E.E. 'Doc' Smith SF Gateway Omnibus: The Skylark of Space, Skylark Three, Skylark of Valeron, Skylark DuQuesne Read Online Free Page A

and could find no flaw in it. There must have been something going last night that wasn’t going now … something capable of affecting ultra-fine structure … It had to be either in the room or very close by … and no ordinary generator or X-ray machine could possibly have had any effect …
    There was one possibility – only one. The machine in DuQuesne’s room next to his own, the machine he himself had, every once in a while, helped rebuild.
    It was not a cyclotron, not a betatron. Infact, it had as yet no official name. Unofficially, it was the ‘whatsitron,’ or the ‘maybetron,’ or the ‘itaintsotron’ or any one of many less descriptive and more profane titles which he, DuQuesne, and the other researchers used among themselves. It did not take up much room. It did not weigh ten thousand tons. It did not require a million kilowatts of power. Nevertheless it was – theoretically– capable of affecting super-fine structure.
    But in the next room? Seaton doubted it.
    However, there was nothing else, and it
had
been running the night before – its glare was unique and unmistakable. Knowing that DuQuesne would turn his machine on very shortly, Seaton sat in suspense, staring at the wire. Suddenly the subdued reflection of the familiar glare appeared on the wall outside his door – and simultaneously the treated wire turned brown.
    Heaving a profound sigh of relief, Seaton again touched the bit of metal with the wires from the Redeker cell. It disappeared simultaneously with a high whining sound.
    Seaton started for the door, to call his neighbors in for another demonstration, but in mid-stride changed his mind. He wouldn’t tell anybody anything until he knew something about the thing himself. He had to find out what it was, what it did, how and why it did it, and how – or if – it could be controlled. That meant time, apparatus and, above all, money. Money meant Crane; and Mart would be interested, anyway.
    Seaton made out a leave slip for the rest of the day, and was soon piloting his motorcycle out Connecticut Avenue and into Crane’s private drive. Swinging under the imposing porte-cochère he jammed on his brakes and stopped in a shower of gravel, a perilous two inches from granite. He dashed up the steps and held his finger firmly against the bell button. The door was opened hastily by Crane’s Japanese servant, whose face lit up on seeing the visitor.
    ‘Hello, Shiro. Is the honorable son of Heaven up yet?’ ‘Yes, sir, but he is at present in his bath.’
    ‘Tell him to snap it up, please. Tell him I’ve got a thing on the fire that’ll break him right off at the ankles.’
    Bowing the guest to a chair in the library, Shiro hurried away. Returning shortly, he placed before Seaton the
Post,
the
Herald,
and a jar of Seaton’s favorite brand of tobacco, and said, with his unfailing bow, ‘Mr Crane will appear in less than one moment, sir.’
    Seaton filled and lit his briar and paced up and down the room, smoking furiously. In a short time Crane came in.
    ‘Good morning, Dick.’ The men shook hands cordially. ‘Your message was slightly garbled in transmission. Something about a fire and ankles is all that came through. What fire? And whose ankles were – or are about to be – broken?’
    Seaton repeated.
    ‘Ah, yes, I thought it must have been something like that. WhileI have breakfast, will you have lunch?’
    ‘Thanks, Mart, guess I will. I was too excited to eat much of anything this morning.’ A table appeared and the two men sat down at it. ‘I’ll just spring it on you cold, I guess. Just what would you think of working with me on a widget to liberate and control the entire constituent energy of metallic copper? Not in little dribbles and drabbles, like fission or fusion, but one hundred point zero zero zero zero per cent conversion? No radiation, no residue, no by-products – which means no shielding or protection would be necessary – just pure and total conversion of