CHAPTER XII
THE NARDAK
As Lee Renaud, burdened with two heavy leather cases, stepped off thetrain in Adron, Ohio, and made his way toward the station exit, a bigbronzed man rushed forward to meet him.
"Good for you, Lee!" and Captain Bartlot reached a hand for one of thecases. "You did what I was counting on--came in time to superintend thecopying of that portable of yours for the field radio use. Say, want togo to the hotel first or straight out to the Nardak's hangar?"
"On to the Nardak!" said Lee. "I couldn't rest till I saw it, anyway."
Radio certainly was getting Renaud "somewhere." Like a magic jinnee ofold, it had picked him up by the scruff of the neck, swished him out ofa dreamy Gulf Coast village, and landed him in this hustling midwesterncity that was famed for its rubber factories and its airship hangar. Ifradio, to be exact, hadn't bodily brought him here to Adron, at least ithad been the motive power that had gained for him this trip.
"Renaud of the Radio, do you want to go to the Arctic?"
That had been the beginning of it all. A puzzling communication, that,to drop in on a fellow out of mid-air. Later had come another message inexplanation. Both were from his friend, Captain Jan Bartlot. He wasplanning a "mush" into the Arctic by airship, to prospect for gold andother valuables. He had sold his jewel collection for a vast sum, andnow the call of adventure was taking him back into a life ofexploration. Captain Jan was the type of man whom danger lures as ahoney-pot lures bees. A great new gold rush was stirring the WesternHemisphere--a flying rush into Canada's frozen Arctic on the hunt forthat precious metal. A fur-clad adventurer's discovery of gold-bearingrock in the northern wilds of the Mackenzie Delta had sent men trekkinginto that frozen land by canoe, by foot, by dog-sled. On his otherexplorations, Jan Bartlot had followed land trails and sea trails. Butnow he proposed to follow the air trail up into the Arctic, to take ahuge dirigible into that land of storms and snows. It was an expeditionfraught with danger, yet one of marvellous practicability----if handledright. Instead of pushing north for many months on a long trek by canoeand sled, prospectors, geologists, mining engineers, mining-syndicatescouts, all the personnel of a vast mining operation could betransported into the north in record time.
For this mammoth gold hunt, the modern surveyor's implement was to bethe camera, and the connecting link between the various scout partieswas to be the "voice of radio."
On a dangerous journey like this, radio operators had to have somethingbesides a nimble brain and mechanical ability; they must needs possesscourage, stamina. It was remembrance of the way one Lee Renaud had stoodby an injured man aboard a sinking, derelict roof in the Sargon floodthat had caused Bartlot to offer the young fellow a chance to go on thiswild, wonderful expedition.
In his long explanatory message sent to Renaud at King's Cove, Bartlothad stated that he wanted to try out the boy's portable radio model as aconnecting link between various mining explorations in the field ofoperation--was offering five thousand dollars for the right to copy thismodel and test it, provided Renaud went on the trip. A dangerous test hewas offering the young inventor, but if it succeeded--well, it meantworld advertising, and the Renaud Portable going over the top, big.
Would Renaud go?
The answer was Lee Renaud himself. After making the necessaryarrangements for the care of his Great-uncle Gem, Lee had caught thefirst train north.
As they taxied across Adron, the busy rush of trucks and cars, the clangand clatter of this factory metropolis, and the loom of skyscrapersfurnished a thrill for the visitor--but it was as nothing to the thrillof his first sight of a dirigible.
Captain Bartlot had wirelessed Renaud that an airship, the dirigibleNardak, was to be their mode of travel. But Renaud had not dreamed howimmense this ship would be. Even before he saw the monster of the air,the unique building that housed it loomed before his eyes like somemagic growth.
There it stood--a master structure in dun-colored steel, semi-paraboloidin shape, like a mastodonic egg cut in half lengthwise. A one-storystructure eleven hundred feet long, and tall enough to take a twenty-twostory skyscraper under its roof, with room to spare!
While their taxi was still some miles from the airport, its enormousbulk dominated its surroundings.
Men in impressive uniforms patrolling outside the building seemed likeminute toys in comparison. Small wonder, when the doors behind themweighed six hundred tons each and stood two hundred feet high.
As the two got out of the taxi and came up the paved way, Bartlotmotioned to a couple of officials. "Commander Millard, Chief EngineerGoode," he called out, "here's another of our staff, second in commandat the radio--my friend Renaud."
"Glad to meet you! Ah--a word with you, Captain?" and Millard, brieflyacknowledging the introduction, went aside with Bartlot.
A heated argument ensued. Voices, lowered at first, rose now and then."A mistake--too young, country bumpkin--risk to expedition."
Lee had the uncomfortable feeling that he was the subject of discussion.
Then Captain Bartlot came striding back, his jaw set, his bronzed facetinged an angry red.
At his command, a couple of stationary engines, housed on either side ofthe building, were set to generating. Under their power the huge curveddoors began to roll back, each door moving on twenty steel wheels on acurved track that carried it back along the side of the building. As hestepped forward and took a view down that vast vault, Lee Renaud feltreduced to smallness--of a truth! As he looked upward, there was a senseof surrounding immensity that left him weak in the legs. Two hundredfeet up, under the ridge of the roof, toy workmen labored on a duraluminframework that had been lifted up by cranes. Not a sound came from them,they were too far away.
Lee Renaud caught his breath. Within this mountain of steel and glass,six football games, a chariot race and a circus could be stagedsimultaneously.
"The largest building in the world without internal supports or columnsof any kind," said Jan Bartlot, "and er-r, the only building in theworld that has its own peculiar brand of weather. Ah--ca-chu-ah!" theCaptain ended in a wild sneeze as a heavy shower rained down upon them.
Lee looked about in puzzlement. The sun was shining brightly outside.
"Condensation," explained Bartlot. "All sorts of temperatures meet inhere, form a fog, and occasionally roll down in rain."
"But the Nardak? I thought it was housed in here?" Lee cast his gazeover the vast emptiness.
"She's coming in now. Don't you hear the buzzer?"
"Bz-z-z!" A radio within the building had picked up the signal from theapproaching ship. Men rushed forward from all sides and took theirstands at stated intervals along the length of the building.
From the magazine illustrations he had seen of dirigibles, Lee Renaudpictured to himself how the Nardak would come--an elongated balloondrifting through the air, casting off thousand-foot lengths of rope formen to seize and drag her down to earth.
But the huge Nardak swept into her dock in a very different manner.