Final Preparations

: Secrets of Space
: Pharaoh's Broker

On the tenth day of June, Dr. Anderwelt had written me as follows:



"Please catch the 7.25 train on the Lake Shore for Whiting this

evening. I will take the same train, and we will walk from Whiting

to a deserted railway siding two miles further on, where the

projectile has been shipped. We will unload it from the flat car and

take it into a grove of scrub oaks on the shore of Lake Michigan,
< r /> near by. This will be enough to demonstrate to you our control of

gravity. The experimental model is there also, and we will send it

off on a trip if you like. Everything will be ready for the start to

Mars to-morrow night."



I dined early and caught the train specified at Twenty-Second Street.

The doctor was looking for me from the rear platform of a car. It was a

local train, and crept slowly out through the smoky blackness of South

Chicago, illuminated here and there by the flaming chimneys of her great

iron furnaces, to the little city of pungent smells, of petroleum tanks

and oil refineries, in Northern Indiana. The doctor was explaining the

difficulties he had experienced in getting a companion for the trip.



"Men whom I could hire for mere wages are not intelligent enough to

understand the workings of the projectile, or to comprehend the risks

they may run. Besides, their companionship and assistance during the

trip through space and on a new planet is worth nothing. On the other

hand, I could not afford to go about explaining the workings of so

important an invention miscellaneously to people capable of

understanding it in an experimental search for a companion. I might not

find one among twenty, and I would be tossing my secrets to the winds,

and inviting all the daily papers to send their representatives to

report the start. My reputation as a scientist, on the other side, is

too dear to me to risk a public failure. If the projectile acts, as I am

confident it must, on our return we shall take out letters patent and

form our company to exploit the business features. But primarily, this

is a test of the projectile and a journey of exploration and research.

Business afterward."



Naturally on this point we had disagreed. My motto had always been

"Business first!" and I had desired to have the patents secured

immediately. But the doctor would not consent to the filing of the

required specifications and claims, lest his secrets should be learned

before success was demonstrated. As a compromise, the doctor had agreed

to leave the necessary descriptions and data in a sealed envelope with

me, which I was to be at liberty to open and place on record at any time

during the doctor's absence that I might deem it necessary in order to

protect our rights.



"Whom have you finally secured to go with you, then?" I asked.



"I will tell you that after we have finished to-night's work," said the

doctor, and then abruptly changed the subject.



The walk from Whiting was inspiriting. It was a beautiful night. There

was not a cloud in the sky and no Moon, which made the stars all the

brighter. Everything was still, save the constant lapping of the great

lake on the sandy shore, but a short way off.



"Yonder is the mustard seed planted in the heavens, which shall grow

into a whole new world for us!" exclaimed the doctor, pointing out a

particularly bright star. "That is Mars rushing on to opposition. In six

weeks he will be nearest to the Earth; so for that time he will be

flying to meet us. To-morrow is our last day on Earth; to-morrow night

the ether! And in six weeks, diminutive but mighty man will have known

two worlds!"



"There you go, soaring again!" I cried. "Let us keep on practical

subjects. What have the foundry people who built this thing, and the

railroad people who brought it down here, thought about its probable

use? Have they not guessed something?"



"You may trust the popular mind not to guess flying unless it sees

wings! They have imagined this is a new sort of torpedo, sent down here

for a private trial in the lake. In fact, the conductor of the freight

train, who switched the car off here, asked me in a confidential way if

he should get teams and men and help me to launch her? I have fostered

this idea, and really had the projectile sent here to carry out that

impression."



A more fitting place for an unobserved start could not have been

selected, however. All this part of the country is a sandy waste, with a

sparse growth of scrub oaks and but little vegetation. There are no

farms, and the nearest houses are at Whiting. No one could see our work,

except, possibly, the passengers from occasional trains, which rushed by

without stopping, and were infrequent at this time of day.



As we were arriving, I stood off at some distance to observe the black

object on the open car. It was five feet through, and twenty feet long,

not counting the rudder, which was now entirely drawn into the rear end.



"Looks exactly like a cigar," I said. "Sharp and pointed in front,

slightly swelled in the middle, and cut squarely off behind. Only it is

too thick for its length, of course."



But the doctor already had the rear port-hole open. This was two feet in

diameter, and permitted a rather awkward entrance to the rear

compartment. The interior was crowded with boxes, as yet unpacked,

containing scientific instruments, tinned foods, biscuits, meat

extracts, condensed milk and coffee, bottled fruits, vegetables, and the

like. Over these the doctor worked his way to the forward compartment,

while I followed him, anxious to explore the interior.



"I will unpack all these goods and put them in their places to-morrow

forenoon," explained the doctor. "Here, in my compartment on the left, I

have my gravity apparatus, battery cells and the like, and a small table

for writing and other work. On the right is the bunk on which I sleep,

and under it is the big telescope, neatly fitted and swinging up easily

into place before the mica window."



"Has the compressed air been put in yet?" I inquired.



"Oh, yes, that had to be done in the city, where they have powerful air

compressors. I would have preferred this purer air out here, but it was

impossible. The air we put in only increased the weight of the

projectile eighteen pounds, but it will be sufficient for two of us for

six months. We were obliged to make the most careful and thorough tests

for leaks in the air-chambers; for if there were any of these, our life

would leak out with the air."



"And such airless satellites as the Moon will make the most desperate

efforts to steal your atmosphere, too!" I added.



"Yes, but we will give them only our foul air as a small stock-in-trade

with which they may begin business. But I see my batteries are

commencing to work nicely. I think I can lift her now. You go outside

and make a hitch with that rope you saw just forward of the middle of

the projectile. Then, when I have neutralized her weight, you tow her

over beyond that clump of trees you saw near the shore. That will be out

of the view of trains."



"Must I concentrate my mind or keep my thoughts fixed on anything?" I

asked quizzically.



"Rubbish! Concentrate it on this. If the projectile starts up, don't try

to hold her with your little rope. Let go quickly, or you may get

uncomfortable holding on!"



I went outside, untied the coil of rope and threw one end over. Meantime

the doctor had opened the forward window, so that he might give

directions, and I said to him,--



"I can't get the rope under her; she is lying flat on the car."



"Wait a moment and I will lift her for you," he replied. The railroad

ties rose a little out of the sand, and there was a slight creaking of

the woodwork of the car as the weight came off. Presently the forward

end of the projectile rose slowly an inch, two inches!



"That's enough!" I cried, thrusting the rope under, and she settled back

gently. Having made my knot, I went out to the other end of the rope,

about thirty feet distant. Forgetting the doctor's injunction about not

hanging on, I wrapped the rope around my body, worked my feet firmly

into the sand, and finally cried out, "All ready!"



There was a faint creaking of the car again, and soon the doctor said,

"Pull away!" I threw all my force into the effort and gave a tremendous

heave, and tumbled over backwards. Had I not done so, the projectile

must have hit me as it glided rapidly from the car, sinking very slowly

to the sand about fifty feet away. I scrambled to my feet, went in front

again, and easily dragged it along on the sand to an open place just

beyond the trees. There the doctor allowed it to settle. It sank into

the loose sand about eight inches, remaining steady in this position.



"She works beautifully!" I cried. "How I would like to see her turned

loose for a real flight!"



"That will come to-morrow night," said the doctor, crawling out of the

port-hole. "But if you will help me remove these boxes from the

experimental model, you shall see it lost in the sky." We uncovered and

dragged out a small steel thing, about the same shape as the projectile,

but less than a foot thick and four feet long. It had a lid opening into

its batteries from the top. The doctor entered his compartment to

secure some chemicals.



"If you have no further use for this model," I suggested, "why not

create a very strong current and let it sail off into indefinite space?"



"Very well; I don't wish to leave it behind me for some one to discover,

and I can't take it along. We will send it off for a long trip, and if

it falls back it will be into the lake."



"Wait a moment, then! Let's put a good-bye message in it;" and so saying

I took an old envelope from my pocket and wrote on the back of it with a

pencil in a bold hand: "Farewell to Earth for ever!" Laughing, I put

this inside and closed the lid.



Then the doctor turned down a thumb-screw upon a little wire which

connected the poles, and stepped back quickly. Presently the forward end

began to rise slowly, until it stood upright, but there it hesitated.

The doctor stepped forward and gave the thumb-screw a hard turn down,

and the model lifted immediately, rising at first gradually, but soon

shooting off with the whizz of a rocket over the lake. We watched it as

long as we could distinguish its dark outline.



"It will go a long way," said the doctor. "I have never seen it make so

good a start. It will lose itself in the lake far from here."



We fastened up the front window and the port-hole, and started back to

Whiting, where the doctor was to remain all night, so as to begin work

early in the morning. Presently, as we walked along, the doctor said,--



"Well, Isidor, now you have seen a practical demonstration of the

elementary working of the projectile. You also have some idea of all

there is to be discovered up yonder in the red planet. You are the most

interested in making and profiting by those discoveries. I want you to

consent to go along."



"Haven't you secured a companion, then?" I inquired.



"Yes, I have a friend, a countryman of mine here, who will go wherever I

say. He appreciates neither the risks nor the opportunities of the trip,

still he will take my word for everything. Yet if I ask him to go I take

the responsibility of his life as well as my own. He is not a suitable

man, however, and I have really relied on you to come," he insisted.



"My dear doctor, I have every faith in you and in the projectile, and I

prophesy a most successful trip. I should like nothing better than the

adventure; but you must not count on me; I could not leave my business.

There's a fever in my blood that thirsts for it!"



"Your business, indeed! You will never really amount to much till you

have left it. It's half a throw of dice and the other half a struggle of

cut-throats!"



"That is what people say who know nothing at all about it," I retorted.

"It occupies a large and important place in the world's commerce.

Besides, I could not well leave Ruth and my uncle."



"Isn't it time you did something to make her proud of you, and to be

worthy the education which he gave you? You have a chance now to be

great. Isn't that worth ten chances to be rich? What would you have

thought of Galileo if he hadn't had time to use the telescope after

inventing it, but had devoted his time and talent to the maccaroni

market? You are one man in ten million; you have an opportunity Columbus

would have been proud of! Will you neglect it for mere gold-grubbing?

Leave that to the rest of your race and to this money-mad Chicago. You

come along with me. Let's make this work-a-day world of ours take time

to stop and shake hands with her heavenly neighbours!"



"You tempt me to do it, Doctor! Can you wait two or three days for me?"



"I can, but Mars won't," he answered laconically. "Besides, you must not

tell any one that you are going."



"If there are any two things I love, it's a secret and a hurry! I will

be here to-morrow night," I exclaimed.