Spacehounds of IPC | Page 8

opened at Stevens's knowing touch. At each floor the mathematician
explained to the girl the operation of the machinery there automatically
at work--devices for heating and cooling, devices for circulating,
maintaining, and purifying the air and the water--in short, all the
complex mechanism necessary for the comfort and convenience of the
human cargo of the liner.
Soon they entered the conical top compartment, a room scarcely fifteen
feet in diameter, tapering sharply upward to a hollow point some

twenty feet above them. The true shape of the room, however, was not
immediately apparent, because of the enormous latticed beams and
girders which braced the walls in every direction. The air glowed with
the violet light of the twelve great ultra-light projectors, like
searchlights with three-foot lenses, which lined the wall. The floor
beneath their feet was not a level steel platform, but seemed to be
composed of many lenticular sections of dull blue alloy.
"We are standing upon the upper lookout lenses, aren't we?" asked the
girl. "Is that perfectly all right?"
"Sure. They're so hard that nothing can scratch them, and of course
Roeser's Rays go right through our bodies, or any ordinary substance,
like a bullet through a hole in a Swiss cheese. Even those lenses
wouldn't deflect them if they weren't solid fields of force."
As he spoke, one of the ultra-lights flashed around in a short, quick arc,
and the girl saw that instead of the fierce glare she had expected, it
emitted only a soft violet light. Nevertheless she dodged involuntarily
and Stevens touched her arm reassuringly.
"All x, Miss Newton--they're as harmless as mice. They hardly ever
have to swing past the vertical, and even if one shines right through you
you can look it right in the eye as long as you want to--it can't hurt you
a bit."
"No ultra-violet at all?"
"None whatever. Just a color--one of the many remaining crudities of
our ultra-light vision. A lot of good men are studying this thing of
direct vision, though, and it won't be long before we have a system that
will really work."
"I think it's all perfectly wonderful!" she breathed. "Just think of
traveling in comfort through empty space, and of actually seeing
through seamless steel walls, without even a sign of a window! How
can such things be possible?"

"I'll have to go pretty well back," he warned, "and any adequate
explanation is bound to be fairly deep wading in spots. How technical
can you stand it?"
"I can go down with you middling deep--I took a lot of general science,
and physics through advanced mechanics. Of course, I didn't get into
any such highly specialized stuff as sub-electronics or Roeser's Rays,
but if you start drowning me, I'll yell."
"That's fine--you can get the idea all x, with that to go on. Let's sit
down here on this girder. Roeser didn't do it all, by any means, even
though he got credit for it--he merely helped the Martians do it. The
whole thing started, of course, when Goddard shot his first rocket to the
moon, and was intensified when Roeser so perfected his short waves
that signals were exchanged with Mars--signals that neither side could
make any sense out of. Goddard's pupils and followers made bigger and
better rockets, and finally got one that could land safely upon Mars.
Roeser, who was a mighty keen bird, was one of the first voyagers, and
he didn't come back--he stayed there, living in a space-suit for three or
four years, and got a brand-new education. Martian science always was
hot, you know, but they were impractical. They were desperately hard
up for water and air, and while they had a lot of wonderful ideas and
theories, they couldn't overcome the practical technical difficulties in
the way of making their ideas work. Now putting other peoples' ideas
to work was Roeser's long suit--don't think that I'm belittling Roeser at
all, either, for he was a brave and far-sighted man, was no mean
scientist, and was certainly one of the best organizers and synchronizers
the world has ever known--and since Martian and Tellurian science
complemented each other, so that one filled in the gaps of the other, it
wasn't long until fleets of space-freighters were bringing in air and
water from Venus, which had more of both than she needed or wanted.
"Having done all he could for the Martians and having learned most of
the stuff he wanted to know, Roeser came back to Tellus and organized
Interplanetary, with scientists and engineers on all three planets, and set
to work to improve the whole system, for the vessels they used then
were dangerous--regular mankillers, in fact. At about this same time

Roeser and the Interplanetary Corporation had a big part in the
unification of the