“Well—it's your turn, Fuller—you designed it. What do you suggest for your masterpiece?” asked Arcot.
“I was thinking also of its home—the home it will never leave. I like to think that we might find people on Venus, and I would like to have a name on it that might be translatable into more friendly and less foreign terms—why not call it Solarite?”
“Solarite—a member of the solar system—it will be that, always. It will be a world unto itself when it makes its trips—it will take up an orbit about the sun—a true member of the solar system. I like it!” Arcot turned to the others. “How about it?” It was agreed upon unanimously.
“But I'm still curious about that glass bottle, so carefully sealed.” Morey commented with a puzzled smile. “What's in it? Some kind of gas?”
“Wrong—no gas—practically nothing at all, in fact. What more appropriate for christening a space ship than a bottle of hard vacuum?
“We can't have a pretty girl christen this ship, that's sure. A flying bachelor's apartment christened by a mere woman? Never! We will have the foreman of the works here do that. Since we can't have the ship slide down the ways or anything, we will get inside and move it when he smashes the bottle. But in the meantime, let's have a symbol set in contrasting metal on the bow. We can have a blazing sun, with nine planets circling it, the Earth indicated conspicuously; and below it the word SOLARITE.”
III
It was shortly after noon when the newly christened Solarite left on its first trip into space. The sun was a great ball of fire low in the west when they returned, dropping plummet-like from the depths of space, the rush of the air about the hull, a long scream that mounted from a half-heard sound in the outer limits of the Earth's atmosphere, to a roar of tortured air as the ship dropped swiftly to the field and shot into the hangar. Instantly the crew darted to the side of the great cylinder as the door of the ship opened.
Fuller appeared in the opening, and at the first glimpse of his face, the hangar crew knew something was wrong. “Hey, Jackson,” Fuller called, “get the field doctor—Arcot had a little accident out there in space!” In moments the man designated returned with the doctor, leading him swiftly down the long metal corridor of the Solarite to Arcot's room aboard.