_CHAPTER NINETEEN_
Craven watched the _Invincible_ gather speed and tear swiftly throughthe black, saw it grow tiny and then disappear entirely, eitherswallowed by the distance or snapping into the strange super-space thatexisted beyond the speed of light.
He turned from the window, chuckling.
Stutsman snarled at him: "What's so funny?"
The scientist glared at the wolfish face and without speaking, walked tothe desk and sat down. He reached for pencil and paper.
Chambers walked over to watch him.
"You've found something, Doctor," he said quietly.
Craven laughed, throatily. "Yes, I have. I've found a lot. Manningthinks he can keep us out here, but he's wrong. We'll be in the SolarSystem less than a week after he gets there."
Chambers stifled a gasp, tried to speak calmly. "You mean this?"
"Of course I mean it. I don't waste my time with foolish jokes."
"You have the secret of material energy?"
"Not that," the scientist growled, "but I have something else asvaluable. I have the secret of Manning's drive: I know what it is thatenables him to exceed the speed of light ... to go ten thousand times asfast as light ... the Lord knows how much faster if he wanted to."
"No ordinary drive would do that," said Chambers. "It would take morethan power to make a ship go that fast."
"You bet your life it would, and Manning is the boy who's got it. Heuses a space field. I think I can duplicate it."
"And how long will it take you to do this work?"
"About a week," Craven told him. "Perhaps a little longer, perhaps alittle less. But once we go, we'll go as fast as Manning does. We'll beshort on power, but I think I can do something about that, too."
Chambers took a chair beside the desk. "But do we know the way home?"
"We can find it," said Craven.
"But there are no familiar constellations," objected Chambers. "Hedragged us out so far that there isn't a single star that any one of uscan identify."
"I said I'd find the Solar System," Craven declared impatiently, "and Iwill. Manning started out for it, didn't he? I saw the way he went. TheSun is a type G star and all I'll do is look for a type G star."
"But there may be more than one type G star," objected the financier.
"Probably are," Craven agreed, "but there are other ways of finding theSun and identifying it."
He volunteered no further information, went back to work with the padand pencil. Chambers rose wearily from his chair.
"Tell me when you know what we can do," he said.
"Sure," Craven grunted.
* * * * *
"That's the Sun," said Craven. "That faint star between those twobrighter ones."
"Are you sure of it?" demanded Stutsman.
"Of course. I don't make blunders."
"It's the only type G star in that direction," suggested Chambers,helpfully.
"Not that, either," declared Craven. "In fact, there are several type Gstars. I examined them all and I know I'm right."
"How do you know?" challenged Stutsman.
"Spectroscopic examination. That collector field of ours gathers energyjust like a burning glass. You've seen a burning glass, haven't you?"
He stared at Stutsman, directing the question at him.
Stutsman shuffled awkwardly, unhappily.
"Well," Craven went on, "I used that for a telescope. Gathered the lightfrom the suns and analyzed it. Of course it didn't act like a realtelescope, produce an image or anything like that, but it was ideal forspectroscopic work."
They waited for him to explain. Finally, he continued:
"All of the stars I examined were just type G stars, nothing else, butthere was a difference in one of them. First, the spectroscope showedlines of reflected light passing through oxygen and hydrogen, watervapor and carbon dioxide. Pure planetary phenomena, never found on astar itself. Also it showed that a certain per cent of the light waspolarized. Now remember that I examined it for a long time and I foundout something else from the length of observation which convinces me.The light varied with a periodic irregularity. The chronometers aren'tworking exactly right out here, so I can't give you any explanation interms of hours. But I find a number of regularly recurring changes inlight intensity and character ... and that proves the presence of anumber of planetary bodies circling the star. That's the only way onecould explain the fluctuations for the G-type star is a steady type. Itdoesn't vary greatly and has no light fluctuations to speak of. Not likethe Cepheid and Mira types."
"And that proves it's our Sun?" asked Chambers.
Craven nodded. "Fairly definitely, I'd say."
"How far away is it?" Stutsman wanted to know.
* * * * *
Craven snorted. "You would ask something like that."
"But," declared Stutsman, "there are ways of measuring how far a star isaway from any point, measuring both the distance and the size of thestar."
"Okay," agreed Craven, "you find me something solid and within reachthat's measurable. Something, preferably, about 200 million miles or soacross. Then I'll tell you how far we are from the Sun. This ship is notin an orbit. It's not fixed in space. I have no accurate way ofmeasuring distances and angles simultaneously and accurately. Especiallyangles as small as these would be."
Craven and Stutsman glared at one another.
"It's a long way however you look at it," the financier said. "If we'regoing to get there, we'll have to start as soon as possible. How sooncan we start, Doctor?"
"Very soon. I have the gravity concentration field developed andManning left me just enough power to get a good start." He chuckled,took off his glasses, wiped the lenses and put them back on again."Imagine him giving me that power!"
"But after we use up that power, what are we going to do?" demandedChambers. "This collector lens of yours won't furnish us enough to keepgoing."
"You're right," Craven conceded, "but we'll be able to get more. We'llbuild up what speed we can and then we'll shut off the drive and letmomentum carry us along. In the meantime our collector will gather powerfor us. We're advancing toward the source of radiation now, instead ofaway from it. Out here, where there's little gravity stress, fewerconflicting lines of gravitation, we'll be able to spread out the field,widen it, make it thousands of miles across. And the new photo-cellswill be a help as well."
"How are the photo-cells coming?" asked Chambers.
Craven grinned. "We'll have a bank of them in within a few hours, andreplace the others as fast as we can. I have practically the whole crewat work on them. Manning doesn't know it, but he found the limit ofthose photo-cells when he was heaving energy at us back in the SolarSystem. He blistered them. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but itwas. You have to hand it to Manning and Page. They are a couple of smartmen."
To the eye there was only one slight difference between the old cellsand the new ones. The new type cell, when on no load, appeared milkywhite, whereas the old cells on no load were silvery. The granularsurface of the new units was responsible for the difference inappearance, for each minute section of the surface was covered with evenmore minute metallic hexagonal pyramids and prisms.
"Just a little matter of variation in the alloy," Craven explained."Crystalization of the alloy, forming those little prisms and pyramids.As a result, you get a surface thousands of times greater than in theold type. Helps you absorb every bit of the energy."
* * * * *
The _Interplanetarian_ arrowed swiftly starward, driving ahead withterrific momentum while the collector lens, sweeping up the oncomingradiations, charged the great banks of accumulators. The G-type startoward which they were heading was still pale, but the two brighterstars to either side blazed like fiery jewels against the black ofspace.
"You say we'll be only a week or so behind Manning?" asked Chambers.
Craven looked at the financier
, his eyes narrowed behind the heavylenses. He sucked in his loose lips and turned once again to the controlboard.
"Perhaps a little longer," he admitted finally. "We're losing time,having to go along on momentum in order to collect power. But the nearerwe get to those stars, the more power we'll have and we'll be able tomove faster."
Chambers drummed idly on the arm of his chair, thinking.
"Perhaps there's time yet," he said, half to himself. "With the powerwe'll have within the Solar System, we can stop Manning and therevolution. We can gain control again."
* * * * *
Craven was silent, watching the dials.
"Manning might even pass us on the way back to look for us," Chamberswent on. "He thinks we're still out there. He wouldn't expect to find uswhere we are, light years from where we started."
Craven shot him a curious look. "I wouldn't be too sure of that. Manninghas a string of some sort tied to us. He's got us tagged ... good andproper. He's always been able to find us again, no matter where we were.I have a hunch he'll find us again, even way out here."
Chambers shrugged his shoulders. "It really doesn't matter. Just so weget close enough to the Sun so we can load those accumulators and jamthe photo-cells full. With a load like that we can beat him hands down."
The financier fell into a silence. He stared out of the vision plate,watching the stars. Still far away, but so much nearer than they hadbeen.
His brain hummed with dreams. Old dreams, revived again, old dreams ofconquest and of empire, dreams of a power that held a solar system inits grip.
Craven broke his chain of thoughts. "Where's our friend Stutsman? Ihaven't seen him around lately."
Chambers chuckled good-naturedly. "He's sulking. He seems to have gottenthe idea neither one of us likes him. He's been spending most of histime back in the engine room with the crew."
"Were you talking about me?" asked a silky voice.
They spun around to see Stutsman standing in the doorway of the controlroom. His face was twisted into a wolfish grin and in his right hand heheld a heat gun.
Chambers' voice was sharp, like the note of a clanging bell. "What'sthis?"
Stutsman's face twisted into an even more exaggerated grin. "This," hesaid, "is mutiny. I'm taking over!" He laughed at them.
"No use calling the crew. They're with me."
"Damn you!" shouted Chambers, taking a step forward. He halted asStutsman jerked the pistol up.
"Forget it, Chambers. You're just second man from now on. Maybe not evensecond man. You tried out this dictator business and you bungled it. Youwent soft. You're taking orders from me from now on. No questions, noback talk. You do as I say and maybe you won't get hurt."
"You're mad, Stutsman!" cried Chambers. "You can't get away with this."
Stutsman barked out a brittle laugh. "Who is going to stop me?"
"The people," Chambers shouted at him. "The people will. They won'tallow this. When you get back to the Solar System ..."
Stutsman growled, stepping toward Chambers, pistol leveled. "The peoplewon't have anything to say about this. I'll rule the Solar System theway I want to. There won't be anyone else who'll have a thing to sayabout it. So you dreamed of empire, did you? You dreamed of a solardictatorship. Well, watch me! I'll build a real empire. But I'll be thehead of it ... not you."
Craven sat down in his chair, crossed his knees. "Just what do you planto do, Dictator Stutsman?"
* * * * *
Stutsman fairly foamed at the mouth over the insolence of Craven'svoice. "I'll smash Manning first. I'll wipe him out. This ship will doit. You said yourself it would. You have ten times the power he has. Andthen ..."
Craven raised a hand and waved him into silence. "So you plan to reachthe Solar System, do you? You plan to meet Manning, and destroy hisship. Nice plan."
"What's wrong with it?" challenged Stutsman.
"Nothing," said Craven calmly. "Absolutely nothing at all ... _exceptthat we may never reach the Solar System_!"
Stutsman seemed to sag. The wolfish snarl on his lips drooped. His eyesstared. Then with an effort he braced himself.
"What do you mean? Why can't we?" He gestured toward the vision plate,toward the tiny yellow star between the two brighter stars.
"That," said Craven, "isn't our Sun. It has planets, but it isn't ourSun."
Chambers stepped quickly to Craven, reached out a hand and hoisted himfrom the chair, shook him.
"You must be joking! That has to be the Sun!"
Craven shrugged free of Chambers' clutch, spoke in an even voice. "Inever joke. We made a mistake, that's all. I hadn't meant to tell youyet. I had intended to get in close to the star and take on a full loadof power and then try to locate our Sun. But I'm afraid it's a hopelesstask."
"A hopeless task?" shrieked Stutsman. "You are trying to trick me. Thisis put up between the two of you. That's the Sun over there. I know itis!"
"It isn't," said Craven. "Manning tricked us. He started off in thewrong direction. He made us think he was going straight back to theSolar System, but he didn't. He circled and went in some otherdirection."
The scientist eyed Stutsman calmly. Stutsman's knuckles were white withthe grip he had upon the gun.
"We're lost," Craven told him, looking squarely at him. "We may neverfind the Solar System!"