5
Henry Simms, much interested, but skeptical to the last, was shown the interior of the Sphere on the afternoon set for the first trial. He crawled through the manhole after Robert and the professor, firmly convinced that he was about to witness a flat failure of the Sphere for which the professor claimed so much. To do him justice, though, it should be stated that Henry’s expectations were not without keen sympathy for the disappointment to which he felt certain the professor was doomed.
“She looks more like a submarine than a blimp, professor,” was his first comment as they reached the main compartment.
Indeed, the interior of the Sphere, with its intricate mass of machinery and its bull’s-eye windows, its riveted partitions and curved walls, and the incandescent lamps, did suggest a typical underseas craft.
“She goes up, Henry, not down,” the professor laughed.
“Deal me out, then,” cried Henry. “I am not prepared to go up for keeps yet!”
“Rest easy,” said Robert. “It will be much easier to drop back, if in doubt, than to continue upward.”
Robert proceeded to explain the Sphere’s important features for Henry’s benefit.
“Here is the gage that registers the pull of the disk,” he said, finally, after having explained the rudiments of the Sphere’s operation. He indicated a dial attached to the rod which harnessed the powerful mythonite disk to the core of the Sphere.
He pushed the first of a row of switch buttons on the controller. Poor Henry’s heart fluttered as a faint scraping sound heralded the mere opening of one of the three cameralike platinum shutters over the mythonite disk’s highly magnetic surface. He was already regretting his consent to accompany them on a trial flight. The handle on the dial of the lifting gage suddenly raced from zero and steadied at 605 pounds. The Sphere remained at rest.
All three men were now keyed to the highest pitch of excitement. This was the first time the completed apparatus had been tested, and upon its results depended entirely the success of the Sphere and its remarkable project planned by the professor.
The registered tension on the strong steel arm removed all doubt from the minds of Robert and Professor Palmer regarding the success of mythonite as a practical power of propulsion. A feeling of wild exultation gripped them both.
“Danger from shock of sudden great pull is avoided by gradual uncovering of the disk’s surface,” resumed Robert as he pushed the next button, sending the hand on the dial up to 1,420. The third button swung it to 3,475, accompanied by a slight tremor perceptible in the floor of the Sphere. Their startled glances through the nearest porthole satisfied them, however, that the Sphere still rested on terra firma.
Robert pushed all three of the corresponding row of buttons directly over the first three, and the hand again registered zero.
“I don’t want to lift the roof off your barn, professor,” exclaimed Robert. “I’ll start the gyrostats now to neutralize the Sphere’s weight, and we will get out and push it outside the stable.”
A few minutes later the now thoroughly convinced Henry watched his companions disappear within the Sphere’s shell while he debated with himself as to whether he should follow them. A moment later Professor Palmer appeared at a porthole and beckoned him; but Henry shook his head vehemently.
The professor unlatched the window and swung it open.
“Hurry in, Henry,” he called. “Voyage is about to commence.”
“Not I, professor! This suits me real well, right out here.”
“Come on, Henry,” the professor urged. “You aren’t afraid?”
“Not afraid—just a little bit careful. I’m just beginning to find out how nice and solid this ground feels. I’ll watch you do it.”
And no amount of urging would change his mind. He politely but firmly maintained that he felt much healthier outside.
“Stubborn chap, that,” the professor commented to Robert. “Can’t say that I blame him, though.”
“Simply a difference in the values we set on our own carcasses,” suggested Robert. “Henry just takes his more seriously than we.”
They laughed. Both, somehow, felt relieved afterward. Henry had furnished a welcome diversion. The former nervous tension was broken.
“Well, so long, old man,” Robert called out the window, as he prepared to close it.
“Give my regards to Saint Peter,” shouted Henry.
“Cheerful cuss,” contributed the professor, as the heavy glass slammed shut.
Robert stopped the gyrostats.
A deep silence reigned within the heavy walls as he examined carefully the delicate machinery upon which so much depended. Then he pulled the lever, setting them in motion again. Their steady purr was a relief from the oppressive silence.
Professor Palmer’s keen eyes followed him as he moved about. Robert’s excitement of the previous minutes was forgotten as he expertly, almost lovingly, ran his eyes over every detail of the perfect, whirring machinery, most of which his father had produced. His throat contracted strangely as his thoughts dwelt for a moment on his beloved parent. His mother he could scarcely remember, for she had died when he was but a baby of three years. But his father had been his constant companion—his pal. What would he not have given to have him standing by him at this moment, on the eve of his triumph, of the realization of his dreams!
Being a shrewd judge of human nature, the professor rightly guessed his thoughts at that moment. A suspicious moisture in Robert’s eyes confirmed his guess.
Robert’s next move was to adjust the direction of the disk’s covered face toward the zenith. The gyrostats were revolving smoothly. With bated breath, he again pushed the button which partly bared the disk.
The Sphere gave a slight lurch. This was followed by a sensation like that felt in an elevator rising suddenly. A faint shout from below. With one impulse Robert’s and the professor’s glances swept eagerly through the ports.
There they saw just what they had expected to see; but the actuality affected them curiously. Oddly enough, they had subconsciously expected till the last moment that the Sphere would fail.
The landscape seemed to be dropping from under them. Even the horizon was receding alarmingly.
Robert’s hand shot out to the control board, closing the disk’s surface. A slight tremor evidenced the abrupt cessation of the disk’s pull.
“Six thousand feet,” read Professor Palmer from the altimeter.
Robert joined him. A few minutes later it registered seven thousand. They were still rising, but not nearly so rapidly as before. The closing of the disk had checked their speed at once.
“A little more and I’d have boosted her right off the earth,” said Robert, breathlessly. “I’ll have to use the disk more sparingly on ordinary sight-seeing excursions hereafter.”
“You had it opened only to first power, too, hadn’t you?”
“Yes; and without the ‘juice’ turned on. Jove! We didn’t realize how much reserve power of propulsion we had. It’s well that I experimented first with the minimum. And the current almost quadruples the magnetism of mythonite! Phew!”
Robert paused and read the altimeter again. Eight thousand. He gripped the gyrostatic control, and carefully moved it to half speed.
The Sphere seemed to pause a moment, then they could detect its beginning to settle earthward as the neutralization of gravity was modified. Six thousand; five thousand; they were dropping steadily at a rate of nearly a thousand feet a minute.
Robert shoved the lever back to full speed and the Sphere’s downward momentum was quickly checked. With the disk safely throttled, the Sphere became as a rubber balloon. They merely drifted in midair.
Together they peered through the observation well in the floor. Through this they could plainly see the landscape, some three thousand feet below, sliding by sluggishly as they drifted with the light air current. From the side ports they could discern the big Palmer homestead and the laboratories about a mile and a half to the west of them. It was an ideal day for observation. The sky was cloudless, and the air of crystal clearness.
“Well, professor, shall we run back to our stall, or take a little sight-seeing jaunt?” queried Robert.
“Let’s see some of the country, by all means,” decided the professor, his face aglow with boyish excitement and anticipation.
“All right; here goes,” Robert sang out as he deflected the disk to a horizontal position, pointing due north.
The next instant he switched open the first shutter from the disk’s surface. There was a jerk, and the landscape suddenly began slipping away to the south with accelerating speed. Another click, and their speed was further increased. Once more the switch clicked, releasing the last shutter from over the disk. The Sphere seemed literally to leap ahead. A muffled roar without indicated the great speed at which they were rushing through the air.
Town after town flashed by beneath them with astonishing rapidity. The fact that they were flying at a comparatively low altitude made their speed seem terrific. Robert wisely decided to seek a safer height. He elevated the disk several degrees and the Sphere promptly soared higher. At eight thousand feet he checked its upward trend.
Far away to the east they could see a solitary big biplane bound in the same direction as they—probably a fast mail express; but it was quickly left behind, and lost from view in the afternoon haze.
For twenty minutes they roared northward. Then, to their surprize, a vast body of water appeared against the horizon ahead.
“Lake Erie!” gasped Robert, after a moment’s reflection. “Two hundred miles in less than half an hour. Why—that’s about five hundred miles an hour! And without the aid of electric magnetization of the disk!”
“Marvelous!” exclaimed the professor, enthusiastically.
Already they were soaring over the expanse of water. On the horizon the distant Canadian shore was rapidly taking shape. Beneath them several long, slim lake craft could be discerned, crawling at what appeared, from so great a height, to be a snail’s pace. No doubt the Sphere would have presented a much more curious sight to those below had its luminous gray shell been more than a faint speck against the brilliant, cloudless sky.
It was at this juncture that Robert’s alert ears detected a subtle change in the hitherto soft whir of the gyrostats.
“What is it, Robert?” whispered Professor Palmer, as he observed Robert’s suddenly tense attitude.
“Wait!” anxiously.
Outside, the muffled roar sounded in strange contrast to the still air within. The bright sunshine streamed across the gray door in mock cheerfulness. A single captive fly buzzed drowzily against a windowpane.
These commonplace details registered on Robert’s mind indelibly in those fleeting seconds as he listened with palpitating heart for he knew not what.
Taking his cue from Robert, Professor Palmer was listening with equal intensity to the drone of the machinery upon which their lives depended. Even he could now detect the change. The drone was gradually, unmistakably, decreasing in volume. The gyrostats were stopping!
Unconsciously they gripped each other’s hands an instant as they realized the seriousness of their plight. Should the gyrostats stop, the Sphere would plunge to its doom!
Frantically Robert tortured his mind for a possible solution, or a reason for the unexpected interruption. The altimeter already indicated that they were falling at a steadily increasing speed. The formerly tiny ships below were no longer tiny. The water seemed to be rushing toward them at a terrific rate. Robert remembered afterward a sudden inane conjecture as to how big a splash they would make.
It was at this moment his numbed senses returned to him. Cursing himself silently for a rattle-brained idiot, he spun the wheel madly, thus adjusting the vertical position of the disk. To his tortured mind it seemed an eternity before it finally pointed toward the zenith.
Their downward rush was noticeably checked, but the lift of the disk was not equal to the weight of the Sphere. They continued to fall at a dangerous rate. The altimeter registered but two thousand feet!
Fully recovered now from his former temporary inertia, Robert jammed over the switch which connected the disk to the powerful storage batteries. This was the reserve that he had not ventured to utilize before. Thus the lift of the Sphere should have been increased more than four-fold, and its descent checked at once.
As the switch swung over, the gyrostats stopped completely. In a flash the explanation of it all occurred to Robert. The batteries were exhausted!