Читать книгу Islands In The Air - Lowell Howard Morrow - Страница 3
ОглавлениеCHAPTER I. An Astounding Plan
"WE CAN control the laws of gravitation and perform new miracles."
My good friend, Professor Gustave Steiner, was speaking, and for that reason I pondered his remarkable words.
"Such an attainment would overshadow all else in the realms of science," I observed casually.
"Already the problem has been mastered," asserted the professor solemnly.
I gave him a startled look. He gazed back with calm assurance, stroking his pointed beard as was his way when discussing a serious subject. Had his astounding declaration come from any other source I would have treated it as the idle mutterings of a diseased mind.
"Has been mastered?" I repeated incredulously.
The professor nonchalantly lit a cigar, puffed silently a moment and eyed me speculatively.
"Absolutely mastered," he answered finally. I stared. "But it will take capital to perfect the system," he added timidly.
I understood the professor. He reversed the time-honored maxim by having more brains than money. Still I could not help reasoning that this time his mighty intellect had slipped a cog. How could one upset the basic law of the universe? It was impossible, absurd. However, the savants of two continents did obeisance to Professor Steiner. The furore caused by his lecture on cosmic energy, delivered at Heidelberg, was still fresh in mind.
"I see, my boy, that you doubt my claim," he went on presently.
"It is so astonishing."
The professor smiled tolerantly. "It is not astonishing when you know how to harness the forces of nature, my boy." He rubbed his hands together gleefully. "A few known principles well chosen, an opportunity--and there you have it."
"And you have overcome the gravitational pull of mother earth?"
"Nothing of the kind, my dear boy; I have but neutralized it."
"Why, man alive," I cried, "such a thing would send this old globe wobbling through space like a drunken man--leaderless and beyond control."
"Precisely. But I propose to control gravitation locally."
Again I stared. Was the professor going crazy? Was he breaking under the strain of overwork? I recalled his sister Greta's remark to me that she feared some day he would lose his mind, inasmuch as both his father and his grandfather had ended their days in a madhouse. But as I gazed steadily into his calm blue eyes I read no sign of insanity there. Nothing but steadfast confidence.
"Locally," I echoed at last, staring at him blankly. "And for what purpose?"
"To build islands in the sky."
"Islands!" I gasped.
"To be sure, my boy. Do you not realize the need of such things? Airplanes are creatures of the air--are they not? Therefore they should fuel in the air, and the beacons set to guide their course should shine in the element through which they pass."
"That is true," I assented, catching a faint glimmering of his stupendous scheme. "But what is to hold your islands in place and keep them from blowing away? And will they not become a serious menace to air travel rather than an aid?"
"By no means," he replied confidently. "I will not only control gravitation, I will also use its force as a repellent."
"A repellent?"
"Exactly." The professor drew his chair nearer and leaned toward me with shining eyes, his hands spread out comprehensively. "Instead of attracting objects to its center the earth must be made to repel them," he continued in a low voice, glancing furtively about the brilliantly lighted room, then at the open windows where the breeze stirred the curtains lazily. "I have invented what I call a gravity repeller, which causes the gravitation lines of force to bend through 180deg. and lift an object away from the earth with the same force that it would ordinarily be attracted."
"I understand," I said doubtfully.
"Well, then we have only to perfect my device and operate it on a large scale."
"But that would throw the world out of balance and destroy all life."
"Don't be alarmed, my boy," went on the professor, smiling complacently, "as I have intimated I do not propose a blanket control. I shall tap this energy only in spots for the benefit of my--that is--our islands."
The professor's Fear
THE professor's face glowed with enthusiasm as he looked at me. I saw that he was looking to me for funds to further his experiment. As the goddess of fortune had blessed me with more than my share of riches and I loved the eccentric professor I listened sympathetically. I may say that my interest was somewhat heightened by my friendship for Greta, who was a skillful air pilot and who had given me many pleasurable rides in her plane which embodied many of the professor's radical ideas of airplane construction.
"What do you want me to do?" I encouraged.
"Well, Walnut Ridge is a good place to start."
"Walnut Ridge--why that is away out in the wilderness."
"Of course, but that is where we want to start--away from everybody. You see I have not been idle since coming to America. While you were away on business I was out looking the ridge over. I would buy and fence a section of the west end of the ridge perhaps a half mile in length by a quarter of a mile in width. There would be machinery to install, you understand, and an island to manufacture--perhaps many of them."
Again I stared at my friend, and he smiled back in his inscrutable, confident way.
"And the islands--what will you do with them?"
"I shall place them in the sky and anchor them."
This was too much for my sense of humor and I laughed in spite of myself. Manufacturing islands and anchoring them in the sky was such a ridiculous proposition that I treated it as a big joke. But now the professor was frowning and a cold light flamed in his eyes.
"You think me joking," he said with quiet dignity, "but I am not. Already I have proved my theory."
"Forgive me," I said contritely. "But my God, man," I added, "your proposition fairly stuns me. It will revolutionize aviation, astronomy--everything pertaining to the heaven above us. Have you worked it out alone and does no one know your secret?"
A shadow came over Professor Steiner's fair face. For a long minute he looked down at the floor, then raised his head with a jerk.
"I believe that no one has stumbled onto this thing but me. However, there is Van Beck. You know something about that confounded Dutchman, how that while I have worked with him and discovered much for the benefit of our fellowmen, he also has pestered me, often garnering the fruits of my toil. You know how he has disputed my claims on several occasions while posing as my friend. The devil take him. I wish I was sure."
Professor Van Beck, a small, wiry man with a bristling black beard, was Professor Steiner's closest rival in the realms of science. The men, differing widely, still had much in common and had been closely associated in Europe before Van Beck took up his residence in the United States. But always Van Beck had managed to gather most of the rewards to himself. And now that I had invited Professor Steiner and his sister to make me a long visit, the irony of fate had guided him to the faculty of the university where the great Dutchman labored.
"You haven't said anything about this to Van Beck?"
"Not a word. But he is always trying to worm something out of me. You know what a persistent way he has--his strange personality--you like him and yet you hate him. And last week while I was conducting my experiments out on the ridge I spied a fellow far across the valley looking in my direction through a field glass."
I certainly sympathized with Professor Steiner's efforts to stop his rival. The little Dutch scientist seemed to exercise some sort of an influence over Greta. She was often seen in his company and always took his part whenever he was held up to scorn by her celebrated brother.
"Your words imply that there is much still to be done; that you have proved only that the theory is feasible."
"That is just it, my boy--perfectly feasible."
And then drawing his chair still nearer the professor told in low tones many of the details of his marvelous plans, but as he talked on his voice rose on a wave of enthusiasm and more than once I had to caution him for fear some servant might overhear.
The night was far advanced when at last he finished and rose to retire. His face shone with ardent hope as he bade me good night and ascended the stairs. I stared after him until he passed from view, and then too much upset by his astounding revelations to sleep I went out to take a turn or two about the lawn in an effort to get the thing thoroughly analyzed before committing myself to sponsor a scheme that seemed to be the most impossible thing ever conceived by the mind of man.
As I went down the porch steps I fancied I heard a slight scraping noise from the direction of my study window. I looked that way and for a moment thought I saw a vague shadowy form emerge from the deeper shadows and disappear over the porch railing. But as the sky was overcast and the gloom deep in that particular quarter I dismissed the notion.
For more than an hour I paced up and down the drives and across the lawn thinking over the professor's words. The result of it all was that I finally concluded to back him financially.
