CHAPTER 3
EXPLORERS INTO INFINITY
"You think we've got everything in it?" Frannie asked anxiously.
We had gotten the vehicle back to a size normal to our own stature; and all day had been working to equip it. The instrument room—its Space and Time and size mechanisms were complete. I had learned now that it was to be transported through Space by very similar principles to those commonly in use—a controlled attraction or repulsion of the faces of its cube for the heavenly body nearest to it; in effect, an intensification—a neutralization—or reversal at will of the electronic force which flows between and mutually attracts all material bodies; the force which once—in centuries past—was called gravitation. It needed no word of explanation. Its velocity and distance dials, its direction indicators, were familiar, though rather more intricate than those I had seen in the Interplanetary Service. Beyond that, there was a bank of dials upon which a changing size was recorded—with the vehicle's present starting dimensions to be the standard unit. And other dials for its Time-change. Of these there were two distinct sets. One, a record of the normal Time-change, inevitable to a change of size; another, a comparison of that Time-distance with the normal Time-progress of the earth, so that the Time-position of the vehicle into the earth's Past or Future could be seen.
In a subsidiary instrument-room was a variety of modern astronomical apparatus; the myrdoscope, and a receiver for an aural ray which, as a guide to Brett, Dr. Gryce was to send from earth. Of this, in more detail, they later explained.
In a smaller room were the apparatus for air renewal, the making of various necessary gases, water and synthetic foods; a store-room of provisions; rooms furnished comfortably so that the vehicle was complete in its living quarters. A thousand details, until at the last I felt as Frannie did—wondering how we could have failed to overlook a score of things we had intended to do.
It was nightfall when we finished; and all that evening we spent checking up the equipment. Dr. Gryce's home had not been seriously damaged by the morning's mishap; and as midnight approached we gathered in the little observation and instrument room he had built in its upper story. Brett and Martt, it had been decided, were to make the journey; we others were to watch and wait. It seemed the more difficult role. All that evening Dr. Gryce had been increasingly silent, careworn of manner and aspect. And though Brett was excited in his mature, repressed fashion—and Martt frankly exuberant—I saw that little Frannie was solemn, perturbed as her father.
It was a soft, brilliant, cloudless night, with no moon to pale the gleaming stars. And at last every detail was settled, and the midnight hour we had set for departure was at hand. We went forth with them to the waiting vehicle. There was nothing more to say. They stood—Brett and Martt—in the opened doorway as we gathered about them.
"Well—good-bye, Father—good-bye, Frannie dear." Brett held her close; then released her, pushed her away. "Good-bye, Frank." His hand-clasp was warm and steady.
Martt was jocular, but now at the last I could hear a tremble to his voice. "When we get to that girl out there—well, I'm going to tell her how interested you all are in her." His laugh was high-pitched. "That is, if we can handle that giant."
"Good-bye, Brett. Good-bye, Martt."
Our words were so futile, so inadequate to the surge of feeling within us! The door slid closed upon them. The vehicle, not to change size until it was far into the realms of outer interstellar Space, beyond our crowding little planets—lifted gently, soared upward, slid away from us, a glistening white shape up there in the quiet starlight.
Gravely, silently, with what sinking of heart I could only imagine, Dr. Gryce stood regarding it. Beside me Frannie was crying softly.
Explorers into infinity! And they were gone, to encounter—what?