The Skylark of Space by E. E. Smith (books like beach read .TXT) 📕

floor and began artificial respiration. Very soon he was rewarded by the coughing he had longed to hear. He tore off her helmet and clasped her to his breast in an agony of relief, while she sobbed convulsively upon his shoulder. The first ecstasy of their greeting over, Dorothy started guiltily.

“Oh, Dick!” she exclaimed. “How about Peggy? You must see how she is!”

“Never mind,” answered Crane’s voice cheerily. “She is coming to nicely.”

Glancing around quickly, they saw that Crane had already revived the stranger, and that DuQuesne was not in sight. Dorothy blushed, the vivid wave of color rising to her glorious hair, and hastily disengaged her arms from around her lover’s neck, drawing away from him. Seaton, also blushing, dropped his arms, and Dorothy floated away from him, frantically clutching at a brace just beyond reach.

“Pull me down, Dick!” she called, laughing gaily.

Seaton, seizing her instinctively, neglected his own anchorage and they hung in the air together, while Crane and Margaret, each holding a strap, laughed with unrestrained merriment.

“Tweet, tweet⁠—I’m a canary!” chuckled Seaton. “Throw us a rope!”

“A Dicky-bird, you mean,” interposed Dorothy.

“I knew that you were a sleight-of-hand expert, Dick, but I did not know that levitation was one of your specialties,” remarked Crane with mock gravity. “That is a peculiar pose you are holding now. What are you doing⁠—sitting on an imaginary pedestal?”

“I’ll be sitting on your neck if you don’t get a wiggle on with that rope!” retorted Seaton, but before Crane had time to obey the command the floating couple had approached close enough to the ceiling so that Seaton, with a slight pressure of his hand against the leather, sent them floating back to the floor, within reach of one of the handrails.

Seaton made his way to the power-plant, lifted in one of the remaining bars, and applied a little power. The Skylark seemed to jump under them, then it seemed as though they were back on Earth⁠—everything had its normal weight once more, as the amount of power applied was just enough to equal the acceleration of gravity. After this fact had been explained, Dorothy turned to Margaret.

“Now that we are able to act intelligently, the party should be introduced to each other. Peggy, this is Dr. Dick Seaton, and this is Mr. Martin Crane. Boys, this is Miss Margaret Spencer, a dear friend of mine. These are the boys I have told you so much about, Peggy. Dick knows all about atoms and things; he found out how to make the Skylark go. Martin, who is quite a wonderful inventor, made the engines and things for it.”

“I may have heard of Mr. Crane,” replied Margaret eagerly. “My father was an inventor, and I have heard him speak of a man named Crane who invented a lot of instruments for airplanes. He used to say that the Crane instruments revolutionized flying. I wonder if you are that Mr. Crane?”

“That is rather unjustifiably high praise, Miss Spencer,” replied Crane, “but as I have been guilty of one or two things along that line, I may be the man he meant.”

“Pardon me if I seem to change the subject,” put in Seaton, “but where’s DuQuesne?”

“We came to at the same time, and he went into the galley to fix up something to eat.”

“Good for him!” exclaimed Dorothy. “I’m simply starved to death. I would have been demanding food long ago, but I have so many aches and pains that I didn’t realize how hungry I was until you mentioned it. Come on, Peggy, I know where our room is. Let’s go powder our noses while these bewhiskered gentlemen reap their beards. Did you bring along any of my clothes, Dick, or did you forget them in the excitement?”

“I didn’t think anything about clothes, but Martin did. You’ll find your whole wardrobe in your room. I’m with you, Dot, on that eating proposition⁠—I’m hungry enough to eat the jamb off the door!”

After the girls had gone, Seaton and Crane went to their rooms, where they exercised vigorously to restore the circulation to their numbed bodies, shaved, bathed, and returned to the saloon feeling like new men. They found the girls already there, seated at one of the windows.

“Hail and greeting!” cried Dorothy at sight of them. “I hardly recognized you without your whiskers. Do hurry over here and look out this perfectly wonderful window. Did you ever in your born days see anything like this sight? Now that I’m not scared pea-green, I can enjoy it thoroughly!”

The two men joined the girls and peered out into space through the window, which was completely invisible, so clear was the glass. As the four heads bent, so close together, an awed silence fell upon the little group. For the blackness of the interstellar void was not the dark of an earthly night, but the absolute black of the absence of all light, beside which the black of platinum dust is pale and gray; and laid upon this velvet were the jewel stars. They were not the twinkling, scintillating beauties of the earthly sky, but minute points, so small as to seem dimensionless, yet of dazzling brilliance. Without the interference of the air, their rays met the eye steadily and much of the effect of comparative distance was lost. All seemed nearer and there was no hint of familiarity in their arrangement. Like gems thrown upon darkness they shone in multicolored beauty upon the daring wanderers, who stood in their car as easily as though they were upon their parent Earth, and gazed upon a sight never before seen by eye of man nor pictured in his imaginings.

Through the daze of their wonder, a thought smote Seaton like a blow from a fist. His eyes leaped to the instrument board and he exclaimed:

“Look there, Mart! We’re heading almost directly away from the Earth, and we must be making billions of miles per second. After we lost consciousness, the attraction of that big dud back there would swing us around, of course,