Joe Gibson

“ Morrow wheeled and glared at him, red-eyed. "We aren't jet engineers, Smitty. We're building by guesswork! We can redesign that jet chamber a thousand times and never get the right shape!"
Smitty moved on to the stove and began stoking up the red coals, stacking wood on them. "She does seventy per hour up to seven thousand feet," he said dully. "If that's the best we can do, we'll just have to be satisfied with it."
"It's not good enough!" Morrow protested. "She has to have more speed, Smitty. She'll be at the mercy of every wind that comes along if she hasn't, weightless as she is!" ”

“ They spent the afternoon dividing their attention between the test-flight instruments and the surrounding sky. They hadn't the money to afford elaborate recording mechanisms to graph every moment of the flight onto neat tape-spools; they had to rely on the human eye, the questionably analytical human mind, and the servo-mechanism of a human hand wielding a pencil on a loose-leaf notebook. And they constantly expected to see a razor-winged jet fighter hurtling down from the stratosphere above them, its cannon sparkling the bright flame-color of death. ”

“ It's too much for one man! he thought bitterly, and dropped his hands to his sides.
He stood gazing into the deep gloom of the workshop, at the huge, black hull gleaming softly in the darkness. Fifty-five feet long and fifteen feet high, the ship rested patiently on the narrow runners that supported its sleek belly. Twenty-five hundred dollars and six weeks of cautious, painstaking work rolled into one beautiful, fantastic-looking black monster with curved fins around the cluster of "rocket" tubes in its tail and streamlined, submarine-type diving vanes near its nose. ”

“ And what about the polarization of that plastic?"
Morrow pursed his lips, contemplatively. "Like all materials on Earth, it's polarized—if you want to use that word—to the gravitational and magnetic fields of Earth. I see what you're driving at, though—the gravitors establish a field in which the Earth's gravity and magnetism are cancelled out, or bent back upon themselves. The mechanism of the gravitors, the hull they support, everything within their field of influence is placed on a basis of its own gravity, mass-attraction, magnetism, what-have-you." ”

“ Morrow shook his head. "We've got to let him go, Gwyn. We can't hold him."
"Then let's just face it," she replied, using her practical feminine approach. "The government is going to learn about our project. What can they do about it? Can they throw us into prison and confiscate all we have here? What'll they do with it? Without us, they won't understand it!"
"How much will they understand, I wonder!" Morrow said dubiously. "Will they realize this could ignite the present world tension into a raging war?"
Gwyn looked out on the silent, brooding canyon. ”

“ A pilot had to know his limitations, the limitations of his plane, and what he was doing every second.
"—And that's the situation," Morrow concluded. "If the mechanism isn't destroyed, it'll plunge the world into atomic war. If it is destroyed, it'll be lost to mankind for the next several hundred years—until somebody else stumbles across it."
"In short," Smitty resumed, "if we got it now, we have atomic war. If we don't have it for the next few centuries, we will have atomic war."
"I'm afraid so," Morrow affirmed. "Unless they manage to develop a world civilization and government without it." ”

“ Time off from his work, time to relax and enjoy female companionship, the nearness of a woman. An older man, in whom the mating lust had had time to diminish until it wasn't quite so strong and insistent—an older man could retire and live in an ivory tower of science. He couldn't. He must make allowance for it.
Find himself a girl in town. A date, a little moonlight and soft talk. Forget about a girl three thousand miles away. Forget Gwyn....
But he wished she were here. He wished she could see the ship.
Dawn was etching its rose-colored light in the East when Smitty drove in the yard. ”

“ Smitty bellowed indignantly. "Go on and kiss her!"
It was hardly a month later when Morrow stood in the doorway of the sawmill-workshop, his arm around Gwyn, and said, "We need a good mechanical engineer! Can't get anywhere without him—"
And a small, gray-haired man sat up in bed, a few nights later, and stared at the two strange creatures standing before him. Their heads were dark, featureless globes. Their bodies were covered with a bright, shimmering skin. He noted vaguely that the female of the species was stacked quite well.
"Can't do anything without a good structural engineer!" ”

“ He was fortunate to know a man like Smitty, Morrow knew. He couldn't have carried out his plan alone.
He reached home, stored his motor-bike in the garage, and walked into the living room. He snapped on the light and stood there for a moment, gazing across the room at his littered writing desk. If he were going to carry out his plan, there was one thing he'd have to do himself. People weren't going to like it. Good engineers were scarce.
He walked across the room, sat down at the desk, and crammed a sheet of Western Electronics stationery into his portable typewriter. ”

“ A person suddenly struck blind wasn't likely to be in any condition or mood to cause trouble.
All other preparations for the trip had been as completely thorough, as carefully planned. Yet they had made one slight error. They had forgotten to include extra batteries for the ship. In all their careful and intricate preparations, that one, simple precaution had been overlooked.
And now, because of it, Morrow wondered if the whole purpose of their trip wasn't going to be changed. They were flying to Westerton where he would borrow a car from someone he knew. ”

“ Smitty exclaimed tersely. "Also, flying without a license is a federal offense—and you don't have one. And using government land without permission is a federal offense. And you'll have to quit your job with Western Electronics, won't you? What about your government contract?"
"I've given them two-weeks' notice," Morrow explained. "I'm allowed that. Of course, engineers are scarce—so scarce that by quitting my job here for no good reason, I'm getting myself blackballed out of every other company in the industry. ”

“ Smitty chanted.
Foster sprawled in a dignified pose in the chair facing them. "As one gets used to it," he continued unmindfully, "it fades to its proper insignificance. Then a man can truly visualize the worth of feminine companionship—the slippers, the evening paper, the scratching of one's back—"
Gwyn was laughing. The tension was going out of her shapely, young body. Her gaze was mirthful, speculative—especially when her glance slid over to Morrow. ”

“ Smitty remarked flatly. "That's ten thousand, five hundred above sea-level. She isn't levelling out yet." His face was grim in the green glow of the instrument dials.
Behind them, the black, glinting hull was crammed with sandbags. They were lifting a full load.
Morrow kept his gaze fixed on the air-speed indicator. A deep, whooming sound came from the tail-jets. The needle on the indicator dial flickered restlessly, back and forth, over a single point.
They were doing forty miles an hour, indicated air-speed. They hadn't been able to increase that speed. ”

“ Smitty replied. "Most people have a pretty strong feeling about patriotism these days. We have something that qualifies as a good secret weapon. They aren't going to like the way we neglect to inform the government about it."
"Uh huh. Men have been lynched for less," Morrow agreed. "We'll just have to see to it that nobody does find out about it. We can start out small, in almost any place that's relatively isolated—a deserted farm-house would do, I suppose—and build our ship. Then we'd have to make our flights at night, until we're fairly sure of the ship. ”

“ If electrons worked more efficiently in a gravitor's field, then mechanical and chemical power might work just as well. It appeared, on paper, that a small, one-horsepower gasoline engine might deliver the equivalent of a hundred horsepower or more in electrical energy, if it were incorporated into a gravitor field. Morrow worked this "gravitor engine" out the best he could, cursing his lack of knowledge in mechanical engineering. ”

“ Each tank enclosed a gravitor unit. A lightweight, transparent blue dome helmet fitted over their heads and clamped onto fasteners on their shoulders. There were small air-vents around the bottom of the helmets and in the fantastic-looking knob attachments in their tops.
They pulled on their suits in the workshop and stared at each other, grinning. "All you need," Smitty taunted, "is a flashlight ray-gun in each hand!"
"You look pretty monstrous yourself, blue-face!" Morrow retorted. ”

“ They moved through the luxurious forward lounge and climbed the metal steps into the control pit. Smitty slipped into the pilot's seat behind the controls and flight panel, up forward. Morrow took the flight engineer's seat behind the instrument console, on the left side of the transparent blister dome. The console sloped gently, like a desk-top, its surface glittering with a dozen instrument dials, twenty-four switches, forty-eight signal lights, two knobs and master switches, and a jet-blast temperature gauge. ”

“ The ship's hull had become completely polarized to the gravitors' field; the field influenced the air flowing over the hull, so much so that a simple air-scoop couldn't pick up air to blow through the propulsion unit and out the tail-jets. The air intake had to be designed to work on the disturbed air-flow.
"It's a little like those 'space-warps' in science-fiction yarns," Foster explained. "There's a warp of the gravitational and magnetic fields around the ship. The air-flow entering that warp bends and twists to follow it." ”

“ Smitty mused, grinning.
"We might be caught ten minutes afterward, too," Foster objected. "The police are quite efficient at catching car thieves."
"Then we need a car," Morrow concluded. "Smitty, can we lift out of here once we've rebuilt our jets?"
"We could travel a few hundred miles," Smitty conceded. "Not that it would get us anywhere."
Morrow grinned crookedly. "Would it get us to Westerton, New Jersey?"
It would. And the next night, it did.
The three men crouching in the control pit of the sleek, black ship looked red-eyed and haggard from fatigue and lack of sleep. ”

“ Even the slightest mistake might finish them!
And the call had to be made. Their plan was set for tonight, Saturday night, because Foster was most likely to be home from work—research engineers often worked late hours on weekdays—and because he'd probably have the next day off. They had to get Foster out for that one day, and it had to be done right. But they had to be certain that Foster was home when they went after him.
The receiver continued its rattling noise in his ear as Morrow waited, fidgeting impatiently, and the seconds crawled past. ”

“ We already suspect some of the chemical and medical possibilities inherent in gravitor-field conditions—"
"And you have the answer to interplanetary travel at your fingertips!" Lyle muttered dourly.
"Yes, but without the financial means to do it," Morrow agreed. "Interplanetary travel won't be important for another hundred years anyway—if it is at all—since it will take that long for the world's population to reach any dangerous numbers."
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Mankind is due to reach the stage of population where he can no longer feed himself on Earth," Morrow explained. ”

“ The lift or descent of the gravitor sufficed for climbing or diving maneuvers. He'd looked like a human fish swimming in the sky.
For the ships, of course, such a jet unit wouldn't do. The ships needed jets which would work while in motion, at speeds exceeding a hundred miles an hour. Thus, they'd had to fly the ship until its gravitors completely polarized its hull. Then they had to determine the air-flow over that hull at flying speeds with flow and pressure indicators mounted on the hull. ”

“ Morrow grinned shakily. He was certainly getting what he deserved!
At home, an idea was rapidly taking on form and dimension in his mind. He set up his drafting board, collected his inks, and worked doggedly through the night, etching out diagrams that showed—theoretically, at least—how his idea would work. ”