of it, but don’t overlook that the period of acceleration will be enormously draining of power, due to our having to quickly build up velocity to that approaching light. Then will come the leap into four-dimensional space. That will be another tremendous drain on the power supply. Then again, we do not know that space approaching Alpha Centauri will be absolutely clear. There may be the colossal hulks of burned-out suns to fight against, their gravities infinitely greater than anything we have ever encountered before. There are dozens of unknown factors, hence the precautions.”
The Amazon nodded. “Better to be safe than sorry,” she agreed. “As to future copper supplies, we ought to be able to find copper-bearing Systems somewhere with which to replenish. I imagine that copper is about one of the most prolific elements throughout the Universe.”
Abna crossed to the charting console and studied the course. In a matter of minutes his agile brain had linked the equations in place and he patted the Amazon’s softly molded arm.
“Good girl! We’ll make a space pilot of you yet!”
Her violet eyes smoldered. “For your information, Abna of Jupiter, let me tell you—”
“You needn’t,” Abna grinned. “You built the Ultra and have flown it by accident into the deeps! Yes, I know—but that was an enforced journey and more or less of an accident. This, let us hope, will be interesting even if the initial buildup in acceleration is crushing.”
He said no more. Leaving the navigation chamber, he set himself the task of checking over the multi-switchboards, a job which took him the rest of the day. Indeed, with only short intervals between, the three worked ceaselessly on their preparations right up to the time of departure, which was ten p.m. the following evening. Then, in the mellow summer dusk, they arrived at the hangar, ready attired in their space clothes—light tunics for Abna and Viona, and skin-fitting black tights for the Amazon, relieved by the single solid gold belt about her slender waist.
“I have the feeling,” the Amazon remarked, as they all three stood in the big airlock and watched the hangar around them automatically fold itself away into sections, “that we’re looking our last on Earth for a very, very long time to come.”
“A most cheerful note on which to depart,” Abna commented.
“True, nevertheless. We’ll go forward, Abna, once we’ve reached Alpha—not backward.”
There was silence for a moment. The only sound on the still summer evening air came from the city itself—a deep, resonant throb of industry. Here and there the lights were automatically coming up. Away to the east an Earth-Mars space liner was just coming in, its portholes glowing warmly.
“All right.” Abna said at last, his voice quiet, “let’s be on our way.”
The Amazon and Viona went ahead of him into the control room. Abna pulled over the switch that sealed the airlock, then he gave a final glance over the instruments.
“We know exactly what we’re doing?” he asked.
“Certainly,” the Amazon assented. “Everything is to be automatic until the first copper block has spent itself. By that time we ought to be beyond the orbit of Pluto, and really well launched on our journey. Then the automatic controls will switch the ship into the fourth dimension—during which time we might as well relax in sleep, since there’ll be nothing to see—then we will awaken when we drop back into normal space.”
“Correct,” Abna agreed. “Let’s get settled.”
Without any fuss they went into a compartment in the center of the vessel where they settled themselves on powerfully sprung beds, strapping themselves down so that, as acceleration finally ceased, they would not float away from their moorings.
Beside each bed was a bank of controls, as compactly contained as though on a typewriter keyboard. By this means they could each do their respective parts in controlling the mighty vessel, the slave switchboards being connected to the masters in the control room.
Abna, lying calmly with his forearms in the movable rests, held his fingertips above the buttons and looked at the chronometer in the ceiling.
“Fifteen seconds to go,” he said, and moved the button which started up the power plant. Immediately a dull whining pervaded the sealed-in silence.
“Six,” Abna said presently. “Five—four—three—two—one—”
It was the Amazon’s hand that moved next, closing the switch that transferred the atomic power to the recoil jets. Instantly the vast space machine began to rise—traveling diagonally as far as the trio was concerned—since the internal chambers were all built on universal mountings. Externally, the Ultra was almost at the vertical, its rear tubes blazing an inconceivable holocaust of expanding fire and poisonous gases.
Faster and faster still the machine cleaved the dusk of the evening, hurtling upwards into the unclouded sky, leaving Earth as a titanic, lighted patchwork below. The three on the pressure beds absorbed the awful sensation calmly, accustomed to it from their many space journeys in the past. And in any case, nothing like the maximum velocity had yet been achieved.
Switches clicked under Viona’s slim fingers. Instantly the Ultra gave a mighty surge. Here within the insulated walls there was no sound, but outside the awful roar of the Ultra’s departure into space was heard for over two hundred miles, a cleaving channel of scattering fire defining the track into the upper heavens.
Faster and yet faster, each movement of a relay piling speed upon speed, velocity upon velocity. Even when the full depth of the Earth’s atmospheric belt had been penetrated—at which point acceleration was usually slackened off—the power was still increased. Motionless, beginning now to feel the terrible dragging weight of acceleration upon them, the three moved their buttons in the correct sequences, watching meanwhile the fantastic gyrations of the velocity readings as miles per second flashed into hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of miles per second. They were traveling now at a prodigious velocity, and with every moment it was still increasing.
They were beyond the orbit of the Moon and flashing onward toward the orbit of Mars. Still the speed increased. Switches clicked. Hearts labored. Breathing became a vast effort, herculean though the three were in strength.… The metal walls around them were spinning in a blaze of lights that slowly faded as they deliberately let themselves slip into unconsciousness.
With nothing to guide it in the way of a human hand, the Ultra thereafter flashed onwards with awful velocity, the automatic controls functioning perfectly under the guidance of computers. The three on their sprung beds remained motionless, their forearms still clamped to the rests above the slave stitches, a precaution so that they might, upon return to consciousness, be able to handle the switches if at all possible. Without the rests, dragging weight could have made their arms useless and their hands mere dead lumps of clay.
Beyond Mars’ orbit, still with the velocity mounting. Then onwards past the asteroids, avoiding all danger by sweeping with prodigious speed far above the ecliptic plane of that deadly ‘minefield’ of floating bodies, and so out to the territory occupied by gigantic Jupiter. Here the automatic repulsion equipment came into action and kept the hurtling vessel clear of the deadly drag of the monster’s gravity.
Within a matter of minutes, so unbelievable was the speed which had now been attained, Jupiter was receding into the gulf arid. Superb Saturn was ahead. Non-stop, onwards and outwards, commencing now to approximate the incredible speed of light itself—186,000 miles a second.
The orbits of the outer worlds were passed. Saturn—Uranus—Neptune—Pluto—. The three remained unconscious, pressed down into a state approximating that of suspended animation, scarcely breathing, their hearts laboring under the load of acceleration…then the ship was infused with the energy warp that diverted it into the fourth dimension. And so into the deeps beyond Pluto, into those vast, incomprehensible spaces, the graveyard realm of comets and leftover materials from the birth of the Solar System. Then deeper into the space yawning between the edge of the Solar System and far-flung Alpha