"I wish that that trip had not been so short, Steve. There were a lot of things I wanted to ask you. Where are we now? I don't seem to recognize this country."
"We are over Arizona—see there is the laboratory now—off there."
"What, Arizona! How fast were we going?"
"We were going slowly, considering we were in space, but considering our proximity to the Earth we are going rapidly. The actual speed is difficult to determine—remember we had cut loose all ties of gravity, and I had to follow the Earth in its orbit, and the whole solar system along through space. From here to New York City is about three thousand miles, and as we made the trip in just under one hundred minutes, we traveled at a speed of thirty miles a minute, or half a mile a second."
"Well, the airplane speed record was about four hundred and twenty, wasn't it—I mean an hour—you have to specify now! You set a new record, I guess!"
They were slanting down through the atmosphere toward the distant low building that had seen the construction of that first of Earth's space cruisers. The long gentle glide slowly flattened out and the car at last glided slowly, gently through the open hangar doors. Wright was there to greet them, but Waterson called out that he would stay in the ship a few minutes to show Gale around.
"Steve, you sure picked a desolate place to work in. Why did you go way out here?"
"For two reasons. First I wanted a place that was quiet; and second I wanted a place where I could safely work with atomic energy—where explosions, premeditated or accidental, would not blow up an entire city. Did you notice that crater off to one side as we came in? That is where I tried out my first bullet. I hadn't gotten a small enough charge in it. I had nearly a milligram—a hundredth of a drop of water. But come, I guess you saw the pilot room. I'll show you how to run the ship tomorrow."
He led the way to the rear end of the pilot room, where a small door opened in the smooth, windowless metal partition. It too gleamed with that strangely iridescent beauty of metallic iridium.