Page:Stirring Science Stories, February 1941.djvu/11

 time and his own energy on the job of simple mathematics. He just showed up with the equations and theoretical work well mapped out and let the machines or his assistants finish it off.

"At ease," he called. "Get back to work, kids." He ambled over to the main structural forge and confronted the foreman. "Rawson," he said, "as I planned it this job should be finished by now."

Rawson, burly and hard, stared at the Angel with something like contempt. "You planned wrong," he said, and spat.

Angel caught him flat-footed. After one belt on the chin Rawson was down and out. "How much longer on this job?" he asked a helper.

"Nearly done now, sir. Who's stuck with the proving-ground tests?"

"Nobody's stuck. I'm taking her out myself."

With something like concern the helper eyed Machine. "I don't know, sir," he volunteered. "In my opinion it isn't safe."

"Thanks," said the Angel with a grin. "That's what we aim to find out." He climbed into the ship—small and stubby, with unorthodox fins and not a sign of a respectable atmospheric or spacial drive-unit, and nosed around. He grunted with satisfaction. No spit-and-polish about this job—just solid work. To the men who were working a buffer-wheel against the hull he called, "That's enough. I'm taking her out now." They touched their caps, and there was much whispering as Maclure closed the bulkhead.

ITH a light, sure touch he fingered the controls and eased the ship inches off the ground, floating it to the take-off field, deeply furrowed with the scars of thousands of departing rockets. There was no fanfare or hullabaloo as he depressed the engraved silver bar on the extreme right of the dash. But in response to that finger-touch the ship simply vanished from the few observers and a gale whipped their clothes about them.

Maclure was again in the black of space, the blinking stars lancing through the infinitely tough plastic windows. And lie was travelling at a speed which had never before been approached by any man. "Huh!" he grunted. "I always knew I could work it out." He saw the moon in the distance—about a million miles behind and to starboard.

Deliberately he cut into the plane of the ecliptic, determined to take on any meteorites that might be coming. He had a deflection device that needed testing.

Through the clear window before him he saw a jagged chunk of rock far off, glinting in the sun. Deliberately he set out to intersect with its path. As they met there was a tension in the atmosphere of the ship that set his hair on end. But there was no shock as he met the meteorite; he did not meet it at all, for when it was about a yard from the ship it shimmered and seemed to vanish.

Maclure was satisfied; the distortion unit was in order. And the chances of meeting anything so freakish as a meteorite were so small that he did not need any further protection. He was whistling happily as he headed back to Earth.

Then, abruptly, there was a peculiar chiming resonance to the idling whisper of the drive-units. And in the back of Angel's head a little chord seemed to sound. It was like something remembered and