A Honeymoon in Space

by George Chetwynd Griffith

  CHAPTER IV

  Above a tiny little writing-desk fixed to the wall of the conning-towerthere was a square mahogany board with six white buttons in pairs. Onone side of the board hung a telephone and on the other a speaking-tube.To the right hand opposite where Zaidie stood were two nickel-platedwheels and behind each of them a white disc, one marked off into 360degrees, and the other into 100 with subdivisions of tens. Overhead hungan ordinary tell-tale compass, and compactly placed on other parts ofthe wall were barometers, thermometers, barographs, and, in fact,practically every instrument that the most exacting of aeronauts orSpace-explorers could have asked for.

  "You see, Zaidie, this is what one might call the cerebral chamber ofthe _Astronef_, and, granted that my engines worked all right, I couldmake her do anything I wanted without moving out of here, but as a rule,of course, Murgatroyd is in the engine-room. If he wasn't the mostwhole-souled Wesleyan that Yorkshire ever produced, I believe he'dbecome an idolater and worship the _Astronef's_ engines."

  "And who is Murgatroyd, please?"

  "In the first place he is what I might call an hereditary retainer ofthe House of Redgrave. His ancestors have served mine for the last sevenhundred years. When my ancestors were burglar-barons, his weremen-at-arms. When we went on the Crusades they went too; when we raiseda regiment for the King against the Parliament they were naturally thefirst to enlist in it; and as we gradually settled down into peacefulrespectability they did the same. Lastly, when we went into trade asironmasters and engineers they went in too. This Murgatroyd, forinstance, was master-foreman of my works at Smeaton, and he was the onlyman I dared trust with the secrets of the _Astronef_, and the only one Iwould trust myself on board her with, and that's why we're a crew oftwo. You see the command of a vessel like this is a fairly big business,and if it got into the wrong sort of hands----"

  "Yes, I see," said Zaidie with a little nod. "It would be just too awfulto think about. Why you might keep the world in terror with it; but Iknow you wouldn't do that, because, for one thing, I wouldn't let you."

  "Gently, gently, Ma'm'selle; permit me most humbly to remind you thatyou are still my prisoner, and that I am still Commander of the_Astronef_."

  "Oh, very well then," said Zaidie, interrupting him with a pretty littlegesture of impatience, "and now suppose you let me see what the_Astronef's_ commander can do with her."

  "Certainly," replied Redgrave, "and with the greatest pleasure--but, bythe way, that reminds me you haven't paid your footing yet."

  When due payment had been given and taken, or perhaps it would be morecorrect to say taken and given, Redgrave put his finger on one of thebuttons.

  Immediately Zaidie heard the swish of the air past the smooth wall ofthe conning-tower grow fainter and fainter. Then there came a littlecheck which nearly upset her balance, and presently the clouds beneaththem began to take shape and great white continents of them with greyoceans in between went sweeping silently and swiftly away behind them.

  Redgrave turned the wheel in front of the 100-degree disc a little tothe left. The next instant the clouds rose up. For a moment Zaidie couldsee nothing but white mist on all sides. Then the atmosphere clearedagain, and she saw far below her what looked like a vast expanse ofocean that had been suddenly frozen solid.

  There were the long Atlantic rollers tipped with snowy foam. Here andthere at wide intervals were little black dots, some of them with browntrails behind them, others with little patches of white which showed updistinctly against the dark grey-blue of the sea. Every moment they grewbigger. Then the white-crested waves began to move, and the big oceansteamers and full-rigged sailing ships looked less and less like toys.Just under them there was a very big one with four funnels pouring outdense volumes of black smoke. Redgrave took up a pair of glasses, lookedat her for a moment and said:

  "That's the _Deutschland_, the new Hamburg-American record-breaker.Suppose we go down and have a lark with her. I wonder if she's takingnews of the war. We're in with Germany, and they may know somethingabout it."

  "That would be just too lovely!" said Zaidie. "Let's go and show themhow _we_ can break records. I suppose they've seen us by this time andare just wondering with all their wits what we are. I guess they'll feelpretty tired about poor Count Zeppelin's balloon when they see _us_."

  Redgrave noted the "we" and the "us" with much secret satisfaction.

  "All right," he said, "we'll go and give them a bit of a startler."

  In front of the conning-tower there was a steel flagstaff about ten feethigh, with halliards rove through a sheer in the top. He took a littleroll of bunting out of a locker under the desk, opened a glass slide,brought in the halliards and bent the flag on.

  Meanwhile the long shape of the great liner was getting bigger andbigger. Her decks were black, with people staring up at this strangeapparition which was dropping upon them from the clouds. Another minuteand the _Astronef_ had dropped to within five hundred feet of the water,and about half a mile astern of the _Deutschland_. Redgrave turned thewheel back two or three inches and touched a second button.

  The _Astronef_ stopped her descent instantly, and then she shot forward.The new greyhound was making her twenty-two and a half knots, hurling abroad white torrent of foam away from under her counters. But in half aminute the _Astronef_ was alongside her.

  Redgrave ran the roll of bunting up to the top of the flagstaff, pulledone of the halliards, and the White Ensign of England floated out.Almost at the same moment the German flag went up to the staff at thestern of the _Deutschland_, and they heard a roar of cheers, mingledwith cries of wonder, come up from her swarming decks.

  Each flag was dipped thrice in due course. Redgrave took off his cap andbowed to the Captain on the bridge. Zaidie nodded and fluttered herhandkerchief in reply to hundreds of others that were waving on thedecks. Mrs. Van Stuyler woke up in wonder and waved hers instinctively,half longing to change crafts. In fact, if it hadn't been for herabsolute devotion to the proprieties she would have obeyed her firstimpulse and asked Lord Redgrave to put her on board the steamer.

  While the officers and crew and passengers of the _Deutschland_ werestaring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the graceful glittering shape ofthe _Astronef_, Redgrave touched the first button in the second rowonce, moved the 100-degree wheel on a few degrees, and then gave theother a quarter turn. Then he closed the window slide, and the nextmoment Zaidie saw the great liner sink down beneath them in a curioustwisting sort of way. She seemed to stop still and then spin round onher centre, getting smaller and smaller every moment.

  "What's the matter, Lenox?" she said, with a little gasp. "What's the_Deutschland_ doing? She seems to be spinning round on her own axis likea top."

  "That's only the point of view, dear. She's just plugging along straighton her way to New York, and we've been making rings round her and goingup all the time. But of course you don't notice the motion here any morethan you would if you were in a balloon."

  "But I thought you were going to speak them. Surely you don't mean tosay that you intended that just as a little bit of showing off?"

  "That's about what it comes to, I suppose, but you must not think it wasaltogether vanity. You see the German Government has bought CountZeppelin's air-ship or steerable balloon, as it ought to be called,always supposing that they can steer it in a wind, and of course theiridea is to make a fighting machine of it. Now Germany is engaged tostand by us in this trouble that's coming, and by way of cementing thealliance I thought it was just as well to let the wily Teuton know thatthere's something flying the British flag which could make very smallmincemeat of their gas-bags."

  "And what about Old Glory?" said Miss Zaidie. "The _Astronef_ was builtwith English money and English skill, but----"

  "She is the creature of American genius. Of course she is. In fact sheis the first concrete symbol of the Anglo-American Alliance, and whenthe daughter of her creator has gone into partnership with the man whomade her we'll have two flagstaff's, and the Jack and Old
Glory willfloat side by side."

  "And meanwhile where are we going?" asked Zaidie, after a moment'sinterval. "Ah, there we are through the clouds again. What makes usrise? Is that the force that Pop told me he discovered?"

  "I'll answer the last question first," said Redgrave. "That was thegreatest of your father's discoveries. He got at the secret ofgravitation, and was able to analyse it into two separate forces just asVolta did with electricity--positive and negative, or, to put it better,attractive and repulsive.

  "Three out of the five sets of engines in the _Astronef_ develop the R.Force, as I call it for short. This wheel with the hundred degreesmarked behind it regulates the development. The further I turn it thisway to the right, the more the R. Force overcomes the attractive forceof the earth or any other planet that we may visit. Turn it back, andgravitation asserts itself. If I put this arrow-head on the wheelopposite zero the weight of the _Astronef_ is about a hundred and fiftytons, and of course she would go down like a stone, and a very big oneat that. At ten she weighs nothing; that is to say the R. Force exactlycounteracts gravitation. At eleven she begins to rise. At a hundred shewould be hurled away from the earth like a shell from a twelve-inch gun,or even faster. Now, watch."

  He took up the speaking-tube. "Is she all tight everywhere, Andrew?"

  "Yes, my Lord," came gurgling through the tube.

  Then Redgrave slowly turned the wheel till the indicator pointed totwenty-five. Zaidie, all eyes and wonder, saw a vast sea of glitteringwhite spread out beneath them, an ocean of snow with grey-blue patcheshere and there. It sank away from under them till the patches becamespots and the sunlit clouds a vast, luminous blur. The air about themgrew marvellously clear and limpid. The sun blazed down on them with atenfold intensity of light, but Zaidie was astonished to find that verylittle heat penetrated the glass walls and roof of the conning-tower.

  "What an awful height!" she exclaimed, looking round at him withsomething like fear in her eyes. "How high are we, Lenox?"

  "You'll find afterwards that the _Astronef_ doesn't take any account ofhigh or low or up or down," he replied, looking at the dial of ananeroid barometer by the side of him. "Roughly speaking, we're ratherover 60,000 feet--say ten miles--from the surface of the Atlantic.That's why I asked Andrew whether everything was tight. You see wecouldn't breathe the air there is outside there--too thin and cold--andso the _Astronef_ makes her own atmosphere as we go along. But I won'tspoil what you're going to see by any more of this. So if you please,we'll go down now and get along to Washington. Anyhow, I hope I'veconvinced you so far that I've kept my promise."

  "Yes, dear, you have, and splendidly! I've only one regret. If _he_ wasonly here now, what a happy man he'd be! Still, I daresay he knows allabout it and is just as happy. In fact he must be. I feel certain hemust. The very soul of his intellect was in the dream of this ship, andnow that it's a reality he must be here still. Isn't it part of himself?Isn't it his mind that's working in these wonderful engines of yours,and isn't it his strength that lifts us up from the earth and takes usdown again just as you please to turn that wheel?"

  "There's little doubt about that, Zaidie," said Redgrave quietly, butearnestly. "You know we North-country folk all have our traditions andour ghosts; and what more likely than that the spirit of a dead man or aman gone to other worlds should watch over the realisation of hisgreatest work on earth? Why shouldn't we believe that, we who are goingaway from this world to other ones?"

  "Why not?" interrupted Zaidie, "why, of course we will. And now supposewe come down in more ways than one and go and give poor Mrs. Van Stuylersomething to eat and drink. The dear old girl must be frightened halfout of her wits by this time."

  "Very well," replied Redgrave; "but we'll come down literally first, sothat we can get the propellers to work."

  He turned the wheel back till the indicator pointed to five. Thecloud-sea came up with a rush. They passed through it, and stopped abouta thousand feet above the sea. Redgrave touched the first button twice,and then the next one twice. The air began to hiss past the walls of theconning-tower. The crest-crowned waves of the Atlantic seemed to sweepin a hurrying torrent behind them, and then Redgrave, having made surethat Murgatroyd was at the after-wheel, gave him the course forWashington, and then went down to induct his bride-elect into the artand mystery of cooking by electricity as it was done in the kitchen ofthe _Astronef_.