Part 4
Gravitors for the lift units and the propulsion unit were built, tested, and installed. A cargo deck was built into the belly of the ship, accessable through large side doors. Power circuits and control systems were installed. The forward, control pit, and aft compartment decks and bulk-heads were welded into place. Then they let their imaginations run riot on the interior decoration, fittings, and furnishings which were easily constructed of plastic framework with celatex stretched and pressed firmly over it to form the desired curves, bulges, and flowing lines. Then they went over it with sand-paper, paint-brushes, and dark blue and mirror-chrome plastic lacquer.
The interior was, to put it mildly, luxurious and ultra-modern. Smooth, flowing instrument panels and storage lockers molded into the walls, foam-rubber chairs growing out of the decks, bunk-seats sunk into the bulk-heads, and transparent-topped tables sprouting their chrome frames from the fore and aft lounge decks. They finished it up with a small lavatory and an electric hot-plate in the bulk-head cubicles just off the forward lounge.
Finally, transparent plexiglass was fitted into the long port-hole slots along the hull, and a large plexiglass dome was mounted over the control pit above the smoothly tapered nose. Then they papered the plexiglass and manned a spray-gun, giving the entire outer skin a thorough coat of shimmering black lacquer.
The complete construction took all of six weeks working from dawn to well after sunset. When it was finished, Smitty took the truck and went into Stockton to purchase the three automobile batteries which would be used to power the ship.
That night, Morrow sat at his drafting table scrawling rough diagrams and pencilling in mathematical notations around them and on the back of the papers. His table lamp threw a bright pool of light in the corner of the dark, shadowy workshop. The night was completely silent, save for the distant sighing of the wind through the pines outside, the faint scratching sound of his pencil, and the clicking and whispering of the slide-rule in his hands when he paused to compute some factor in the diagrams.
Building and weight-testing the gravitors that went into the ship had led to speculation of other possible uses of the mechanisms. The possibilities were many, and Morrow spent his spare-time working them out. His ability, however, was limited.
First, there was the electronic efficiency of the gravitors, the increased power gained from battery storage-cells, the decreased loss of power within the circuits and mechanism. 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. It might work, but he didn't have the knowledge to tell exactly how it could be made. It wasn't his line.
Then, there was the possibility of using the increased gravitor-field efficiency in radio communications. This was right up his alley, but the implications went so far and so deep that only a thoroughly experienced and trained scientist could trace all of them. He hadn't been an engineer long enough to have acquired that much training and experience; he wasn't a renowned scientist in the field. He couldn't always be sure where he was right or wrong in his computations. This was pure research; no book had ever been written for it. He couldn't look up all the answers.
But it appeared that a small radio set would have the power to reach anywhere in the Solar System, not to mention the extensive refinements of any television and/or radar set-up.
The possible refinements of chemical catalysts and electro-chemical processes were extensive, too. Staring at his diagrammatical results, Morrow wondered if mechanisms couldn't be perfected to measure the taste of foodstuffs as the taste-buds in the human mouth did, to measure the smell of odors as the human nose did, to convert carbon-dioxide into oxygen as plants did--even mechanisms which would react selectively to the electrical impulses generated by the cells of the human brain!
But he wasn't a chemist. He could only guess at the possibilities.
Finally, there was the possibility of applying the gravitors directly to the problem of transporting the human body by air. Part of this, he could answer: a gravitor strapped to a man's back would more than replace the conventional parachute for emergency bail-outs. The gravitor could be hooked into alternate power-circuits with alternate field-transmission coils, so if it failed to work on one setting the wearer could switch it to another, the equivalent of wearing a second parachute in case the first failed to open. And unlike a parachute, the wearer would have complete control over his rate of fall: he could descend gently to the ground or, if he wished, he could stop and hover in the air or even reverse his descent and rise upward.
That was part of it. Morrow had discussed it with Smitty and they'd decided to incorporate it into their project. In addition to having the ship look like something from outer space, there was also the problem of having to make a forced-landing somewhere. They might be seen on the ground, repairing their ship. The gravitors could be built into a tank carried on their backs, and fastened to a special harness costume complete with transparent helmet fitting over their heads. The helmets would protect their faces from the wind in a bail-out. Also, their appearance would be altered just enough to make them seem to be visitors from another planet, beings who did not breathe Earth's atmosphere.
But that still didn't give the human body a means of transportation by air. A small, portable propulsion unit was needed for that, and Morrow wasn't at all sure he could design such a unit. He was not a jet engineer.
He wasn't too sure about the large propulsion unit in the tail of the ship, either. Basically, it was a ram-jet unit. It ought to work, but it might not work too well....
* * * * *
Morrow tossed down his pencil and slide-rule, sighing, then pressed his hands over his aching eyes and rose from the table. _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. Those vanes had been Smitty's contribution, operating on a cross-control system to bank the ship and lift it around a turn as the aileron-elevators did on flying wing aircraft. No other control surfaces were installed; the long, sleek rudder fin was immovable.
The night wind soughed through the forest on some nearby mountain slope. The ship stood black and silent, gleaming softly in the deep gloom of the workshop. It was a weirdly beautiful thing, like some creature of the Unknown.
_Straight out of the science-fiction magazines!_ Morrow mused, grinning. _If Gwyn could only see it--_
A vision of her rose into his thoughts: Gwyn, lying on her stomach, the tight roll of her swimming trunks about her thighs, the smooth, tanned skin of her slender body, the firm swell of a breast beneath her armpit, the sunlight glints on her brown hair and the cool, calm wariness in her eyes....
Morrow grimaced wryly. Gwyn again! He'd been thinking entirely too often of her, and too much, since he'd left Westerton. He kept telling himself she was just another of the sacrifices he'd been forced to make, another part of his life he'd had to deny himself--
Still, when he slept he dreamed.
He was just too damned young, he told himself harshly. The demands of his body were strongest at his age; it wouldn't let him alone. His instinct to mate, to reproduce his kind, demanded satisfaction. There was danger in that. If he fought it, denied it, kept it bottled up inside him, it could spread and infest his whole being until it became a perverse fixation on sex. He had to have some outlet for 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.
* * * * *
They installed the batteries and climbed out through the simulated air-lock entrance to the ship, peeling off their gloves and shoving them into their hip pockets. Smitty turned, wiping his hands on his coveralls, and looked up at the ship.
"We can ground-test her without taking her outside," he said plaintively.
Morrow picked up his mackinaw and slung it over his shoulder, grinning. "Can't you wait 'til tonight?"
Smitty scowled at him. "Suppose she doesn't check out? Then we'll spend the rest of the night overhauling her! We oughta give her a ground-test right in here, Bill."
"Fair enough--if she doesn't go through the roof! But let's wait 'till after breakfast, anyway." He walked over to the stove, checked its fire, and shoved a couple more sticks onto it to keep it burning until they got back. "C'mon," he prompted, heading for the door. "I'm hungry if you aren't!"
They left the workshop and crunched through the brittle ground-frost to their shack. Morrow took his turn as cook, whipped up a batch of sausage, eggs, and pancakes, and boiled the coffee to the strength he preferred--which Smitty diluted liberally with canned milk. They gulped down their breakfast, cleaned the dishes, and strode deliberately back to the workshop. The chill November air bit into their clothes, but neither hastened his pace.
As they entered the warmth and shadow of the workshop and pulled off their coats, Morrow felt a fluttery sensation in his stomach which he carefully neglected to mention. It was probably indigestion, anyway.
Smitty, too, was silent. He tossed his coat on the workbench, strode straight to the open air-lock door, and clambored up into the ship. A tight grin creased Morrow's face as he followed with what casualness he could muster.
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.
"Flight station checks," Smitty reported quietly.
"Roger." Morrow swept his hands across the console, flipping on the twenty-four switches. "Stand by for gravitor check," he added, then clicked on the two knobs.
The ship shifted slightly beneath them. The faint, sighing sound of wind came from the tail.
On the console, twenty-one signal lights flashed blue. Three flashed red. Morrow scowled at them.
"Report gravitor check!" Smitty prompted impatiently.
"Three gravitors out," Morrow growled. "One auxiliary lifter, one auxiliary and one main drive gravitor. Must be a short in 'em somewhere."
"We don't need the drives for a ground-test," Smith reminded him. "Cut to main lift units and let's try her out!"
"Wilco." He switched off the drive knob and the twelve auxiliary lifter switches. "Stand by to rise!"
The sighing wind was gone from the tail. He gripped the lifter knob in his fingertips and, turning his head, stared out at the dark floor of the workshop below.
He turned the knob, cautiously.
The ship rocked gently, then lifted. The floor dropped away beneath them.
"Watch it!" Smitty warned tersely.
The ship paused, then seemed to settle.
They floated serenely, twenty feet above the workshop floor. The heavy rafters of the roof loomed close over the transparent blister.
Smitty cleared his throat, nervously. "I think that's high enough!" he exclaimed.
Morrow permitted himself a fleeting grin, then began to inch the knob back toward its stop. "Stand by for descent!" he warned.
The ship settled slowly. The floor rose up with majestic deliberation--then paused again.
"How high are we?" Morrow asked.
"A little over four feet on the altimeter," Smitty replied. "Want to hold her here a while?"
"I want you to climb out and see how much it alters her lift," Morrow explained. "One less passenger shouldn't affect it at all, but let's make sure."
"Wilco." Smitty rose from his seat and came back toward the steps.
"Jump around a little," Morrow said. "See if it rocks her any."
Grinning, Smitty banged noisily down the steps and clattered back through the ship. She rode perfectly still, unmoving. Smiling his satisfaction, Morrow waited.
Then Smitty walked around the bulge of the nose, on the floor below, and waved to him. Morrow waved back and, rising, moved up to the front seat. The altimeter still registered slightly over four feet. He returned to the console, sat down--and snapped off the lift knob.
The ship settled immediately to the floor, struck lightly, and rocked to a standstill. Morrow clambored down the steps and felt his way back through the dark interior to the air-lock.
Smitty was waiting for him as he dropped to the floor. "She checks, doesn't she?"
"She checks," Morrow affirmed. "Now let's get to work on those shorted gravitors!"
* * * * *
The first night's tests were preliminary. They lifted the ship a few feet off the ground and flew it across the sawmill yard and back. They switched the gravitors from main to auxiliary systems. They loaded the cargo deck amidships with sandbags and flew a weight-test. They took the ship up to fifty feet and held it there until the wind, blowing them toward the trees, forced them to come down.
The ship checked out in every test. They decided to make the first trial flight the next night.
Morrow sat up in the co-pilot's seat beside Smitty as they drove steadily through the darkness. Above, the stars twinkled coldly in the black heavens and the white sickle of a quarter-moon threw its milky glow into the control pit. Below, rolling gray stretches of meadow spread out between dark, timber-clad shoulders and humps of the Sierras. To the East, the timber gave way to rocky, cloud-wreathed peaks. They were headed toward them, and climbing.
"Five thousand on the altimeter," 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. A brisk twenty-five-mile-an-hour wind was blowing them steadily southward off their course.
Smitty shook his head. "Those jets don't even _sound_ right, Bill--"
"I know," Morrow said. He sighed wearily. "We've got to do better than this. Take her higher--ram-jets are supposed to work better at high altitude."
"I don't want to go over twelve thousand without oxygen," Smitty replied. "Can't let this wind blow us down over Yosemite National Park, either--if we can help it."
"Take her up," Morrow said.
The ship continued to rise, steadily.
"Eleven thousand," Smitty chanted. "Eleven thousand five hundred, twelve thousand, twelve thousand five--she's flattening out!"
Their ascent slowed, gradually. The ship steadied at thirteen thousand feet above sea-level--7500 feet on the altimeter, which had been zeroed to the altitude of their sawmill workshop.
"Down!" Morrow barked. "She's losing speed!"
The indicator needle was creeping back past thirty-five, then thirty--their sideward shift to the south could be felt. Smitty shoved forward his control wheel. The ship dived.
They glided easily back across the mountain slope toward their sawmill. Judging their wind-drift accurately, Smitty set the ship down in the yard before the black, yawning doors of the building. As the runners scraped the ground, he switched off the gravitors and slumped back in his seat, dejectedly.
"We've got to rebuild that jet chamber," he muttered. "There's something wrong with it, Bill. All we've got is a big wind-blower, in spite of her weightlessness--the drag of the hull wouldn't slow us down _that_ much!"
Morrow unbuckled his seat-belt, rose, and strode back to the steps without a word.
It took them a week to pull out the rear bulk-heads and completely redesign and reconstruct the tail-jet assembly. When they finished, they tried it again. They got an air-speed of seventy m.p.h. at low level, but it dropped to twenty m.p.h. as they gained altitude. The tail-jets didn't just make a whooming sound, this time--they made a rumbling, burbling sound.
They landed and pulled the ship into the workshop, closing the big doors after it. Morrow walked over to the workbench, pulled off his gloves, and threw them down.
"It's no good!" he said harshly. "That jet chamber just isn't shaped right--there's too much turbulence in it, breaks up the jet-blast."
"We'll rebuild it again," Smitty said, with a shrug in his voice.
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!" He smacked his fist into his palm, decisively. "We've got to get help, chum."
"Help?" Smitty turned and looked at him, querulously. "Where can we get help?"
"A jet engineer," Morrow snapped irritably. "That's the only one who _can_ help us. We've got to find one--" He broke off, suddenly thoughtful.
Smitty grinned without mirth, mistaking his silence for hopelessness. "That's the trouble, Bill," he said. "There's no one who _would_ help us!"
"I'm not so sure about that!" Morrow replied softly. "_I'm not so sure at all--_"
* * * * *
It was late Friday afternoon when Morrow parked the battered, mud-splattered truck on a side-street and climbed out to go for a quiet stroll in suburban Sacramento.
The street address he was looking for turned up in the next block, near the edge of town. It was an inconspicuous one of the long street-row of small houses with a green lawn stretching down to the curb and dotted with a few evergreen shrubs, a broad livingroom picture window in front, a white front door with a small ornamental iron night-lamp mounted above it, and a one-story, red-tiled roof in the flat, gently sloping California style.
Morrow walked past the house and around the block to the alley. He walked up the alley behind the house. Its rear was as inconspicuous as its front: a wide yard, partly in lawn, partly in flower garden and part gravelled with clothesline, enclosed by a low, whitewashed wood fence. The only noticeable difference was a small sand-box in which a small brother and sister were playing with toy cars. The little boy and girl wore matching rompers and had straw-colored hair which, Morrow concluded, they must have inherited from their mother. He'd never met Mrs. Foster, but he remembered Bob Foster's dark, heavy hair.
He walked on down the alley, studying the back yards behind the other houses. He noted how wide the alleyway was, how high surrounding fences, garages, and other obstructions were, and the lack of telephone poles or wires overhead. He nodded his satisfaction.
When he got back to the truck, he took a street-map from the glove compartment and carefully marked the exact location of Foster's house.
Then he drove out of Sacramento, had dinner at a roadside restaurant, and proceeded to Stockton. Smitty met him downtown and they went into a lunchroom for coffee.
"Groceries and laundry's taken care of," Smitty reported wryly. "How was Sacramento?"
"Fine," Morrow said. "If the weather forecasts for tomorrow night pan out, we'll get in and out without any trouble."
Smitty frowned worriedly. "It's still a big risk to take, Bill. We'll be flying into the Coastal Radar-Defense Zone, you know, and we can't just file a flight-plan at an airport for an unauthorized, illegal ship. I'd hate to look up and see an F-140 night-fighter with its nose-cannon blazing at me!"
"That ground radar isn't effective below three thousand feet," Morrow reminded him. "I think we can sneak in at treetop-level without being detected."
"That's all right, unless we fly into a power-line in the dark," Smitty grumbled. "It's still risky as hell--"
"We've got to have Foster," Morrow said firmly. "I can't say for sure whether he'll join us or not, but we've got to try!"
"Okay!" Smitty signed resignedly. "We'll try."
The following night, Morrow left Smitty checking over their ship and flight equipment and drove the truck down to a gas station on the highway, thirty miles west of their sawmill-workshop. He parked beside the gas pumps, told the attendant to fill the tank and check the oil, and went inside to the pay-phone booth.
He called Sacramento Long Distance and gave them Foster's home videophone number.
There was some fault in calling from a pay-phone, of course--and a Long Distance call on a rural pay-phone at that. Neither Long Distance calls nor pay-phones nor rural phones had the new videophone accessories. Videophones, involving two-way television transmission via a camera-screen installation, were still in the development stage. Metropolitan and suburban phones had the video screens. Long Distance coaxial transmission was still too costly to merit the installation of the screens on rural phones--which also ruled out Long Distance video calls. To install the screens in pay-phones would, as yet, triple the cost of the calls.
Naturally, the Sacramento operator would inform Foster this was a Long Distance call; Foster's screen would remain blank. The gas station's pay-phone had no screen. This was a disadvantage to Morrow: not seeing Foster's face, he wouldn't be absolutely certain he was speaking to Foster. He'd have to rely on his memory of Foster's voice, and it had been more than two years since he'd met Foster.