"01 - The Black Star Passes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Campbell John W Jr)

"Ready son."

"Main gyroscopes!" There was a low snap, a clicking of relays in the rear compartment, and then a low 'hum that quickly ran up the scale. "Main generators!" Again the clicking switch, and the relays thudding into action, again the rising hum. "Seat-gyroscopes." The low click was succeeded by a quick shrilling sound that rose in moments above the range of hearing as the separate seat-gyroscopes took up their work. "Main power tube bank!" The low hum of the generator changed to a momentary roar as the relays threw on full load. In a moment the automatic controls had brought it up to speed.

"Everything is working perfectly so far. Are we ready to start now, son?"

"Main vertical power units I" The great ship trembled throughout its length as the lift of the power units started. A special instrument had been set up on the floor beside Arcot, that he might be able to judge the lift of his power units; it registered the apparent weight of the ship. It had read two hundred tons. Now all eyes were fixed on it, as the pointer dropped quickly to 150-100-75-50-40-20-10-there was a click and the instrument flopped back to 300Ч it was registering in pounds now! Then the needle moved to zero, and the mighty structure floated into the air, slowly moving down the field as a breeze carried it along the ground.

The men outside saw it rise swiftly into the-sky, straight toward the blue vault of heaven. In two or three minutes it was disappearing. The glistening ship shrank to a tiny

point of light; then it was gone! It must have been rising at fully three hundred miles an hour!

To the men in the car there had been a tremendous increase in weight that had forced them into the air cushions like leaden masses. Then the ground fell away with a speed that made them look in amazement. The house, the construction shed, the lake, all seemed contracting beneath them. So quickly were they rising that they had not time to adjust their mental attitude. To them all the world seemed shrinking about them.

Now they were at a tremendous height; over twenty miles they had risen into the atmosphere; the air about them was so thin that the sky seemed black, the stars blazed out in cold, unwinking glory, while the great fires of the sun seemed reaching out into space like mighty arms seeking to draw back to the parent body the masses of the wheeling planets. About it, in far flung streamers of cold fire shone the mighty zodiacal light, an Aurora on a titanic scale. For a moment they hung there, while they made readings of the meters.

Arcot was the first to speak and there was awe in his voice. "I never began to let out the power of this thing! What a ship! When these are made commercially, we'll have to use about one horsepower generators in them, or people will kill themselves trying to see how fast they can

go."

Methodically the machine was tried out at this height, testing various settings of the instruments. It was definitely proven that the values that Arcot and Morey had assigned from purely theoretical calculations were correct to within one-tenth of one percent. The power absorbed by the machine they knew and had calculated, but the terrific power of the driving units was far beyond their expectations.

"Well, now we're off for some horizontal maneuvers," Arcot announced. "I'm sure we agree the machine can climb and can hold itself in the air. The air pressure controls seem to be working perfectly. Now we'll test her speed."

Suddenly the seats swung beneath them; then as the ship shot forward with ever greater speed, ever greater acceleration, it seemed that it turned and headed upward, although they knew that the main stabilizing gyroscopes were holding it level. In a moment the ship was headed out over the Atlantic at a speed no rifle bullet had ever known. The radio speedometer needle pushed farther and farther over as the speed increased to unheard of values. Before they left the North American shoreline they were traveling faster than a mile a second. They were in the middle of the Atlantic before Arcot gradually shut off the acceleration, letting the seats drop back into position.

A hubbub of excited comments rose from the four men. Momentarily, with the full realization of the historical importance of this flight, no one paid any attention to anyone else. Finally a question of the Air Inspector reached Arcot's ears.

"What speed did we attain, Dr. Arcot? LookЧthere's the coast of Europe! How fast are we going now?"

"We were traveling at the rate of three miles a second at the peak." Arcot answered. "Now it has fallen to two and a half."

Again Arcot turned his attention to his controls. "I'm going to try to see what the ultimate ceiling of this machine is. It must have a ceiling, since it depends on the operation of the generator to operate the power units. This, in turn, depends on the heat of the air, helped somewhat by the sun's rays. Up we go!"

The ship was put into a vertical climb, and steadily the great machine rose. Soon, however, the generator began to slow down. The readings of the instruments were dropping rapidly. The temperature of the exceedingly tenuous air outside was so close to absolute zero that it provided very little energy.

"Get up some forward speed," Morey suggested, "so that you'll have the aid of the air scoop to force the air in faster."

"Right, Morey." Arcot slowly applied the power to the forward propulsion units. As they took hold, the ship began to move forward. The increase in power was apparent at once. The machine started rising again. But at last, at a height of fifty-one miles, her ceiling had been reached.

The cold of the cabin became unbearable, for every kilowatt of power that the generator could get from the air outside was needed to run the power units. The air, too, became foul and heavy, for the pumps could not replace it with a fresh supply from the near-vacuum outside. Oxygen tanks had not been carried on this trip. As the power of the generator was being used to warm the cabin once more, they began to fall. Though the machine was held stable by the gyroscopes, she was dropping freely; but they had fifty miles to fall, and as the resistance of the denser air mounted, they could begin to feel the sense of weight return.

"You've passed, but for the maneuvers, Dr. Arcot!" The Air Inspector was decidedly impressed. "The required altitude was passed so long agoЧwhy we are still some miles above it, I guess! How fast are we falling?"

"I can't tell unless I point the nose of the ship down, for the apparatus works only in the direction in which the

ship is pointed. Hold on, everyone, I am going to start using some power to stop us."

It was night when they returned to the little field in Vermont. They had established a new record in every form of aeronautical achievement except endurance! The altitude record, the speed record, the speed of climb, the acceleration recordЧall that Arcot could think of had been passed. Now the ship was coming to dock for the night. In the morning it would be out again. But now Arcot was sufficiently expert with the controls to maneuver the ship safely on the ground. They finally solved the wind difficulty by decreasing the weight of the ship to about fifty pounds, thus enabling the three men to carry it into the hangar!