The Black Star Passes by John Campbell
Author:John Campbell [Campbell, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction, Extraterrestrial beings -- Fiction
Published: 2007-02-27T05:00:00+00:00
Returning to the top level, they entered the long passages that led out into the titanic wings. Here, as elsewhere, the ship was brightly lighted. They came to a small room, another bunk room. There were great numbers of these down both sides of the long corridor, and along the two parallel corridors down the wing. In the fourth corridor near the back edge of the wing, there were bunk rooms on one side, and on the other were bombing posts.
As they continued walking down the first corridor, they came to a small room, whence issued the low hum of one of the motors. Entering, they found the crew sleeping, and the motor idling.
âGood Lord!â Wade exclaimed. âLook at that motor, Arcot! No bigger than the trunk of a man's body. Yet a battery of these sends the ship along at a mile a second! What power!â
Slowly they proceeded down the long hall. At each of the fifty engine mountings they found the same conditions. At the end of the hall there was an escalator that led one level higher, into the upper wing. Here they found long rows of the bombing posts and the corresponding quartz rods.
They returned finally to the control room. Here Arcot spent a long time looking over the many instruments, the controls, and the piloting apparatus.
âWade,â he said at last, âI think I can see how this is done. I am going to stop those engines, start them, then accelerate them till the ship rolls a bit!â Arcot stepped quickly over to the pilots seat, lifted the sleeping pilot out, and settled in his place.
âNow, you go over to that board thereâthat oneâand when I ask you to, please turn on that controlâno, the one belowâyesâturn it on about one notch at a time.â
Wade shook his head dubiously, a one-sided grin on his face. âAll right, Arcotâjust as you sayâbut when I think of the powers you're playing withâwell, a mistake might be unhealthy!â
âI'm going to stop the motors now,â Arcot announced quietly. All the time they had been on board, they had been aware of the barely inaudible whine of the motors. Now suddenly, it was gone, and the plane was still as death!
Arcot's voice sounded unnaturally loud. âI did it without blowing the ship up after all! Now we're going to try turning the power on!â
Suddenly there was a throaty hum; then quickly it became the low whine; then, as Arcot turned on the throttle before him, he heard the tens of thousands of horsepower spring into lifeâand suddenly the whine was a low roarâthe mighty propellers out there had became a blurâthen with majestic slowness the huge machine moved off across the field!
Arcot shut off the motors and rose with a broad, relieved smile, âEasy!â he said. They made their way again up through the ship, up through the room of the tremendous cylinder coil, and then into the power room. Now the machines were quiet, for the motors were no longer working.
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