Part 2

“We will have it conveyed to my estate, where the light and space will be much better; and where I can look after you better, my boy.” His face softened. Ah, an old bachelor had not all the advantages. What would he not give to have a son like this!

Something about Robert’s hesitation reminded him abruptly of an important consideration.

“I am forgetting,” he apologized. “Your interest must be fully protected. We will draw up a contract whereby full possession of the _Sphere_ and all its equipment, now and always, will remain yours. I will undertake to complete it, defraying all expenses, in return for which I ask the use of the _Sphere_ in a flight to Mars and back if possible.”

“That is more than fair,” Robert replied, feeling ashamed of a shortlived, though natural, apprehension.

4

Robert found Professor Palmer’s homestead vastly more cheerful than his own gloomy quarters.

The _Sphere_ was placed in a large, well-lighted barn, which had been carefully prepared for its new purpose. The barred windows were frosted to defeat the curiosity of possible busybodies, and reliable locks put on the heavy doors.

Removal of the _Sphere_ from its original quarters presented difficulties, because no provision had been made for its exit. It had been constructed piece by piece inside the four walls which housed it so long. It was necessary to hew an opening through the wall, to the acute curiosity of the neighbors.

However, their curiosity went for naught, as a large tarpaulin and protecting crating disguised the object of their interest, which was removed at night. Professor Palmer and Robert were agreed in their decision to keep their project to themselves as much as possible until they had succeeded in perfecting the _Sphere_.

The hauling of the _Sphere_ proved an extremely simple task. With the gyrostats running quietly at halfspeed, its weight was rendered to almost nothing. Nevertheless a large, heavy truck was provided for any emergencies. They wisely avoided any unnecessary chance of destroying, at the very beginning of their task, the intricate work of many painstaking years.

A small brick building was put up and the necessary machinery installed for the production of mythonite. Here the tedious process was soon directed by Robert. Eleven skilled metallurgists and chemists labored day after day under his supervision, without knowing for what purpose the curious metal they were producing was to be used.

Weeks passed, and vast quantities of waste material were hauled away daily; but the quantity of the precious mythonite accumulated with discouraging slowness. An addition was built adjoining the first plant, and the corps of experts increased to an even two dozen. By improving methods and increasing deftness, the former production was trebled.

Nevertheless, it soon became apparent that the desired quantity could not possibly be produced at the present rate within the period which Robert had estimated. The first month’s operation had resulted in but two small ingots, each an inch square and three inches long. This was before the plant was enlarged, however. This had been eventually increased to seven ingots a month. But even at this rate, it would require almost four years longer to produce a sufficient quantity. Obviously, the project was doomed to failure unless some means of greatly increasing the production could be devised.

It was four months after the completion of the original plant that Robert and Professor Palmer were discussing this matter with a view to deciding finally whether or not to abandon the project. During this time Professor Palmer had come to look upon Robert as a son. His untiring energy, his frank, cheerful personality and intelligence, had made a profound impression upon the professor.

“I am going to see this thing to a finish, Robert,” he was saying. “But if we are to take advantage of the next favorable apposition of Mars just eight months from now, we must make some radical improvement in our program. Not till fifteen years later will it again approach so close to the earth. Have you any new plans to suggest?”

“This,” replied Robert. “We might have the crushing and the crude processes done elsewhere. By concentrating upon the finer processes alone, we should be able to increase our production of mythonite considerably. But we should have to replace the crushing apparatus with additional equipment for the final processes. We must take advantage of every available bit of space and every man’s time.”

“Our total expenditures to date are what?”

“Approximately $33,000. But, the sales of excess platinum have reduced that to about $32,000.”

“Not so bad,” mused the professor. “However, it is clear that we can not reach our goal without a vastly greater rate of production.”

He knit his brows, pondering silently for a little while.

“Robert,” he broke out suddenly, “we’ve got to take a big gamble! We will not only follow out your suggestion, but we will double the present size of our plant.”

Robert gasped. He thought of the professor’s dwindling resources, wondering if he were suddenly gone mad.

“Why, that would bring the total cost round $60,000!” he cried.

“Quite so,” replied Professor Palmer, calmly; “but a four or five year program would be far more expensive--to say nothing of its impracticability. It’s win all or lose all, Robert.”

So the Palmer laboratories were enlarged and arrangements successfully made for the crushing and partial separating with a near-by rock plant. The little force of experts was augmented to thirty, and work began in earnest. The next month resulted in a production of forty-one ingots of mythonite!

The following month a minor improvement discovered in the process increased that month’s production to fifty ingots. Even this production was bettered somewhat during the following months. At the end of the sixth month after the enlargement of the plant the total production of mythonite had reached more than three hundred ingots--all that were required! A month remained in which to prepare for the great venture into the unknown.

* * * * *

It was with a feeling of overwhelming elation that Robert and the professor gazed upon the little stack of dull, silver-gray bars in the dusk of an early July twilight. Winter and spring had come and gone while they labored. These three hundred tiny ingots were the result. Not entirely, though; for in addition to a sufficient quantity of platinum reserved for their own requirements, the Palmer laboratories had produced and sold enough platinum to defray all expenses incurred. Little wonder that they felt elated.

Professor Palmer put his arm across Robert’s broad shoulders with fatherly tenderness.

“My boy,” he said, softly, “whatever the _Sphere_ accomplishes, it has at least brought us together. To me, our perfect companionship has come to mean more than anything else. I did not realize what a lonely old man I was before you came.”

“Old man!” chided Robert. “Fifty-seven years young.”

“It is well for me that you had the _Sphere_ to occupy you, or some sweet young vision would have taken you in hand ere now. But forgive an old codger’s selfishness, Robert.”

“Time enough to think about that, professor,” smiled Robert.

“Careful. Don’t let them make a bachelor out of you. An old bachelor is a superfluity for which no one really cares. Even an old maid has her cat.”

“Very well. We’ll each make love to a moon-maiden,” laughed Robert, and Professor Palmer joined him heartily.

The following day the small ingots were melted and forced into the big, flattish, circular, platinum-lined and studded mold. Before the pouring was attempted, the mold was securely fastened down as a precaution against the lifting power of the mythonite when freed from the earth’s gravity by the interruption of the platinum beneath it. As an additional precaution, a disk of platinum was suspended over the mass, thereby neutralizing the attraction of heavenly bodies.

With great care, the platinum-incased mass of mythonite was installed in the _Sphere_. A stout steel rod and universal joint connected it to the gyrostatic center, and the wiring and other details of its proper control were quickly completed. The petrol and oxygen tanks were partly filled, the gyrostats tuned up, and the _Sphere_ at last was ready for a trial trip.

5

Henry Simms, much interested, but skeptical to the last, was shown the interior of the _Sphere_ on the afternoon set for the first trial. He crawled through the manhole after Robert and the professor, firmly convinced that he was about to witness a flat failure of the _Sphere_ for which the professor claimed so much. To do him justice, though, it should be stated that Henry’s expectations were not without keen sympathy for the disappointment to which he felt certain the professor was doomed.

“She looks more like a submarine than a blimp, professor,” was his first comment as they reached the main compartment.

Indeed, the interior of the _Sphere_, with its intricate mass of machinery and its bull’s-eye windows, its riveted partitions and curved walls, and the incandescent lamps, did suggest a typical underseas craft.

“She goes up, Henry, not down,” the professor laughed.

“Deal me out, then,” cried Henry. “I am not prepared to go up for keeps yet!”

“Rest easy,” said Robert. “It will be much easier to drop back, if in doubt, than to continue upward.”

Robert proceeded to explain the _Sphere’s_ important features for Henry’s benefit.

“Here is the gage that registers the pull of the disk,” he said, finally, after having explained the rudiments of the _Sphere’s_ operation. He indicated a dial attached to the rod which harnessed the powerful mythonite disk to the core of the _Sphere_.

He pushed the first of a row of switch buttons on the controller. Poor Henry’s heart fluttered as a faint scraping sound heralded the mere opening of one of the three cameralike platinum shutters over the mythonite disk’s highly magnetic surface. He was already regretting his consent to accompany them on a trial flight. The handle on the dial of the lifting gage suddenly raced from zero and steadied at 605 pounds. The _Sphere_ remained at rest.

All three men were now keyed to the highest pitch of excitement. This was the first time the completed apparatus had been tested, and upon its results depended entirely the success of the _Sphere_ and its remarkable project planned by the professor.

The registered tension on the strong steel arm removed all doubt from the minds of Robert and Professor Palmer regarding the success of mythonite as a practical power of propulsion. A feeling of wild exultation gripped them both.

“Danger from shock of sudden great pull is avoided by gradual uncovering of the disk’s surface,” resumed Robert as he pushed the next button, sending the hand on the dial up to 1,420. The third button swung it to 3,475, accompanied by a slight tremor perceptible in the floor of the _Sphere_. Their startled glances through the nearest porthole satisfied them, however, that the _Sphere_ still rested on _terra firma_.

Robert pushed all three of the corresponding row of buttons directly over the first three, and the hand again registered zero.

“I don’t want to lift the roof off your barn, professor,” exclaimed Robert. “I’ll start the gyrostats now to neutralize the _Sphere’s_ weight, and we will get out and push it outside the stable.”

A few minutes later the now thoroughly convinced Henry watched his companions disappear within the _Sphere’s_ shell while he debated with himself as to whether he should follow them. A moment later Professor Palmer appeared at a porthole and beckoned him; but Henry shook his head vehemently.

The professor unlatched the window and swung it open.

“Hurry in, Henry,” he called. “Voyage is about to commence.”

“Not I, professor! This suits me real well, right out here.”

“Come on, Henry,” the professor urged. “You aren’t afraid?”

“Not afraid--just a little bit careful. I’m just beginning to find out how nice and solid this ground feels. I’ll watch you do it.”

And no amount of urging would change his mind. He politely but firmly maintained that he felt much healthier outside.

“Stubborn chap, that,” the professor commented to Robert. “Can’t say that I blame him, though.”

“Simply a difference in the values we set on our own carcasses,” suggested Robert. “Henry just takes his more seriously than we.”

They laughed. Both, somehow, felt relieved afterward. Henry had furnished a welcome diversion. The former nervous tension was broken.

“Well, so long, old man,” Robert called out the window, as he prepared to close it.

“Give my regards to Saint Peter,” shouted Henry.

“Cheerful cuss,” contributed the professor, as the heavy glass slammed shut.

Robert stopped the gyrostats.

A deep silence reigned within the heavy walls as he examined carefully the delicate machinery upon which so much depended. Then he pulled the lever, setting them in motion again. Their steady purr was a relief from the oppressive silence.

Professor Palmer’s keen eyes followed him as he moved about. Robert’s excitement of the previous minutes was forgotten as he expertly, almost lovingly, ran his eyes over every detail of the perfect, whirring machinery, most of which his father had produced. His throat contracted strangely as his thoughts dwelt for a moment on his beloved parent. His mother he could scarcely remember, for she had died when he was but a baby of three years. But his father had been his constant companion--his pal. What would he not have given to have him standing by him at this moment, on the eve of his triumph, of the realization of his dreams!

Being a shrewd judge of human nature, the professor rightly guessed his thoughts at that moment. A suspicious moisture in Robert’s eyes confirmed his guess.

Robert’s next move was to adjust the direction of the disk’s covered face toward the zenith. The gyrostats were revolving smoothly. With bated breath, he again pushed the button which partly bared the disk.

The _Sphere_ gave a slight lurch. This was followed by a sensation like that felt in an elevator rising suddenly. A faint shout from below. With one impulse Robert’s and the professor’s glances swept eagerly through the ports.

There they saw just what they had expected to see; but the actuality affected them curiously. Oddly enough, they had subconsciously expected till the last moment that the _Sphere_ would fail.

The landscape seemed to be dropping from under them. Even the horizon was receding alarmingly.

* * * * *

Robert’s hand shot out to the control board, closing the disk’s surface. A slight tremor evidenced the abrupt cessation of the disk’s pull.

“Six thousand feet,” read Professor Palmer from the altimeter.

Robert joined him. A few minutes later it registered seven thousand. They were still rising, but not nearly so rapidly as before. The closing of the disk had checked their speed at once.

“A little more and I’d have boosted her right off the earth,” said Robert, breathlessly. “I’ll have to use the disk more sparingly on ordinary sight-seeing excursions hereafter.”

“You had it opened only to first power, too, hadn’t you?”

“Yes; and without the ‘juice’ turned on. Jove! We didn’t realize how much reserve power of propulsion we had. It’s well that I experimented first with the minimum. And the current almost quadruples the magnetism of mythonite! Phew!”

Robert paused and read the altimeter again. Eight thousand. He gripped the gyrostatic control, and carefully moved it to half speed.

The _Sphere_ seemed to pause a moment, then they could detect its beginning to settle earthward as the neutralization of gravity was modified. Six thousand; five thousand; they were dropping steadily at a rate of nearly a thousand feet a minute.

Robert shoved the lever back to full speed and the _Sphere’s_ downward momentum was quickly checked. With the disk safely throttled, the _Sphere_ became as a rubber balloon. They merely drifted in midair.

Together they peered through the observation well in the floor. Through this they could plainly see the landscape, some three thousand feet below, sliding by sluggishly as they drifted with the light air current. From the side ports they could discern the big Palmer homestead and the laboratories about a mile and a half to the west of them. It was an ideal day for observation. The sky was cloudless, and the air of crystal clearness.

“Well, professor, shall we run back to our stall, or take a little sight-seeing jaunt?” queried Robert.

“Let’s see some of the country, by all means,” decided the professor, his face aglow with boyish excitement and anticipation.

“All right; here goes,” Robert sang out as he deflected the disk to a horizontal position, pointing due north.

The next instant he switched open the first shutter from the disk’s surface. There was a jerk, and the landscape suddenly began slipping away to the south with accelerating speed. Another click, and their speed was further increased. Once more the switch clicked, releasing the last shutter from over the disk. The _Sphere_ seemed literally to leap ahead. A muffled roar without indicated the great speed at which they were rushing through the air.

Town after town flashed by beneath them with astonishing rapidity. The fact that they were flying at a comparatively low altitude made their speed seem terrific. Robert wisely decided to seek a safer height. He elevated the disk several degrees and the _Sphere_ promptly soared higher. At eight thousand feet he checked its upward trend.

Far away to the east they could see a solitary big biplane bound in the same direction as they--probably a fast mail express; but it was quickly left behind, and lost from view in the afternoon haze.

For twenty minutes they roared northward. Then, to their surprize, a vast body of water appeared against the horizon ahead.

“Lake Erie!” gasped Robert, after a moment’s reflection. “Two hundred miles in less than half an hour. Why--that’s about five hundred miles an hour! And without the aid of electric magnetization of the disk!”

“Marvelous!” exclaimed the professor, enthusiastically.

Already they were soaring over the expanse of water. On the horizon the distant Canadian shore was rapidly taking shape. Beneath them several long, slim lake craft could be discerned, crawling at what appeared, from so great a height, to be a snail’s pace. No doubt the _Sphere_ would have presented a much more curious sight to those below had its luminous gray shell been more than a faint speck against the brilliant, cloudless sky.

It was at this juncture that Robert’s alert ears detected a subtle change in the hitherto soft whir of the gyrostats.

“What is it, Robert?” whispered Professor Palmer, as he observed Robert’s suddenly tense attitude.

“Wait!” anxiously.

Outside, the muffled roar sounded in strange contrast to the still air within. The bright sunshine streamed across the gray door in mock cheerfulness. A single captive fly buzzed drowzily against a windowpane.

These commonplace details registered on Robert’s mind indelibly in those fleeting seconds as he listened with palpitating heart for he knew not what.

Taking his cue from Robert, Professor Palmer was listening with equal intensity to the drone of the machinery upon which their lives depended. Even he could now detect the change. The drone was gradually, unmistakably, decreasing in volume. The gyrostats were stopping!

Unconsciously they gripped each other’s hands an instant as they realized the seriousness of their plight. Should the gyrostats stop, the _Sphere_ would plunge to its doom!

Frantically Robert tortured his mind for a possible solution, or a reason for the unexpected interruption. The altimeter already indicated that they were falling at a steadily increasing speed. The formerly tiny ships below were no longer tiny. The water seemed to be rushing toward them at a terrific rate. Robert remembered afterward a sudden inane conjecture as to how big a splash they would make.

It was at this moment his numbed senses returned to him. Cursing himself silently for a rattle-brained idiot, he spun the wheel madly, thus adjusting the vertical position of the disk. To his tortured mind it seemed an eternity before it finally pointed toward the zenith.

Their downward rush was noticeably checked, but the lift of the disk was not equal to the weight of the _Sphere_. They continued to fall at a dangerous rate. The altimeter registered but two thousand feet!

Fully recovered now from his former temporary inertia, Robert jammed over the switch which connected the disk to the powerful storage batteries. This was the reserve that he had not ventured to utilize before. Thus the lift of the _Sphere_ should have been increased more than four-fold, and its descent checked at once.

As the switch swung over, the gyrostats stopped completely. In a flash the explanation of it all occurred to Robert. The batteries were exhausted!

6

The world was rudely shaken from its customary lethargy.

Having lapsed into a monotonous, smooth-running order of events, the public had long since resigned itself to such. Not since the Great War had newspapers had such an opportunity. Even the steady development of trans-Atlantic and trans-continental air traffic had become commonplace.

Of the myriad readers, perhaps none was so keenly interested in the article which appeared on the front page of every paper in the United States on the morning of the eighteenth as Henry Simms.

Since the _Sphere_ had disappeared from his astonished gaze the day before, he had anxiously awaited its return. As hour after hour passed, his fears for its little crew of two grew proportionately. He had little faith in the curious invention to which the professor and his companion had entrusted their lives.

So it was with little spirit that Henry sat down to his breakfast that morning at the Palmer homestead, where he lived. He picked up the morning paper listlessly, hoping it might contain some report of the _Sphere_. He feared that if it did contain such news, it would be fatal news. Henry was a pessimist.

The big heading escaped his notice at first because he was looking for some smaller notice regarding the _Sphere_ and its failure to return. Then suddenly it caught his eye. Breathlessly he devoured it.

SENSATION

CAUSED BY FLYING SPHERE

Curious Metal Blimp Seen Floating Above Lake Vessels’ Mast Tops

STRANGE NEW AIR TRIUMPH

Heavier than air machine with no visible means of ascension or propulsion possesses marvelous speed

(Special Dispatch to the Morning Chronicle)

ERIE, Pa., July 18.--The freighter, “Mary Ann”, arriving here tonight, reported a remarkable incident.

About 4 o’clock this afternoon a member of the crew descried a small speck over the southern horizon. This speck grew in size rapidly until it became apparent that it was not only approaching the “Mary Ann”, but falling with great velocity from its former immense height. It looked to be a large grayish globe.

During the ensuing moments, it seemed as if a huge cannon ball were launched directly at the vessel. Her destruction seemed certain. Consternation seized the crew and officers, who, by this time, were all aware of the pending disaster.

At a critical moment, however, the big ball was seen to slacken in its downward rush, until finally it hung suspended in the air directly above the mast tops, drifting slowly astern.

At this close range several round windows could be seen in the heavily riveted walls of the sphere. A glimpse of the operator was caught as he busily maneuvered divers levers.

Although evidently of considerable weight, and without visible means of support or propulsion, the sphere seemed to float in midair as lightly as a balloon. It appeared to be nearly thirty feet in diameter.

Suddenly a deep humming was heard. A moment later the sphere rose with gathering speed until it appeared to have reached a height of about half a mile. Then it shot abruptly off toward the south at great speed, disappearing rapidly over the horizon.