Starship

“ Take it from there, Marconi. And be specific.”
The little man shrugged irritably. “That gag’s beginning to wear thin, Ross,” he complained. “What do you want me to tell you—the number of welds in Bulkhead 47 of ‘Starship 74’? What’s the difference? As you said, a starship is a starship is a longliner. Without them the inhabited solar systems would have no means of contact or commerce. ”

“ At the time of this chronicle the status of interstellar flight was very similar to that of intercontinental jet-plane flight in the nineteen-sixties. Starships were designed by humanity's best brains; carried every safety device those brains could devise. ”

“ On and on our cruiser hummed, at its highest speed, fleeing through the void toward our own sun with the velocity of light. And surely never was voyage so strange as ours, since time began. A voyage from star to star, in a ship flung forward by unseen vibrations, its crew four haggard and burning-eyed men who were racing against time to carry the news on which depended the fate of our universe. ”

“ For it is my plan to speed out of the Galaxy into the depths of outer space to meet this approaching dark star, taking all of the scientific apparatus and equipment which might be used to swerve it aside from this curving path it is following. During the last week I have assembled the equipment for the expedition and have gathered together a force of fifty star-cruisers which are even now resting on the roof of this building, manned and ready for the trip. ”

“ With my craft I can travel anywhere. Back to the airship which shall carry me from here like lightning, up into the highest reaches of the aerial ocean where no man has gone before. Into the unexplored reaches of this planet, and later, if my genius will make certain improvements, maybe into the universe, into the world of the stars. Nothing is impossible to me!"
With admiration the Indian looked upon the proud man who was now walking away with hasty steps. ”

“ There is complete silence, but it is broken every now and then by sudden unearthly yells and shrieks from the still moving pack, harsh and loud as a steam siren, but unlike anything else in art or nature. As we return to the ship our attention is caught by a brilliant star, so close to the rough and indistinct horizon that it looks as if some one was carrying a lantern on the floes. ”

“ Now a great fleet of cargo carriers from Mars, Venus and Earth came up, and with them came wrecker ships, capable of picking up on their powerful attractor beams an entire million-ton passenger-freight liner—great liners themselves, all equipped with attractor beams. Soon they were all using their power to bring the planet back to its normal speed. It did not take the ships of that mighty fleet, many specially designed for heavy listing and towing, many designed for tremendous loads, very long to bring the planet back to its age-old orbit. ”

“ Then there would remain only the task of blasting the great, shining ship out into the carefully-calculated orbit that would be its home. In his mind's eye he could see it, slowly wheeling, like a second satellite, about the Earth; endlessly gathering knowledge into its insatiable mechanisms. ”

“ In silence we gazed into that mighty panorama of thronging stars and cosmic void, standing there together as we three had stood for many an hour, Antarian and Spican and human. From the ship's hull, stretched beneath the little pilot room in which we stood, there came dimly to our ears the strangely differing voices of our crew. Over these occasional voices, too, there beat unceasingly the deep, droning hum of the great mechanisms whose tremendously powerful force-vibrations were propelling us on through space at almost a thousand light-speeds. ”

“ If, when passing across the waters in a steam-boat, we can wake, after a night's repose, and find ourselves conducted on our voyage a hundred miles, we exult in the triumphs of art, which could have moved so ponderous a body as a steam-ship over such a space in so short a time, and so quietly, too, as not to disturb our slumbers; but, with a motion vastly more quiet and uniform, we have, in the same interval, been carried along with the earth in its orbit more than half a million of miles. ”

“ Then for safety we throw out more ballast, and rise through the black solitudes of the clouds into a soul-lifting burst of splendid starlight. There, alone with the constellations, we await the dawn.
And when the dawn comes, red and gold and purple in its glory, one is almost loth to seek the earth again, although the novelty of landing in who knows what part of Europe affords still another unique pleasure. ”

“ If storms obscure their radiance, The great ships helpless grope their way. When night falls on the earth, the sky Looks like a wide, a boundless main; Who knows what voyagers sail there? Who names the ports they seek and gain? Are not the stars like beacons set, To guide the argosies that go From universe to universe, Our little world above, below? ”

“ As our space-flier dropped slowly toward that mighty structure beneath my controlling hands, as it dropped toward the swarms of bright-lit aircraft that were moving to and fro over the great city, so familiar was the scene beneath to us four cosmic voyagers that almost did our great journey, our mighty flight out through the sun's planets through the countless leagues of space to great Neptune, and our grotesque and dream-like adventures upon Neptune and its moon, seem to us indeed no more than dreams. ”

“ Do we traverse the deep, they lend wings to the ship, and bid defiance to the natural opponents, the winds and the tides! Does the windbound ship desire to get out of port to start on her voyage, steam throws its arms around her, and places her on the open sea! Do we traverse the land, steam is harnessed to our chariot, and we outstrip the flight of the swiftest bird, and equal the fury of the tempest! ”

“ I had myself been one of the occupants of the car of the flying Ship of Space on that night when it silently left the earth, and rising out of the great shadow of the globe, sped on to the moon. We had landed upon the scarred and desolate face of the earth's satellite, and but that there are greater and more interesting events, the telling of which must not be delayed, I should undertake to describe the particulars of this first visit of men to another world. ”

“ Onward, inward, we flashed, veering here and there to avoid some star's far-swinging planets, dipping or rising to keep clear of the masses of traffic that were jamming the space-lanes leading inward, racing on at the same unvarying, tremendous velocity while we three in the pilot room, and the remainder of our crew beneath, strove to remain awake and conscious against the utterly crushing oppression of fatigue that pressed down upon us. ”

“ In a vast armada of tens of thousands they were sweeping out from the center of our galaxy, toward and over us at a speed equal to our greatest speed, and then from them narrow rays of dazzling red light were springing out, striking thick among the massed serpent-ships ahead, annihilating those they struck in bursts of blinding crimson light! ”

“ The little ships that tramped the narrow planetary roads set down beside the scornful giants of the star-trails and poured into the metropolis a never-ending tide of visitors, come to touch the fringes of a glory they could never grasp themselves, to revel in alien pleasures and barter for the gems and spices and the spider-woven silks of worlds that they would never see. ”

“ Straight toward and into the opening raced our close-massed ships and then the next moment it seemed that all the universe about was transformed into a single awful mass of pale beams that stabbed toward and through us from the space-forts on each side and from the close-massed ships ahead. ”

“ The moon near the full was hanging high over head, and a marvellous spectacle was presented to the eyes of those below as the great squadron of floating ships, with their signal lights ablaze, cast loose and began slowly to move away on their adventurous and unprecedented expedition into the great unknown. A tremendous cheer, billowing up from the throats of millions of excited men and women, seemed to rend the curtain of the night, and made the airships tremble with the atmospheric vibrations that were set in motion. ”

“ The case summaries were released to a small number of Washington newsmen, to continue planting the space-travel thought; this decision being made after True’s reception proved to the Air Force that the public was better prepared than had been thought.
In regard to the flying saucers themselves, I believe that in the majority of cases, space ships are the answer:
1. The earth has been under periodic observation from another planet, or other planets, for at least two centuries. ”

“ And through occasional rifts in the crowded mass of ships could be glimpsed the interplanetary traffic of the lower levels, a swarm of swift little boats which darted ceaselessly back and forth on their comparatively short journeys, ferrying crowds of passengers to Jupiter and Venus and Earth, seeming like little toy-boats beside the mighty bulks of the great interstellar ships above them. ”

“ Its flight in the upper regions of the air is really sublime, extending its immense wings, and wheeling slowly and majestically to and fro, seemingly without exerting a muscle or fluttering a feather, but moving by mere volition, and sailing on the bosom of the air as a ship upon the ocean. ”

“ We are not left to steer our course even by the stars, which the clouds of earth may dim. The ship has something on board which points towards the spiritual pole of the universe. I will not venture to call it an infallible guide. ”

“ It used to be Bert Donovan. I'm the radio operator aboard this ship."
"Ship?" He was beginning to talk sense now.
"Lugger, I should say. This is the Saturn, friend. IPS freight lugger, operating on the Earth-Mars shuttle. Or, anyhow, we used to. Till he got monkeying around with that new power drive of his—"
"IPS?" I strangled. "Earth-Mars? He?"
"Take it easy, friend. IPS—interplanetary space ship. Earth-Mars—round-trip route, originally. Navigator, Lancelot Biggs, the first mate. [3] Didn't you know—"
"Omigod!" I bleated. "Don't tell me, but I—we—all of us are in the future!" ”

“ Faster than the mighty spaceship the awful Thing caught it in mighty talons that ripped through solid relux. Scratching, fluttering enormous, blood-red wings, the silvery claws tore away great masses of relux, sending them flying into space. ”

“ Like a giant globe of dazzling green fire it flamed before us, with all about and behind it the awful blaze of the galaxy's thundering suns, in toward which at terrific and unabated speed we were racing. Countless thousands upon thousands of ships, stretched far out in long lines there in space, we were reeling on at our utmost velocity of millions of light-speeds, stabbing and striking and falling in wild battle as we plunged madly on. ”

“ In the desolate regions where it lives the sailors hail its appearance with delight, as it comes sailing around the ship with majestic, careless flight, rising, sinking, now swooping down to seize some cast-off mouthful of food, now poising high above the mast-head, moving with the ship at the most rapid speed, and yet with scarcely a perceptible movement of its gigantic wings. ”

“ In the few seconds before the sphere would have blown, turning all of us into a fine grade of face powder, I had to find a star with a planet that would support human life, bring the ship down out of hyper-space with velocity matched closely enough so that I could land on the planet, and jettison the sphere that was going wild. ”

“ A big meteor tore out your belly, or your fuel gave out, or any of a million things happened to crack up the beautiful great spaceship that was your vehicle and your pride and almost you, an extension of yourself, an expression of your yearning to conquer the stars. So you got into your slugjet suit and walked out an air-lock, if you had enough warning, that is. ”

“ The view of a fine ship, seen by the aid of the moon, with its symmetry of spars, and its delicate tracery of cordage, and the heavy and grand movements of the hull as it rolls on the sluggish billows of a calm sea, is ever a pleasing and indeed an imposing spectacle. ”

“ Whether in the calm of cruise mode or the intense excitement of a planetary encounter, the Voyager craft is alone in space, continuously sensing and reacting to its environment, tied by only a tenuous thread of radio communication to the anxious watchers back on Earth. ”

“ Some of you have been at sea and seen a ship on the horizon; you know how small it looks when it is five or six miles away, and how close it must come before you can see the people on its decks. You can well imagine that at 240 miles you might not see the ship at all with the naked eye—even a very big ship. We have as yet been unable to see any signs of life on the Moon, but that does not mean that there is no life; still less that there has never been any life. ”

“ I gave a low-voiced order to the pilot which reduced our speed still further, but even so the light grew visibly stronger as we sped on.
"Light!" whispered Hurus Hol. "Light on a dark star! It's impossible—and yet——"
And now, in obedience to another order, our ship began to slant sharply up toward the mighty circle's upper limb, followed by the half-hundred ships behind us. ”

“ Another hours, and our ship before a fair wind, and under a cloudy sky, was on her way over the broad ocean. The pilot leaves us, the captain takes command, the shores recede from view, sky and ocean alone surround us; and I, in common with most of my fellow passengers, ... our berths under very peculiar circumstances. The winds and waves have raised within us a commotion similar to the rolling without: that is to say, we are getting sea sick. ”

“ On still we raced, along the galaxy's edge, the great Cancer cluster dropping behind us now as we sped on, our two great fleets striking and grappling with each other even as they flashed on. Black space and flaming suns, pale ray and red, oval ships and long cruisers, all mingled and whirled in that wild scene like the features of some tortured dream, but dream it was none to us, flashing on with our fleet while in the hull beneath our crew loosed their red rays of death upon the chance-seen enemy ships that flashed between us and the dazzling suns. ”