Arcot, Morey & Wade (Sci-Fi Classics). John W. Campbell
heat directly, and was very inefficient. The sun was indeed sinking below their horizon; they were just beginning to watch that curious phenomenon of seeing dawn backward, when they first struck air dense enough to operate the power units noticeably. Quickly the power was applied till the machines sank rapidly to the warmer levels, the only governing factor being the tendency of the glider to break loose from the grip of the magnet.
At fifty miles the generator was started, and the heaters in the car at once became more active. There was no heat in the car below, but that was unavoidable. They would try to bring it down to warm levels quickly.
“Whew, I'm glad we reached the air again, Dick. I didn't tell you sooner, for it wouldn't have done any good, but that battery was about gone! We had something like twenty amp-hours left! I'm giving the recharge generator all she will take. We seem to have plenty of power now.”
“I knew the cells were low, but I had no idea they were as low as that! I noticed that the magnet was weakening, but thought it was due to the added air strain. I am going to put the thing into a nose dive and let the glider go down itself. I know it would land correctly if it had a chance. I am going to follow it, of course, and since we are over the middle of Siberia we'd better start back.”
The return trip was necessarily in the lower level of the atmosphere, that the glider might be kept reasonably warm. At a height of but two miles, in the turbulent atmosphere, the glider was brought slowly home. It took them nearly twenty hours to go the short distance of twelve thousand miles to San Francisco, the two men taking turns at the controls. The air resistance of the glider forced them to go slowly; they could not average much better than six hundred an hour despite the fact that the speed of either machine alone was over twelve hundred miles an hour.
At last the great skyscrapers of San Francisco appeared on their horizon, and thousands of private planes started out to meet them. Frantically Arcot warned them away, lest the air blast from their props tear the glider from the magnet. At last, however, the Air Guard was able to force them to a safe distance and clear a lane through one of the lower levels of the city traffic. The great field of the Transcontinental lines was packed with excited men and women, waiting to catch a glimpse of two of the greatest things the country had heard of in the century—Arcot's molecular motion machine and the Air Pirate!
The landing was made safely in the circle of Air Guardsmen. There was a small hospital plane standing beside it in a moment, and as Arcot's ship released it, and then hung motionless, soundless above it, the people watched it in wonder and excitement. They wanted to see Arcot perform; they clamored to see the wonderful powers of this ship in operation. Air Guardsmen who had witnessed the flying game of tag between these two super-air machines had told of it through the press and over the radio.
* * * * *
Two weeks later, Arcot stepped into the office of Mr. Morey, senior.
“Busy?”
“Come on in; you know I'm busy—but not too busy for you. What's on your mind?”
“Wade—the pirate.”
“Oh—hmm. I saw the reports on his lab out on the Rockies, and also the psychomedical reports on him. And most particularly, I saw the request for his employment you sent through channels. What's your opinion on him? You talked with him.”
Arcot frowned slightly. “When I talked to him he was still two different identities dancing around in one body. Dr. Ridgely says the problem's settling down; I believe him. Ridgely's no more of a fool in his line than you and Dad are in your own lines, and Ridgely's business is healing mental wounds. We agreed some while back that the Pirate must be insane, even before we met him.
“We also agreed that he had a tremendously competent and creative mind. As a personality in civilization, he'd evidently slipped several cogs. Ridgely says that is reparable.
“You know, Newton was off the beam for about two years. Faraday was in a complete breakdown for nearly five years—and after his breakdown, came back to do some monumental work.
“And those men didn't have the help of modern psychomedical techniques.
“I think we'd be grade A fools ourselves to pass up the chance to get Wade's help. The man—insane or not—figured out a way of stabilizing and storing atomic hydrogen for his rockets. If he could do that in the shape he was then in...!
“I'd say we'd be smart to keep the competition in the family.”
Mr. Morey leaned back in his chair and smiled up at Arcot. “You've got a good case there. I'll buy it. When Dr. Ridgely says Wade's got those slipped cogs replaced—offer him a job in your lab staff.
“I'm a bit older than you are; you've grown up in a world where the psychomedical techniques really work. When I was growing up, psychomedical techniques were strictly rule of thumb—and the doctors were all thumbs.” Mr. Morey sighed. Then, “In this matter, I think your judgment is better than mine.”
“I'll see him again, and offer him the job. I'm pretty sure he'll take it, as I said. I have a suspicion that, within six months, he'll be a lot saner than most people around. The ordinary man doesn't realize what a job of rechecking present techniques can do—and Wade is, naturally, getting a very thorough overhaul.
“Somewhat like a man going in for treatment of a broken arm; in any decent hospital they'll also check for any other medical problems, and he'll come out healthier than if he had never had the broken arm.
“Wade seems to have had a mind that made friends with molecules, and talked their language. After Ridgely shows him how to make friends with people—I think he'll be quite a man on our team!”
BOOK II
SOLARITE
CHAPTER I
The lights of great Transcontinental Airport were blazing in cheering splendor. Out there in the center of the broad field a dozen men were silhouetted in the white brilliance, looking up at the sky, where the stars winked cold and clear on the jet background of the frosty night. A slim crescent of moon gleamed in the west, a sickle of light that in no way dimmed the cold flame of the brilliant stars.
One point of light now moved across the motionless field of far-off suns, flashing toward the airport in a long, swift curve. The men on the field murmured and pointed up at it as it swept low over the blazing lights of New York. Lower it swooped, the towering city behind it. Half a mile into the air the buildings rose in shining glory of colored tile that shone brightly in the sweeping play of floodlights.
One of them picked out the descending machine, and it suddenly leaped out of the darkness as a shining, streamlined cylinder, a cylinder with a great halo of blue fire, as the beam of the searchlight set it off from the jet black night.
In moments the ship was vast before the eyes of the waiting men; it had landed gently on the field, was floating smoothly, gracefully toward them.
Twenty-four men climbed from the great ship, shivering in the icy blast that swept across the field, spoke a moment with the group awaiting their arrival, then climbed quickly into the grateful warmth of a field car. In a moment they were speeding toward the lights of the field house, half a mile off.
Behind them the huge ship leaped into the sky, then suddenly pointed its nose up at an angle of thirty degrees and shot high into the air at an unbelievable speed. In an instant it was gone.
At the field house the party broke up almost immediately.
“We want to thank you, Mr. Morey, for your demonstration of the new ship tonight, and you, Dr. Arcot, for answering our many questions about it. I am sure we all appreciate the kindness you