As they continued walking down the first corridor, they came to a small room, whence issued the low hum of one of the motors. Entering, they found the crew sleeping, and the motor idling.
“Good Lord!” Wade exclaimed. “Look at that motor, Arcot! No bigger than the trunk of a man's body. Yet a battery of these sends the ship along at a mile a second! What power!”
Slowly they proceeded down the long hall. At each of the fifty engine mountings they found the same conditions. At the end of the hall there was an escalator that led one level higher, into the upper wing. Here they found long rows of the bombing posts and the corresponding quartz rods.
They returned finally to the control room. Here Arcot spent a long time looking over the many instruments, the controls, and the piloting apparatus.
“Wade,” he said at last, “I think I can see how this is done. I am going to stop those engines, start them, then accelerate them till the ship rolls a bit!” Arcot stepped quickly over to the pilots seat, lifted the sleeping pilot out, and settled in his place.
“Now, you go over to that board there—that one—and when I ask you to, please turn on that control—no, the one below—yes—turn it on about one notch at a time.”
Wade shook his head dubiously, a one-sided grin on his face. “All right, Arcot—just as you say—but when I think of the powers you're playing with—well, a mistake might be unhealthy!”
“I'm going to stop the motors now,” Arcot announced quietly. All the time they had been on board, they had been aware of the barely inaudible whine of the motors. Now suddenly, it was gone, and the plane was still as death!
Arcot's voice sounded unnaturally loud. “I did it without blowing the ship up after all! Now we're going to try turning the power on!”
Suddenly there was a throaty hum; then quickly it became the low whine; then, as Arcot turned on the throttle before him, he heard the tens of thousands of horsepower spring into life—and suddenly the whine was a low roar—the mighty propellers out there had became a blur—then with majestic slowness the huge machine moved off across the field!