The Return To Earth

: The Skylark Of Space

DuQuesne's first act upon gaining the privacy of his own cabin was to

open the leather bag presented to him by the Karfedix. He expected to

find it filled with rare metals, with perhaps some jewels, instead of

which the only metal present was a heavily-insulated tube containing a

full pound of metallic radium. The least valuable items in the bag were

scores of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds of enormous size and of

flaw ess perfection. Merely ornamental glass upon Osnome, Dunark knew

that they were priceless upon Earth, and had acted accordingly. To this

great wealth of known gems, he had added a rich and varied assortment of

the rare and strange jewels peculiar to his own world, the faidon alone

being omitted from the collection. DuQuesne's habitual calmness of mind

almost deserted him as he classified the contents of the bag.



The radium alone was worth millions of dollars, and the scientist in him

exulted that at last his brother scientists should have ample supplies

of that priceless metal with which to work, even while he was rejoicing

in the price he would exact for it. He took out the familiar jewels,

estimating their value as he counted them--a staggering total. The bag

was still half full of the strange gems, some of them glowing like

miniature lamps in the dark depths, and he made no effort to appraise

them. He knew that once any competent jeweler had compared their cold,

hard, scintillating beauty with that of any Earthly gems, he could

demand his own price.



"At last," he breathed to himself, "I will be what I have always longed

to be--a money power. Now I can cut loose from that gang of crooks and

go my own way."



He replaced the gems and the tube of radium in the bag, which he stowed

away in one of his capacious pockets, and made his way to the galley.



* * * * *



The return voyage through space was uneventful, the Skylark constantly

maintaining the same velocity with which she had started out. Several

times, as the days wore on, she came within the zone of attraction of

various gigantic suns, but the pilot had learned his lesson. He kept a

vigilant eye upon the bar, and at the first sign of a deviation from the

perpendicular he steered away, far from the source of the attraction.

Not content with these precautions, the man at the board would, from

time to time, shut off the power, to make sure that the space-car was

not falling toward a body directly in its line of flight.



When half the distance had been covered, the bar was reversed, the

travelers holding an impromptu ceremony as the great vessel spun around

its center through an angle of one hundred and eighty degrees. A few

days later the observers began to recognize some of the fixed stars in

familiar constellations and knew that the yellowish-white star directly

in their line of flight was the sun of their own solar system. After a

time they saw that their course, instead of being directly toward that

rapidly-brightening star, was bearing upon a barely visible star a

little to one side of it. Pointing their most powerful telescope toward

that point of light, Crane made out a planet, half of its disk shining

brightly. The girls hastened to peer through the telescope, and they

grew excited as they made out the familiar outlines of the continents

and oceans upon the lighted portion of the disk.



It was not long until these outlines were plainly visible to the unaided

vision. The Earth appeared as a great, softly shining, greenish

half-moon, with parts of its surface obscured by fleecy wisps of cloud,

and with its two gleaming ice-caps making of its poles two brilliant

areas of white. The returning wanderers stared at their own world with

their hearts in their throats as Crane, who was at the board, increased

the retarding force sufficiently to assure himself that they would not

be traveling too fast to land upon the Earth.



After Dorothy and Margaret had gone to prepare a meal, DuQuesne turned

to Seaton.



"Have you gentlemen decided what you intend to do with me?"



"No. We haven't discussed it yet. I can't make up my own mind what I

want to do to you, except that I sure would like to get you inside a

square ring with four-ounce gloves on. You have been of too much real

assistance on this trip for us to see you hanged, as you deserve. On the

other hand, you are altogether too much of a thorough-going scoundrel

for us to let you go free. You see the fix we are in. What would you

suggest?"



"Nothing," replied DuQuesne calmly. "As I am in no danger whatever of

hanging, nothing you can say on that score affects me in the least. As

for freeing me, you may do as you please--it makes no difference to me,

one way or the other, as no jail can hold me for a day. I can say,

however, that while I have made a fortune on this trip, so that I do not

have to associate further with Steel unless it is to my interest to do

so, I may nevertheless find it desirable at some future time to

establish a monopoly of X. That would, of course, necessitate the death

of yourself and Crane. In that event, or in case any other difference

should arise between us, this whole affair will be as though it had

never existed. It will have no weight either way, whether or not you try

to hang me."



"Go as far as you like," Seaton answered cheerfully. "If we're not a

match for you and your gang, on foot or in the air, in body or in mind,

we'll deserve whatever we get. We can outrun you, outjump you, throw you

down, or lick you; we can run faster, hit harder, dive deeper, and come

up dryer, than you can. We'll play any game you want to deal, whenever

you want to deal it; for fun, money, chalk, or marbles."



His brow darkened in anger as a thought struck him, and the steady gray

eyes bored into the unflinching black ones as he continued, with no

trace of his former levity in his voice:



"But listen to this. Anything goes as far as Martin and I personally are

concerned. But I want you to know that I could be arrested for what I

think of you as a man; and if any of your little schemes touch Dottie or

Peggy in any way, shape or form, I'll kill you as I would a snake--or

rather, I'll take you apart as I would any other piece of scientific

apparatus. This isn't a threat, it's a promise. Get me?"



"Perfectly. Good-night."



For many hours the Earth had been obscured by clouds, so that the pilot

had only a general idea of what part of the world was beneath them, but

as they dropped rapidly downward into the twilight zone, the clouds

parted and they saw that they were directly over the Panama Canal.

Seaton allowed the Skylark to fall to within ten miles of the ground,

when he stopped so that Martin could get his bearings and calculate the

course to Washington, which would be in total darkness before their

arrival.



DuQuesne had retired, cold and reticent as usual. Glancing quickly about

his cabin to make sure that he had overlooked nothing he could take with

him, he opened a locker, exposing to view four suits which he had made

in his spare time, each adapted to a particular method of escape from

the Skylark. The one he selected was of heavy canvas, braced with steel

netting, equipped with helmet and air-tanks, and attached to a strong,

heavy parachute. He put it on, tested all its parts, and made his way

unobserved to one of the doors in the lower part of the vessel. Thus,

when the chance for escape came, he was ready for it. As the Skylark

paused over the Isthmus, his lips parted in a sardonic smile. He opened

the door and stepped out into the air, closing the door behind him as he

fell. The neutral color of the parachute was lost in the gathering

twilight a few seconds after he left the vessel.



The course laid, Seaton turned almost due north and the Skylark tore

through the air. After a short time, when half the ground had been

covered, Seaton spoke suddenly.



"Forgot about DuQuesne, Mart. We'd better iron him, hadn't we? Then

we'll decide whether we want to keep him or turn him loose."



"I will go fetch him," replied Crane, and turned to the stairs.



He returned shortly, with the news of the flight of the captive.



"Hm ... he must have made himself a parachute. I didn't think even he

would tackle a sixty-thousand-foot drop. I'll tell the world that he

sure has established a record. I can't say I'm sorry that he got away,

though. We can get him again any time we want him, anyway, as that

little object-compass in my drawer is still looking right at him," said

Seaton.



"I think he earned his liberty," declared Dorothy, stoutly, and Margaret

added:



"He deserves to be shot, but I'm glad he's gone. He gives me the

shivers."



At the end of the calculated time they saw the lights of a large city

beneath them, and Crane's fingers clenched upon Seaton's arm as he

pointed downward. There were the landing-lights of Crane Field, seven

peculiarly-arranged searchlights throwing their mighty beams upward into

the night.



"Nine weeks, Dick," he said, unsteadily, "and Shiro would have kept them

burning nine years if necessary."



The Skylark dropped easily to the ground in front of the testing shed

and the wanderers leaped out, to be greeted by the half-hysterical Jap.

Shiro's ready vocabulary of peculiar but sonorous words failed him

completely, and he bent himself double in a bow, his yellow face

wreathed in the widest possible smile. Crane, one arm around his wife,

seized Shiro's hand and wrung it in silence. Seaton swept Dorothy off

her feet, pressing her slender form against his powerful body. Her arms

tightened about his neck as they kissed each other fervently and he

whispered in her ear:



"Sweetheart wife, isn't it great to be back on our good old Earth

again?"