A Columbus of Space | Page 7

you a lesson. I have no intention, however, of
abducting you. It is true that you are in my power at present, but if you
now say that you do not wish to be concerned in what I assure you will
prove the most wonderful enterprise ever undertaken by human beings,
I will go back to the shed and let you out."
We looked at one another, in doubt what to reply until Jack, who, with
all his impulsiveness had more of the milk of human kindness in his
heart than anyone else I ever knew, seized Edmund's hand and
exclaimed:
"All right, old boy, bygones are bygones; I'm with you. Now what do
you fellows say?"
"I'm with you, too," I cried, yielding to the spur of Jack's enthusiasm
and moved also by an intense curiosity. "I say go ahead."
Henry was more backward. But his curiosity, too, was aroused, and at
length he gave in his voice with the others.
Jack swung his hat.

"Three cheers, then, for the modern Archimedes! You won't take that
amiss now Edmund."
We gave the cheers, and I could see that Edmund was immensely
pleased.
"And now," Jack continued, "tell us all about it. Where are we going?"
"Pardon me, Jack," was Edmund's reply, "but I'd rather keep that for a
surprise. You shall know everything in good time; or at least everything
that you can understand," he added, with a slightly malicious smile.
Feeling a little more interest than the others, perhaps, in the scientific
aspects of the business, I asked Edmund to tell us something more
about the nature of his wonderful invention. He responded with great
good humor, but rather in the manner of a schoolmaster addressing
pupils who, he knows, cannot entirely follow him.
"These knobs and handles on the walls," he said, "control the driving
power, which, as I have told you, comes from the atoms of matter
which I have persuaded to unlock their hidden forces. I push or turn
one way and we go ahead, or we rise; I push or turn another way and
we stop, or go back. So I concentrate the atomic force just as I choose.
It makes us go, or it carries us back to earth, or it holds us motionless,
according to the way I apply it. The earth is what I kick against at
present, and what I hold fast by; but any other sufficiently massive
body would serve the same purpose. As to the machinery, you'd need a
special education in order to understand it. You'd have to study the
whole subject from the bottom up, and go through all the experiments
that I have tried. I confess that there are some things the fundamental
reason of which I don't understand myself. But I know how to apply
and control the power, and if I had Professor Thomson and Professor
Rutherford here, I'd make them open their eyes. I wish I had been able
to kidnap them."
"That's a confession that, after all, you've kidnapped us," put in Jack,
smiling.

"If you insist upon stating it in that way--yes," replied Edmund, smiling
also. "But you know that now you've consented."
"Perhaps you'll treat us to a trip to Paris," Jack persisted.
"Better than that," was the reply. "Paris is only an ant-hill in
comparison with what you are going to see."
And so, indeed, it turned out!
Finally all got out their pipes, and we began to make ourselves at home,
for truly, as far as luxurious furniture was concerned, we were as
comfortable as at the Olympus Club, and the motion of the strange craft
was so smooth and regular that it soothed us like an anodyne. It was
only those unnamed, subtle senses which man possesses almost without
being aware of their existence that assured us that we were in motion at
all.
After we had smoked for an hour or so, talking and telling stories quite
in the manner of the club, Edmund suddenly asked, with a peculiar
smile:
"Aren't you a little surprised that this small room is not choking full of
smoke? You know that the shutters are tightly closed."
"By Jo," exclaimed Jack, "that's so! Why here we've been pouring out
clouds like old Vesuvius for an hour with no windows open, and yet the
air is as clear as a bell."
"The smoke," said Edmund impressively, "has been turned into atomic
energy to speed us on our way. I'm glad you're all good smokers, for
that saves me fuel. Look," he continued, while we, amazed, stared at
him, "those fellows there have been swallowing your smoke, and glad
to get it."
He pointed at a row of what seemed to be grinning steel mouths, barred
with innumerable black teeth, and half concealed