"There speaks the impetuousness of youth," the old man chided. "I have told you that we have proved that at present we can do nothing whatever for the occupants of Skylark Two. Be warned, my rash young friend; do not tamper with powers entirely beyond your comprehension."
"Warning be damned!" DuQuesne snorted. "We're shoving off. Come on, Loring—the quicker we get started the better our chance of getting something done. You'll be willing to give me the exact bearing and the distance, won't you, Rovol?"
"We shall do more than that, son," the Green patriarch replied, while a shadow came over his wrinkled visage. "Your life is your own, to do with as you see fit. You have chosen to go in search of your friends, scorning the odds against you. But before I tell you what I have in mind, I must try once more to make you see that the courage which dictates the useless sacrifice of a life ceases to be courage at all, but becomes sheerest folly.
"Since we have had sufficient power several of our youths have been studying the fourth dimension. They rotated many inanimate objects into that region, but could recover none of them. Instead of waiting until they had derived the fundamental equations governing such phenomena they rashly visited that region in person, in a vain attempt to achieve a short cut to knowledge. Not one of them has come back.
"Now I declare to you in all solemnity that the quest you wish to undertake, involving as it does not only that entirely unknown region but also the equally unknown sixth order of vibrations, is to you at present utterly impossible. Do you still insist upon going?"
"We certainly do. You may as well save your breath."
"Very well; so be it. Frankly, I had but little hope of swerving you from your purpose by reason. But before you go we shall supply you with every resource at our command which may in any way operate to increase your infinitesimal chance of success. We shall build for you a duplicate of Seaton's own Skylark Three, equipped with every device known to our science, and we shall instruct you fully in the use of those devices before you set out."
"But the time—" DuQuesne began to object.
"A matter of hours only," Rovol silenced him. "True, it took us some little time to build Skylark Three, but that was because it had not been done before. Every force employed in her construction was of course recorded, and to reproduce her in every detail, without attention or supervision, it is necessary only to thread this tape, thus, into the integrator of my master keyboard. The actual construction will of course take place in the area of experiment, but you may watch it, if you wish, in this visiplate. I must make a short series of observations at this time. I will return in ample time to instruct you in the operation of the vessel and of everything in it."
In stunned amazement the two men stared into the visiplate, so engrossed in what they saw there that they scarcely noticed the departure of the aged scientist. For before their eyes there had already sprung into being an enormous structure of laced and latticed members of purple metal, stretching over two miles of level plain. While it was very narrow for its length, yet its fifteen hundred feet of diameter dwarfed into insignificance the many outlandish structures near by, and under their staring eyes the vessel continued to take form with unbelievable rapidity. Gigantic girders appeared in place as though by magic; skin after skin of thick, purple inoson was welded on; all without the touch of a hand, without the thought of a brain, without the application of any visible force.