, her thoughts a formless prayer,

buoyed only by her faith in God and in her lover; DuQuesne self-possessed, smoking innumerable cigarettes, his

keen mind at grips with its most desperate problem, grimly fighting until the very last instant of life-while the

powerless spaceship fell with an appalling velocity, and faster and yet faster, toward that cold and desolate monster

of the heavens.

 

Seaton and Crane drove the Skylark at high acceleration in the direction indicated by the unwavering compass, each

man taking a twelve-hour trick at the board.

 

The Skylark justified the faith of her builders, and the two inventors, with an exultant certainty of success, flew out

beyond man's wildest imaginings. Had it not been for the haunting fear for Dorothy's safety, the journey would have

been one of pure triumph, and even that anxiety did not preclude a profound joy in the enterprise.

 

"If that misguided ape thinks he can pull a stunt like that and get away with it he's got another think coming," Seaton

declared, after making a reading on the other ship after a few days of flight. "He went off half-cocked for sure this

time, and we've got him right where the hair is short. Only about a hundred light-years now. Better we reverse

pretty quick, you think?"

 

"It's hard to say-very hard. By our dead reckoning he seems to have started back; but dead reckoning is notoriously

poor reckoning and we have no reference points."

 

"Well, dead reckoning's the only thing we've got, and anyway you can't be a precisionist out here. A light-year plus

or minus won't make any difference."

 

"No, I suppose not," and Crane read off the settings which, had his data been exact, would put the Skylark in exactly

the same spot with, and having exactly the same velocity as, the other spaceship at the point of meeting.

 

The big ship spun, with a sickening lurch, through a half circle as the bar was reversed. They knew that they were

traveling in a direction that seemed "down," even though they still seemed to be going "up."

 

"Mart! C'mere." "Here."

 

"We're getting a deflection. Too big for a star-unless it's another S-Doradus-and I can't see a thing-theoretically, of

course, it could be anywhere to starboard. I want a check, fast, on true course and velocity. Is there any way to

measure a gravity field you're falling freely in without knowing any distances? Any kind of an approximation would

help."

 

Crane observed, computed, and reported that the Skylark was being very strongly attracted by some object almost

straight ahead.

 

"We'd better break out the big night-glasses and take a good look-as you said, this optical system could have more

power. But how far away are they?"

 

"A few minutes over ten hours."

 

"Ouch! Not good ... veree ungood, in fact. By pouring it on, we could make it three or four hours . . . but . . . even so

. . . you. . . ."

 

"Even so. Me. We're in this together, Dick; all the way. Just pour it on."

 

As the time of meeting drew near they took readings every minute. Seaton juggled the power until they were very

close to the other vessel and riding with it, then killed his engine. Both men hurried to the bottom port with their

night-glasses and stared into star-studded blackness.

 

"Of course," Seaton argued as he stared, "it is theoretically possible that a body can exist large enough to exert this

much force and not show a disc, but I don't believe it. Give me four or five minutes of visual angle and I'll buy it,

but --"

 

"There!" Crane broke in. "At least half a degree of visual angle. Eleven o'clock, fairly high. Not bright, but dark.

Almost invisible."

 

"Got it. And that little black spot, just inside the edge at half past four-DuQuesne's job?"

 

"I think so. Nothing else in sight."

 

"Let's grab it and get out of here while we're all in one piece!"

 

In seconds they reduced the distance until they could plainly see the other vessel: a small black circle against the

somewhat lighter black of the dead star. Crane turned on the searchlight. Seaton focused their heaviest attractor

and gave it everything it would take. Crane loaded a belt of solid ammunition and began to fire peculiarly-spaced

bursts.

 

After an interminable silence DuQuesne drew himself out of his seat. He took a long drag at his cigarette, de-

 

posited the butt carefully in an ashtray, and put on his space-suit; leaving the faceplates open.

 

"I'm going after that copper, Miss Vaneman. I don't know exactly how much of it I'll be able to recover, but I hope. .

. ."

 

Light flooded in through a port. DuQuesne was thrown flat as the ship was jerked out of free fall. They heard an

insistent metallic tapping, which DuQuesne recognized instantly.

 

"A machine gun!" be blurted in amazement. "What in ... wait a minute, that's Morse! A-R-bare ... Y-O-U -you . . .

A-L-I-V-E-alive? . . ."

 

"It's Dick!" Dorothy screamed. "He's found us-I knew he would! You couldn't beat Dick and Martin in a thousand

years!"

 

The two girls locked their arms around each other in a hysterical outburst of relief; Margaret's incoherent words

and Dorothy's praises of her lover mingled with their racking sobs.

 

DuQuesne had climbed to the upper port; had unshielded it. "S-O-S" he signalled with his flashlight.

 

The searchlight died. "W-E K-N-O-W. P-A-R-T-Y O-K?" It was a light this time, not bullets.

 

"O-K." DuQuesne knew what "Party" meant-Perkins did not count.

 

"S-U-I-T-S?" "Y-E-S."

 

"W-I-L-L T-O-U-C-H L-O-C-K T-O L-O-C-K B-R-A-C-E S-E-L-V-E-S."

 

"O.K."

 

DuQuesne reported briefly to the two girls. All three put on space-suits and crowded into the tiny airlock. The lock

was pumped down. There was a terrific jar as the two ships of space were brought together and held together. Outer

valves opened; residual air screamed out into the interstellar void. Moisture condensed upon glass, rendering sight

useless.

 

"Blast!" Seaton's voice came tinnily over the helmet radios. "I can't see a foot. Can you, DuQuesne?"

 

"No, and these joints don't move more than a couple of inches."

 

"These suits need a lot more work. We'll have to go by feel. Pass 'em along."

 

DuQuesne grabbed the girl nearest him and shoved her toward the spot where Seaton would have to be. Seaton

seized her, straightened her up, and did his heroic best to compress that suit until he could at least feel his sweet-

 

beart's form.

 

He was very much astonished to feel motions of resistance and to bear a strange voice cry out, "Don't! It's me!

Dottie's next!"

 

She was, and she put as much fervor into the reunion as he did. As a lovers' embrace it was unsatisfactory; but it was

an eager, if distant, contact.

 

DuQuesne dived through the opening; Crane groped for the controls that closed the lock. Pressure and temperature

came back up to normal. The clumsy suits were taken off. Seaton and Dorothy went into each other's arms.

 

And this time it was a real lovers' embrace.

 

"We'd better start doing something," came DuQuesne's incisive voice. "Every minute counts."

 

"One thing first," Crane said. "Dick, what shall we do with this murderer?"

 

Seaton, who had temporarily forgotten all about DuQuesne, whirled around.

 

"Chuck him back into his own tub and let him go to the devil!" he said, savagely.

 

"Oh, no, Dick!" Dorothy protested, seizing his arm. "He treated us very well, and saved my life once. Besides, you

can't become a cold-blooded murderer just because he is. You know you can't."

 

"Maybe not . . . Okay, I won't kill him-unless he gives me about half an excuse . . . maybe."

 

"Out of the question, Dick," Crane decided. "Perhaps he can earn his way?"

 

"Could be." Seaton thought for a moment, his face still grim and hard. "He's smart as Satan and strong as a bull ...

and if there's any possible one thing he is not, it's a liar."

 

He faced DuQuesne squarely, grey eyes boring into eyes of midnight black. "Will you give us your word to act as

one of the party?"

 

"Yes." DuQuesne stared back unflinchingly. His expression of cold concern had not changed throughout the con-

 

versation: it did not change now. "With the understanding that I reserve the right to leave you at any time-"escape" is

a melodramatic world, but fits the facts closely enoughprovided I can do so without affecting unfavorably your

ship, your project then in work, or your persons collectively or individually."

 

"You're the lawyer, Mart. Does that cover it?" "Admirably," Crane said. "Fully yet concisely. Also, the fact of the

reservation indicates that he means it." "You're in, then," Seaton said to DuQuesne, but he did not offer to shake

hands. "You've got the dope. What'll we have to put on to get away?"

 

"You can't pull straight away-and live-but . . :' "Sure we can. Our power-plant can be doubled in emergencies."

 

"I said `and live."' Seaton, remembering what one full power was like, kept still.

 

"The best you can do is a hyperbolic orbit, and my guess is that it'll take full power to make that. Ten pounds more

copper might have given me a graze, but we're a lot closer now. You've got more and larger tools than I had, Crane.

Do you want to recompute it now, or give it a good, heavy shot and then figure it?"

 

"A shot, I think. What do you suggest?"

 

"Set your engine to roll for a hyperbolic and give it full drive for . . . say an hour."

 

"Full power," Crane said, thoughtfully "I can't take that much. But

 

"I can't either," Dorothy said, foreboding in her eyes. "Nor Margaret."

 

"-full power is necessary," Crane continued as though the girl had not spoken, "full power it shall be. Is it really of

the essence, DuQuesne?"

 

"Definitely. More than full would be better. And it's getting worse every minute."

 

"How much power can you take?" Seaton asked. "More than full. Not much more, but a little."

 

"If you can, I can." Seaton was not boasting, merely stating a fact. "So here's what let's do. Double the engines up.

DuQuesne and I will notch the power up until one of us has to quit. Run an hour on that, and then read the news.

Check?"

 

"Check," said Crane and DuQuesne simultaneously, and the three men set furiously to work. Crane went to the

engines, DuQuesne to the observatory. Seaton rigged helmets to air- and oxygen-tanks through valves on his board.

 

Seaton placed Margaret upon a seat, fitted a helmet over her head, strapped her in, and turned to Dorothy. Instantly

they were in each other's arms. He felt her labored breathing and the hard beating of her heart; saw the fear and the

unknown in the violet depths of her eyes; but she looked at him steadily as she said: "Dick, sweetheart, if this is

good-bye . . ."

 

"It isn't, Dottie-yet-but I know . .

 

Crane and DuQuesne had finished their tasks, so Seaton hastily finished his job on Dorothy. Crane put himself to

bed; Seaton and DuQuesne. put on their helmets and took their places at the twin boards.

 

In quick succession twenty notches of power went on. The Skylark leaped away from the other ship, which con-

 

tinued its mad fall-a helpless hulk, manned by a corpse, falling to destruction upon the bleak surface of a dead star.

Notch by notch, slower now, the power went up. Seaton turned the mixing valve, a little with each notch, until the

oxygen concentration was as high as they had dared to risk. As each of the two men was determined that he would

make the last advance, the duel continued longer than either would have believed possible. Seaton made what he

was sure was his final effort and waited-only to feel, after a minute, the surge of the vessel that told him that Du-

 

Quesne was still able to move.

 

He could not move any part of his body, which was oppressed by a sickening weight. His utmost efforts to breathe

forced only a little oxygen into his lungs. He wondered how long he could retain consciousness under such stress.

Nevertheless, he put out everything he had and got one more notch. Then he stared at the clock-face above his head,

knowing that he was all done and wondering whether DuQuesne could put on one more notch.

 

Minute after minute went by and the acceleration remained constant. Seaton, knowing that he was now in sole

charge of the situation, fought off unconsciousness while the sweephand of the clock went around and around.

 

After an eternity of time sixty minutes had passed and Seaton tried to cut down his power, only to find that the long

strain had so weakened him that he could not reverse the ratchet. He was barely able to give the lever the backward

jerk which broke contact completely. Safety straps creaked as, half the power shut off, the suddenly released

springs tried to hurl five bodies upward.

 

DuQuesne revived and shut down his engine. "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din," he said, as he began to

make observations.

 

"Because you were so badly bunged up, is all-one more notch would've pulled my cork," and Seaton went over to

liberate Dorothy and the stranger.

 

Crane and DuQuesne finished their computations. "Did we gain enough?" Seaton asked.

 

"More than enough. One engine will take us past it." Then, as Crane still frowned in thought, DuQuesne went on:

 

"Don't you check me, Crane?"

 

"Yes and no. Past it, yes, but not safely past. One thing neither of us thought of, apparently-Roche's Limit."

 

"That wouldn't apply to this ship," Seaton said, positively. "High-tensile alloy steel wouldn't crumble."

 

"It might," DuQuesne said. "Close enough, it would ... What mass would you assume, Crane-the theoretical

maximum?"

 

"I would. That star may not be that, quite, but it isn't far from it." Both men again bent over their computers.

 

"I make it thirty-nine point seven notches of power, doubled," DuQuesne said, when he had finished. "Check?"

"Closely enough-point six five," Crane replied. "Forty notches . . . Ummm . . . " DuQuesne paused. "I went out at

thirty-two. . . . That means an automatic advance. It'll take time, but it's the only. . . ."

 

"We've got it already-all we have to do is set it. But that'll take an ungodly lot of copper and what'll we do to live

through it? Plus pressure on the oxygen? Or what?"

 

After a short but intense consultation the men took all the steps they could to enable the whole party to live

through what was coming. Whether they could do enough no one knew. Where they might lie at the end of this wild

dash for safety; how they were to retrace their way with their depleted supply of copper, what other dangers of dead

star, sun, or planet lay in their path, were terrifying questions that had to be ignored.

 

DuQuesne was the only member of the party who actually felt any calmness, the quiet of the others expressing

their courage in facing fear.

 

The men took their places. Seaton started the motor which would automatically advance both power levers exactly

forty notches and then stop.

 

Margaret Spencer was the first to lose consciousness. Soon afterwards, Dorothy stifled an impulse to scream as

she felt herself going under. A half minute later and Crane went out, calmly analyzing his sensations to the last.

Shortly thereafter DuQuesne also lapsed into unconsciousness, making no effort to avoid it, as he knew that it

would make no difference in the end.

 

Seaton, though he knew it was useless, fought to keep his senses as long as possible, counting the impulses as the

levers were advanced.

 

Thirty-two. He felt the same as when he had advanced his lever for the last time.

 

Thirty-three. A giant hand shut off his breath, although he was fighting to the utmost for air. An intolerable weight

rested upon his eyeballs, forcing them back into his head. The universe whirled about him in dizzy circles; orange

and black and green stars flashed before his bursting eyes.

 

Thirty-four. The stars became more brilliant and of more wildly variegated colors, and a giant pen dipped in fire

wrote equations and symbols upon his quivering brain.

 

Thirty-five. The stars and the fiery pen exploded in pyrotechnic coruscation of searfing, blinding light and he

plunged into a black abyss.

 

Faster and faster the Skylark hurtled downward in her not-quite-hyperbolic path. Faster and faster; as minute by

minute went by, she came closer and closer to that huge dead star. Eighteen hours from the start of that fantastic

drop she swung around it in the tightest, hardest conceivable arc. Beyond Roche's Limit, it is true, but so very little

beyond it that Martin Crane's hair would have stood on end if he had known.

 

Then, on the back leg of that incomprehensibly gigantic swing, the forty notches of doubled power began really to

take hold. At thirty-six hours her path was no longer even approximately hyperbolic. Instead of slowing down, rela-

 

tive to the dead star that held her in an ever-weakening grip, she was speeding up at a tremendous rate.

 

At two days, that grip was very weak.

 

At three days the monster she had left was having no measurable effect.

 

Hurtled upward, onward, outward by the inconceivable power of the unleashed copper demons in her center, the

Skylark tore through the reaches of interstellar space with an unthinkable, almost incalculable velocity, beside

which the velocity of light was as that of a snail to that of a rifle bullet.

 

Seaton opened his eyes and gazed about him wonderingly. Only half conscious, bruised and sore in every part, he

could not remember what had happened. Instinctively drawing deep breath, he coughed as the plus-pressure gas

filled his lungs, bringing with it a complete understanding of the situation. He tore off his helmet and drew himself

across to Dorothy's couch.

 

She was still alive!

 

He placed her face downward upon the floor and began artificial respiration. Soon he was rewarded by the coughing

he had longed to hear. Snatching off her helmet, he seized her in his arms, while she sobbed convulsively on his

shoulder. The first ecstasy of their greeting over, she started guiltily.

 

"Oh, Dick! See about Peggy-I wonder if . . :' "Never mind," Crane said. "She is doing nicely."

 

Crane had already revived the stranger. DuQuesne was nowhere in sight. Dorothy blushed vividly and disengaged

her arms from around Seaton's neck. Seaton, also blushing, dropped his arms and Dorothy floated away, clutching

frantically at a hand-hold just out of her reach.

 

"Pull me down, Dick!" Dorothy laughed.

 

Seaton grabbed her ankle unthinkingly, neglecting his own anchorage, and they floated in the air together. Martin

and Margaret, each holding a line, laughed heartily.

 

"Tweet, tweet-I'm a canary," Seaton said, flapping his arms. "Toss us a line, Mart."

 

"A Dicky-bird, you mean," Dorothy said.

 

Crane studied the floating pair with mock gravity. "That is a peculiar pose, Dick. What is it supposed to

represent-Zeus sitting on his throne?"

 

"I'll sit on your neck, you lug, if you don't get a wiggle on with that rope!"

 

As he spoke, however he came within reach of the ceiling, and could push himself and his companion to a line.

Seaton put a bar into one of the engines and, after flashing the warning light, applied a little power. The Skylark

seemed to leap under them; then everything had its normal weight once more.

 

"Now that things have settled down a little," Dorothy said, "I'll introduce you two to Miss Margaret Spencer, a very

good friend of mine. These are the boys I told you so much about, Peggy. This is Dr. Dick Seaton, my fiance. He

knows everything there is to be known about atoms, electrons, neutrons, and so forth. And this is Mr. Martin Crane,

who is a simply wonderful inventor. He made all these engines and things."

 

"I may have heard of Mr. Crane," Margaret said, eagerly. "My father was an inventor, too, and he used to talk about a

man named Crane who invented a lot of instruments for supersonic planes. He said they revolutionized flying. I

wonder if you are that Mr. Crane?"

 

"That is unjustifiedly high praise, Miss Spencer," Crane replied, uncomfortable, "but as I have done a few things

along that line I could be the man he referred to."

 

"If I may change the subject," Seaton said, "where's DuQuesne?"

 

"He went to clean up. Then he was going to the galley to check damage and see about something to eat."

 

"Stout fella!" Dorothy applauded. "Food! And especially about cleaning up-if you know what I mean and I think you

do. Come on, Peggy, I know where our room is."

 

"What a girl!" Seaton said as the women left, Dorothy half-supporting her companion. "She's bruised and beat up

from one end to the other. She's more than half dead yet-she didn't have enough life left in her to flag a handcar.

She can't even walk; she can just barely hobble. And did she let out one single yip? I ask to know. 'Business as

usual,' all the way, if it kills her. What a girl!"

 

"Include Miss Spencer in that, too, Dick. Did she 'let out any yips'? And she was not in nearly as good shape as

Dorothy was, to start with."

 

"That's right," Seaton agreed, wonderingly. "She's got plenty of guts, too. Those two women, Marty my old and

stinky chum, are blinding flashes and deafening reports. . . . Well, let's go get a bath and shave. And shove the

air-conditioners up a couple of notches, will you?"

 

When they came back they found the two girls seated at one of the ports. "Did you dope yourself up, Doc?" Seaton

asked.

 

"Yes, both of us. With amylophene. I'm getting to be a slave to the stuff." She made a wry face.

 

Seaton grimaced too. "So did we. Ouch! Nice stuff that amylophene."

 

"But come over here and look out of this window. Did you ever see anything like it?"

 

As the four heads bent, so close together, an awed silence fell upon the little group. For the blackness of the black

of the interstellar void is not the darkness of an earthly night, but the absolute absence of light-a black beside

which that of platinum dust is merely grey. Upon this indescribably black backdrop there glowed faint patches

which were nebulae; there blazed hard, brilliant, multi-colored, dimensionless points of light which were stars.

 

"Jewels on black velvet," Dorothy breathed. "Oh, gorgeous . . . wonderful!"

 

Through their wonder a thought struck Seaton. He leaped to the board. "Look here, Mart. I didn't recognize a thing

out there and I wondered why. We're heading away from the Earth and we must be making plenty of lightspeeds.

The swing around that big dud was really something, of course, but the engine should have . . . or should it?"

 

"I think not . . . Unexpected, but not a surprise. That close to Roche's Limit, anything might happen."

 

"And did, I guess. We'll have to check for permanent deformations. But this object-compass still works-let's see

how far we are away from home."

 

They took a reading and both men figured the distance. "What d'you make it, Mart? I'm afraid to tell you my result."

 

"Forty-six point twenty-seven light centuries. Check?" "Check. We're up the well-known creek without a paddle. . . .

The time was twenty-three thirty-two by the chronometer-good thing you built it to stand going through a

stone-crusher. My watch's a total loss. They all are, I imagine. We'll read it again in an hour or so and see how fast

we're going. I'll be scared witless to say that figure out loud, too."

 

"Dinner is announced," said DuQuesne, who had been standing at the door, listening.

 

The wanderers, battered, stiff, and sore, seated themselves at a folding table. While eating, Seaton watched the

engine-when he was not watching Dorothy-and talked to her. Crane and Margaret chatted easily. DuQuesne, except

when addressed directly, maintained a self-sufficient silence.

 

After another observation Seaton said, "DuQuesne, we're almost five thousand light-years away from earth, and

getting farther away at about one light-year per minute."

 

"It'd be poor technique to ask how you know?"

 

"It would. Those figures are right. But we've got only four bars of copper left. Enough. to stop us and some to

spare, but not nearly enough to get us back, even by drifting-too many lifetimes on the way."

 

"So we land somewhere and dig up some copper." "Check. What I wanted to ask you-isn't a copperbearing sun apt

to, have copper-beating planets?"

 

"I'd say so."

 

"Then take the spectroscope, will you, and pick out a sun somewhere up ahead-down ahead, I mean-for us to shoot

at? And Marty, I s'pose we'd better take our regular twelve-hour tricks-no, eight; we've got to either trust the guy or

kill him-I'll take the first watch. Beat it to bed."

 

"Not so fast." Crane said. "If I remember correctly, it's my turn."

 

"Ancient history doesn't count. I'll flip you a nickel for it. Heads, I win."

 

Seaton won, and the warn-out travelers went to their rooms-all except Dorothy, who lingered to bid her lover a

more intimate good night.

 

Seated beside him, his arm around her and her head on his shoulder, she sat blissfully until she noticed, for the first

time, her bare left hand. She caught her breath and her eyes grew round.

 

"'Smatter, Red?"

 

"Oh, Dick!" she exclaimed in dismay, "I simply forgot everything about taking what was left of my ring out of the

doctor's engine."

 

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

 

She told him; and he told her about Martin and himself.

 

"Oh, Dick-Dick-it's so wonderful to be with you again!" she concluded. "I lived as many years as we covered miles!"

 

"It was tough ... you had it a lot worse than we did ... but it makes me ashamed all over to think of the way I blew my

stack at Wilson's. If it hadn't been for Martin's cautious old bean we'd've ... we owe him a lot, Dimples."

 

"Yes, we do ... but don't worry about the debt, Dick. Just don't ever let slip a word to Peggy about Martin being rich,

is all."

 

"Oh, a matchmaker now? But why not? She wouldn't think any less of him-that's one reason I'm marrying you, you

know-for your money."

 

Dorothy snickered sunnily. "I know. But listen, you poor, dumb, fortune-hunting darling-if Peggy had any idea that

Martin is the one and only M. Reynolds Crane she'd curl right up into a ball. She'd think he'd think she was chasing

him and then he would think so. As it is, he acts perfectly natural. He hasn't talked that way to any girl except me

for five years, and he wouldn't talk to me until he found out for sure I wasn't out after him."

 

"Could be, pet," Seaton agreed. "On one thing you really chirped it-he's been shot at so much he's wilder than a

hawk!"

At the end of eight hours Crane took over and Seaton stumbled to his room, where he slept for over ten hours like a

man in a trance. Then, rising, he exercised and went out into the saloon.

 

Dorothy, Peggy, and Crane were at breakfast; Seaton joined them. They ate the gayest, most carefree meal they had

had since leaving earth. Some of the worst bruises still showed a little, but, under the influence of the potent if

painful amylophene, all soreness, stiffness, and pain had disappeared.

 

After they had finished eating, Seaton said, "You suggested, Mart, that those gyroscope bearings may have been

stressed beyond the yield-point. I'll take an integrating goniometer . . ."

 

"Break that down to our size, Dick-Peggy's and mine," Dorothy said.

 

"Can do. Take some tools and see if anything got bent out of shape back there. It might be an idea, Dot, to come

along and hold my head while I think."

 

""That is an idea if you never have another one." Crane and Margaret went over and sat down at one of the

crystal-clear ports. She told him her story frankly and fully, shuddering with horror as she recalled the awful,

helpless fall during which Perkins had been killed.

 

"We have a heavy score to settle with that Steel crowd and with DuQuesne," Crane said, slowly. "We can convict

him of abduction now.... Perkins' death wasn't murder, then?"

 

"Oh, no. He was just like a mad animal. He had to kill him. But the doctor, as they call him, is just as bad. He's so

utterly heartless and ruthless, so cold and scientific, it gives me the compound shivers, just to think about him."

"And yet Dorothy said he saved her life?"

 

"He did, from Perkins; but that was just as strictly pragmatic as everything else he has ever done. He wanted her

alive: dead, she wouldn't have been any use to him. He's as nearly a robot as any human being can be, that's what I

think."

 

"I'm inclined to agree with you. . . . Nothing would please Dick better than a good excuse for killing him."  - "He

isn't the only one. And the way he ignores what we all feel shows what a machine he is. . . . What's that?" The

Skylark had lurched slightly.

 

"Just a swing around a star, probably." He looked at the board, then led her to a lower port. "We are passing the star

Dick was heading for, far too fast to stop. DuQuesne will pick out another. See that planet over there"-he

pointed-"and that smaller one, there?"

 

She saw the two planets-one like a small moon, the other much smaller-and watched the sun increase rapidly in

size as the Skylark flew on at such a pace that any earthly distance would have been covered as soon as it was

begun. So appalling was their velocity that the ship was bathed in the light of that strange sun only for moments,

then was surrounded again by darkness.

 

Their seventy-two-hour flight without a pilot had seemed a miracle; now it seemed entirely possible that they could

fly- in a straight line for weeks without encountering any obstacle, so vast was the emptiness in comparison with

the points of light scattered about in it. Now and then they passed closely enough to a star so that it seemed to

move fairly rapidly; but for the most part the stars stood, like distant mountain peaks to travelers in a train, in the

same position for many minutes.

 

Awed by the immensity of the universe, the two at the window were silent, not with the silence of embarrassment

but with that of two friends in the presence of a thing far beyond the reach of words. As they stared out into

infinity, each felt as never before the pitiful smallness of the whole world they had known, and the insignificance

of human beings and their works. Silently their minds reached out to each other in understanding.

 

Unconsciously Margaret half shuddered and moved closer to Crane; and a tender look came over Crane's face as he

looked down -at the beautiful young woman at his side. For she was beautiful. Rest and food had erased the marks

of her imprisonment. Dorothy's deep and unassumed faith in the ability of Seaton and Crane had quieted her fears.

And finally, a costume of Dorothy's well-made-and exceedingly expensive!-clothes, which fitted her very well and

in which she looked her best and knew it, had completely restored her self-possession.

 

He looked up quickly and again studied the stars; but now, in addition to the wonders of space, he saw a mass of

wavy black hair, high-piled upon a queenly head; deep brown eyes veiled by long, black lashes; sweet, sensitive lips;

a firmly rounded, dimpled chin; and a beautifully formed young body.

 

"How stupendous ... how unbelievably great this is . . :' Margaret whispered. "How vastly greater than any perception

one could possibly get on Earth ... and yet . . ."

 

She paused, with her lip caught under two white teeth, then went on, hesitatingly, "But doesn't it seem to you, Mr.

Crane, that there is something in man as great as even all this? That there must be, or Dorothy and I could not be

sailing out here in such a wonderful thing as this Skylark, which you and Dick Seaton have made?"

 

Days passed. Dorothy timed her waking hours with those of Seaton-preparing his meals and lightening the tedium

of his long vigils at the board-and Margaret did the same thing for Crane. But often they assembled in the saloon,

while DuQuesne was on watch, and there was much fun and laughter, as well as serious discussion, among the four.

Margaret, already adopted as a friend, proved a delightful companion. Her ready tongue, her quick, delicate wit, and

her facility of expression delighted all three.

 

One day Crane suggested to Seaton that they should take notes, in addition to the photographs they had been taking.

"I know comparatively little of astronomy, but, with the instruments we have, we should be able to get data, espe-

 

cially on planetary systems, which would be of interest to astronomers. Miss Spencer, being a secretary, could

help us?"

 

"Sure," Seaton said. "That's an idea-nobody else ever had a chance to do it before."

 

"I'll be glad to-taking notes is the best thing I do!" Margaret cried, and called for pad and pencils.

 

After that, the two worked together for several hours on each of Martin's off shifts.

 

The Skylark passed one solar system after another, with a velocity so great that it was impossible to land.

Margaret's association with Crane, begun as a duty, became a very real pleasure for them both. Working together in

research, sitting together at the board in easy conversation or in equally easy silence, they compressed into days

more real companionship than is usually possible in months.

 

Oftener and oftener, as time went on, Crane found the vision of his dream home floating in his mind as he steered

the Skylark in her meteoric flight or as he lay strapped into his narrow bunk. Now, however, the central figure of

the vision, instead of being a blur, was clear and sharply defined. And for her part, Margaret was drawn more and

more to the quiet and unassuming, but steadfast young inventor, with his wide knowledge and his keen, incisive

mind.

 

The Skylark finally slowed down enough to make a landing possible, and course was laid toward the nearest planet

of a copper-bearing sun_ As vessel neared planet a wave of excitement swept through four of the five. They

watched the globe grow larger, glowing white, its outline softened by the atmosphere surrounding it. It had two

satellites; its sun, a great, blazing orb, looked so big and so hot that Margaret became uneasy.

 

"Isn't it dangerous to get so close, Dick?"

 

"Uh-uh. Watching the pyrometers is part of the pilot's job. Any overheating and he'd snatch us away in a hurry."

They dropped into the atmosphere and on down, almost to the surface. The air was breathable, its composition

being very similar to that of Earth's air, except that the carbon dioxide was substantially higher. Its pressure was

somewhat high, but not too much; its temperature, while high, was endurable. The planet's gravitational pull was

about ten per cent higher than Earth's. The ground was almost hidden by a rank growth of vegetation, but here and

there appeared glade-like openings.

 

Landing upon one of the open spaces, they found the ground solid and stepped out. What appeared to be a glade was

in reality a rock; or rather a ledge of apparently solid metal, with scarcely a loose fragment to be seen. At one end

of the ledge rose a giant tree, wonderfully symmetrical, but of a peculiar form, its branches being longer at the top

than at the bottom, and having broad, dark-green leaves, long thorns, and odd, flexible, shoot-like tendrils. It stood

as an outpost of the dense vegetation beyond. The fern-trees, towering two hundred feet or more into the air were

totally unlike the forests of Earth. They were an intensely vivid green and stood motionless in the still, hot air. Not

a sign of animal life was to be seen; the whole landscape seemed to be asleep.

 

"A younger planet than ours," DuQuesne said. "In the Carboniferous, or about. Aren't those fern-trees like those in

the coal measures, Seaton?"

 

"Check-I was just trying to think what they reminded me of. But it's this ledge that interests me no end. Who ever

heard of a chunk of noble metal this big?"

 

"How do you know it's noble?" Dorothy asked.

 

"No corrosion, and its probably been sitting here for a million years." Seaton, who had walked over to one of the

loose lumps, kicked it with his heavy shoe. It did not move.

 

He bent over to pick it up, with one hand. It still did not move. With both hands and all the strength of his back he

could lift it, but that was all.

 

"What do you make of this, DuQuesne?"

 

DuQuesne lifted the mass, then took out his knife and scraped. He studied the freshly-exposed metal and the

scrapings, then scraped and studied again.

 

"Hmm. Platinum group, almost certainly . . . and the only known member of that group with that peculiar bluish

sheen is your X."

 

"But didn't we agree that free X and copper couldn't exist on the same planet, and that planets of copper bearing

suns carry copper?"

 

"Yes, but that doesn't make it true. If this stuff is X, it'll give the cosmologists something to fight about for the next

twenty years. I'll take these scrapings and run a couple of quickies."

 

"Do that, and I'll gather in these loose nuggets. If it's X-and I'm pretty sure it mostly is-that'll be enough to run all

the power-plants of Earth for ten thousand years."

 

Crane and Seaton, accompanied by the two girls, rolled the nearest pieces of metal up to the ship. Then, as the

quest led them farther and farther afield, Crane protested. "This is none too safe, Dick."

 

"It looks perfectly safe to me. Quiet as a-"

 

Margaret screamed. Her head was turned, looking backward at the Skylark; her face was a mask of horror. Seaton

drew his pistol as he whirled, only to check his finger on the trigger and lower his hand. "Nothing but X-plosive

bullets," he said, and the four watched a thing come out slowly from behind their ship.

 

Its four huge, squat legs supported a body at least a hundred feet long, pursy and ungainly; at the end of a long,

sinuous neck a small head seemed composed entirely of cavernous mouth armed with row upon row of carnivorous

teeth. Dorothy gasped with terror; both girls shrank closer to the two men, who maintained a baffled silence as the

huge beast slid its hideous head along the hull of the vessel.

 

"I can't shoot, Mart-it'd wreck the boat and if I had any solids they wouldn't be any good."

 

"No. We had better hide until it goes away. You two take that ledge, we'll take this one."

 

"Or gets far enough away from the Skylark so we can blow him apart," Seaton added as, with Dorothy close beside

him, he dropped behind the low bulwark.

 

Margaret, her staring eyes fixed upon the monster, remained motionless until Crane touched her gently and drew

her down to his side. "Don't be frightened, Peggy. It will go away soon."

 

"I'm not, now-much." She drew a deep breath. "If you weren't here, though, Martin, I'd be dead of pure fright." His

arm tightened around her; then he forced it to relax. This was neither the time nor the place....

 

A roll of gunfire came from the Skylark. The creature roared in pain and rage, but was quickly silenced by the

stream of .50-caliber machine-gun bullets.

 

"DuQuesue's on the job-let's go!" Seaton cried, and the four rushed up the slope. Making a detour to avoid the

writhing body, they plunged through the opening door. DuQuesne closed the lock. They huddled together in over-

 

whelming relief as an appalling tumult arose outside.

 

The scene, so quiet a few moments before, was horribly changed. The air seemed filled with hideous monsters.

Winged lizards of prodigious size hurtled through the air to crash against the Skylark's armored hull. Flying mon-

 

strosities, with the fangs of tigers, attacked viciously. Dorothy screamed and started back as a scorpion-like thing

ten feet in length leaped at the window in front of her, its terrible sting spraying the quartz with venom. As it fell to

the ground a spider-if an eight-legged creature with spines instead of hair, faceted eyes, and a bloated globular

body weighing hundreds of pounds may be called a spider leaped upon it; and, mighty mandibles against the terrible

sting, a furious battle raged. Twelve-foot cockroaches climbed nimbly across the fallen timber of the morass and

began feeding voraciously on the carcass of the creature DuQuesne had killed. They were promptly driven away by

another animal, a living nightmare of that reptilian age which apparently combined the nature and disposition of

tyrannosaurus rex with a physical shape approximating that of the sabertooth tiger. This newcomer towered fifteen

feet high at the shoulders and had a mouth disproportionate even to his great size; a mouth armed with sharp fangs

three feet in length. He had barely begun his meal, however, when he was challenged by another nightmare, a thing

shaped more or less like a crocodile.

 

The crocodile charged. The tiger met him head on, fangs front and rending claws outstretched. Clawing, striking,

tearing savagely, an avalanche of bloodthirsty rage, the combatants stormed up and down the little island.

 

Suddenly the great tree bent over and lashed out against both animals. It transfixed them with its thorns, which the

watchers now saw were both needle-pointed and barbed. It ripped at them with its long branches, which were in fact

highly lethal spears. The broad leaves, equipped with sucking discs, wrapped themselves around the hopelessly

impaled victims. The long, slender twigs or tendrils, each of which now had an eye at its extremity, waved about at a

safe distance.

 

After absorbing all of the two gladiators that was absorbable, the tree resumed its former position, motionless in

all its strange, outlandish beauty.

 

Dorothy licked her lips, which were almost as white as her face. "I think I'm going to be sick," she remarked,

conversationally.

 

"No you aren't." Seaton tightened his arm. "Chin up, ace."

 

"Okay, chief. Maybe not-this time." Color began to reappear on her cheeks. "But Dick, will you please blow up that

horrible tree? It wouldn't be so bad if it were ugly, like the rest of the things, but it's so beautiful!"

 

"I sure will. I think we'd better get out of here. This is no place to start a copper mine, even if there's any copper

here, which there probably isn't. . . . It is X, DuQuesne, isn't it?"

 

"Yes. Ninety-nine plus per cent, at least."

 

"That reminds me." Seaton turned to DuQuesne, band outstretched. "You squared it, Blackie. Say the word the war's

all off."

 

DuQuesne ignored the hand. "Not on my side," he said evenly. "I act as one of the party as long as I'm with you.

When we get back, however, I still intend to take both of you out of circulation." He went to his room.

 

"Well, I'll be a . . . " Seaton bit off a word. "He ain't a man-he's a cold-blooded fish!"

 

"He's a machine--a robot," Margaret declared. "I always thought so, and now I know it!"

 

"We'll pull his cork when we get back," Seaton said. "He asked for it-we'll give him both barrels!"

 

Crane went to the board, and soon they were approaching another planet, which was surrounded by a dense fog.

Descending slowly, they found it to be a mass of boiling hot steam and rank vapor, under enormous pressure.

 

The next planet looked barren and dead. Its atmosphere was clear, but of a peculiar yellowish-green color. Analysis

showed over ninety per cent chlorine. No life of any Earthly type could exist naturally upon such a world and a

search for copper, even in space-suits, would be extremely difficult if not impossible.

 

"Well," Seaton said, as they were once more in space, "We've got copper enough to visit quite a few more solar

systems if we have to. But there's a nice, hopeful-looking planet right over there. It may be the one we're looking

for."

 

Arriving in the belt of atmosphere, they tested it as before and found it satisfactory.

 

They descended rapidly, over a large city set in the middle of a vast, level, beautifully planted plain. As they

watched, the city vanished and became a mountain summit, with valleys falling away on all sides as far as the eye

could reach.

 

"Huh! I never saw a mirage like that before!" Seaton exclaimed. "But we'll land, if we finally have to swim!" The ship

landed gently upon the summit, its occupants more than half expecting the mountain to disappear beneath them.

Nothing happened, however, and the five clustered in the lock, wondering whether or not to disembark. They could

see no sign of life; but each felt the presence of a vast, invisible something.

 

Suddenly a man materialized in the air before them; a man identical with Seaton in every detail, down to the smudge

of grease under one eye and the exact design of his Hawaiian sport shirt.

 

"Hello, folks," he said, in Seaton's tone and style. "S'prised that I know your language-huh, you would be. Don't even

understand telepathy, or the ether, or the relationship between time and space. Not even the fourth dimension."

 

Changing instantaneously from Seaton's form to Dorothy's, the stranger went on without a break. "Electrons and

neutrons and things-nothing here, either."

 

The form became DuQuesne's. "Ah, a freer type, but blind, dull, stupid; another nothing. As Martin Crane; the same.

As Peggy, still the same, as was of course to be expected. Since you are all nothings in essence, of a race so low in

the scale that it will be millions of years before it will rise even above death and death's clumsy attendant

necessity, sex, it is of course necessary for me to make of you nothings in fact; to dematerialize you."

 

In Seaton's form the being stared at Seaton, who felt his senses reel under the impact of an awful, if insubstantial,

blow. Seaton fought back with all his mind and remained standing.

 

"What's this?" the stranger exclaimed in surprise. "This is the first time in millions of cycles that mere matter,

which is only a manifestation of mind, has refused to obey a mind of power. There's something screwy

somewhere." He switched to Crane's shape.

 

"Ah, I am not a perfect reproduction-there is some subtle difference. The external form is the same; the internal

structure likewise. The molecules of substance are arranged properly, as are the atoms in the molecules. The

electrons, neutrons, protons, positrons, neutrinos, mesons ... nothing amiss on that level. On the third level . . ."

 

"Let's go!" Seaton exclaimed, drawing Dorothy backward and reaching for the airlock switch. "This

dematerialization stuff may be pie for him, but believe me, it's none of my dish."

 

"No, no!" the stranger remonstrated. "You really must stay and be dematerialized-alive or dead."

 

He drew his pistol. Being in Crane's form, he drew slowly, as Crane did; and Seaton's Mark I shell struck him

before the pistol cleared his pocket. The pseudo-body was votalized; but, just to make sure, Crane fired a Mark V

into the ground through the last open chink of the closing lock.

 

Seaton leaped to the board. As he did so, a creature materialized in the air in front of him-and crashed to the floor

as he threw on the power. It was a frightful thing-outrageous teeth, long claws, and an automatic pistol held in a

human hand. Forced flat by the fierce acceleration, it was unable to lift either itself or the weapon.

 

"We take one trick!" Seaton blazed. "Stick to matter and I'll run along with you 'til my ankles catch fire!"

 

"That is a childish defiance. It speaks well for your courage, but not for your intelligence," the animal said, and

vanished.

 

A moment later Seaton's hair stood on end as a pistol appeared upon his board, clamped to it by hands of steel. The

slide jerked; the trigger moved; the hammer came down. However; there was no explosion, but merely a click.

Seaton, paralyzed by the rapid succession of stunning events, was surprised to find himself still alive.

 

"Oh,.I was almost sure it wouldn't explode," the gunbarrel said, chattily, in a harsh, metallic voice. "You see, I

haven't derived the formula of your sub-nuclear structure yet, hence I could not make an actual explosive. By the

use of crude force I could kill you in any one of many different ways. . . ."

 

"Name one!" Seaton snapped.

 

"Two, if you like. I could materialize as five masses of metal directly over your heads, and fall. I could, by a

sufficient concentration of effort, materialize a sun in your immediate path. Either method would succeed, would

it not?"

 

"I ... I guess it would," Seaton admitted, grudgingly. "But such crude work is distasteful in the extreme, and is never,

under any conditions, mandatory. Furthermore, you are not quite the complete nothings that my first rough analysis

seemed to indicate. In particular, the DuQuesne of you has the rudiments of a quality which, while it cannot be

called mental ability, may in time develop into a quality which may just possibly make him assimilable into the

purely intellectual stratum.

 

"Furthermore, you have given me a notable and entirely unexpected amount of exercise and enjoyment and can be

made to give me more-much more-as follows: I will spend the next sixty of your minutes at work upon that

formula-your subnuclear structure. Its derivation is comparatively simple, requiring only the solution of ninety-

seven simultaneous differential equations and an integration in ninety-seven dimensions. If you can interfere with

my computations sufficiently to prevent me from deriving that formula within the stipulated period of time you

may return to your fellow nothings exactly as you now are. The first minute begins when the sweep-hand of your

chronometer touches zero; that is . . . now."

 

Seaton cut the power to one gravity and sat up, eyes closed tight and frowning in the intensity of his mental effort.

 

"You can't do it, you immaterial lug!" he thought, savagely. "There are too many variables. No mind, however

inhuman, can handle more than ninety-one differentials at once . . . you're wrong; that's theta, not epsilon. . . . It's X,

not Y or Z. Alphal Beta! Ha, there's a slip; a bad one-got to go back and start all over.... Nobody can integrate above

ninety-six brackets . . . no body and no thing or mind in this whole, entire, cock-eyed universe! . . .

 

Seaton cast aside any thought of the horror of their position. He denied any feeling of suspense. He refused to

consider the fact that both he and his beloved Dorothy might at any instant be hurled into nothingness. Closing his

mind deliberately to everything else, he fought that weirdly inimical entity with everything he had: with all his

single-mindedness of purpose; with all his power of concentration; with all the massed and directed strength of his

keen, highly-trained brain.

 

The hour passed.

 

"You win," the gun-barrel said. "More particularly, I should say that the DuQuesne of you won. To my surprise and

delight that one developed his nascent quality very markedly during this short hour. Keep on going as you have

been going, my potential kinsman; keep on studying under those eastern masters as you have been studying; and it

is within the realm of possibility that, even in your short lifetime, you may become capable of withstanding the

stresses concomitant with the induction into our ranks."

 

The pistol vanished. So did the planet behind them. The enveloping, pervading field of mental force disappeared.

All five knew surely, without any trace of doubt, that the entity, whatever it had been, had gone.

 

"Did all that really happen, Dick?" Dorothy asked, tremulously, "or have I been having the great-great-grandfather of

all nightmares?"

 

"It hap . . . that is, I guess it happened . . . or maybe . . . Mart, if you could code that and shove it into a mechanical

brain, what answer do you think would come out?"

 

"I don't know. I-simply-do-not-know." Crane's mind, the mind of a highly-trained engineer, rebelled. No part of this

whole fantastic episode could be explained by anything he knew. None of it could possibly have happened.

Nevertheless. . . .

 

"Either it happened or we were hypnotized. If so, who was the hypnotist, and where? Above all, why? It must have

happened, Dick."

 

"I'll buy that, wild as it sounds. Now, DuQuesne, how about you?"

 

"It happened. I don't know how or why it did, but I believe that it did. I've quit denying the impossibility of anything.

If I had believed that your steam-bath flew out of the window by itself, that day, none of us would be out here now."

 

"If it happened, you were apparently the prime operator in saving our bacon. Who in blazes are those eastern

masters you've been studying under, and what did you study?"

 

"I don't know." He lit a cigarette, took two deep inhalations. "I wish I did. I've studied several esoteric philosophies .

. . perhaps I can find out which one it was. I'll certainly try . . . for that, gentlemen, would be my idea of heaven." He

left the room.

 

It took some time for the four to recover from the shock of that encounter. In fact, they bad not yet fully recovered

from it when Crane found a close cluster of stars, each emitting a peculiar greenish light which, in the spectro-

 

scope, blazed with copper lines. When they had approached so close that the suns were widely spaced in the

heavens Crane asked Seaton to take his place at the board while he and Margaret tried to locate a planet.

 

They went down to the observatory, but found that they were still too far away and began taking notes. Crane's mind

was not upon his work, however, but was filled with thoughts of the girl at his side. The intervals between com-

 

ments became longer and longer, until the two were standing in silence.

 

The Skylark lurched a little, as she had done hundreds of times before. As usual, Crane put out a steadying arm.

This time, however, in that highly charged atmosphere, the gesture took on a new significance. Both blushed hotly;

and, as their eyes met, each saw what they had both wanted most to see.

 

Slowly, almost as though without volition, Crane put his other arm around her. A wave of deeper crimson flooded

her face; but her lips lifted to his and her arms went up around his neck.

 

"Margaret-Peggy-I had intended to wait-but why should we wait? You know how much I love you, my dearest!"

 

"I think I do ... I know I do ... my Martini"

 

Presently they made their way back to the engine-room, hoping that their singing joy was inaudible, their new

status invisible. They might have kept their secret for a time had not Seaton promptly asked, "What did you find,

Mart?"

 

The always self-possessed Crane looked panicky; Margaret's fair face glowed a deeper and deeper pink.

 

"Yes, what did you find?" Dorothy demanded, with a sudden, vivid smile of understanding.

 

"My future wife," Crane answered, steadily.

 

The two girls hugged each other and the two men gripped hands, each of the four knowing that in these two unions

there was nothing whatever of passing fancy.