Page:Stirring Science Stories, February 1941.djvu/64

 to their car and leaped in. The others donned their overcoats and faded away as they had come. The car roared into action and shot off down the street.

They headed for Long Island and the Staunton Estate where the Cultist had determined the space-ship was still lying, unmolested.

Once through Brooklyn, they stepped on the gas, shaking off the motorcycle police who buzzed after them. After about an hour, they reached the estate recognizable as Staunton's. The place was dark, its owner asleep. The three emerged from the car, then climbed over the stone wall. Dully in the moonless night the great rocket loomed ahead.

It was as they had left it save that a police seal had been put on the door. "Apparently? they were bolding it, untouched, for expert investigators," whispered Congreve, twisting the wheel that released the catches on the safe-like door.

The police seal proved an obstacle for a moment. A strip of solder fastened over the crack of the door. Not wishing to waste rime, Congreve shot it off. A moment later lights hashed on inside the mansion and a voice called out, "What's going on down there!" But they were already inside even as someone started to run down the lawn in the rocket's direction.

The three dosed the steel doors, then Congreve squeezed his way down the narrow passage into the control room. He had be noticed, lost considerable weight. Mitchell led the Cultist into the little sleeping chamber where they managed to brace themselves into hammocks.

Congreve, in the pilot's seat, flashed the dashboard lights, glanced hurriedly around to see if all were in order. Everything checked; he leaned back and grasped the main switch.

"Contact!" he sang out. "Hold fast!"

UTSIDE the servant who had run out on the lawn, and Staunton and several others who had gotten to the windows, held their breaths suddenly. They had noticed a flicker of light in one of the tiny portholes of the craft and guessed what would happen.

There was a terrific hissing as of a million snakes, a monstrous roar and a cataract of blue-green fire poured out of the exhaust pipes that formed the rear of the craft. Then the fire changed suddenly to vivid scarlet; there was a crashing noise as of myriad batteries of artillery in continuous action, and the great metal mass seemed to leap forwards.

It slid along the ground for a second, charring a wide swathe in the lawn, setting off brush fires. Then it shot forward, lifted off the ground, crashed through a clump of trees as if they were straws, and tore thunderously into the night sky.

HE GREEN globe of Earth lay far behind, them. All about the rocket blazed innumerable stars, glistening jewels of lights in the abyss. Far off at one side of the ship lay the sun, ninety-three million miles away.

Mitchell looked out the port in bewilderment.

"Where to now?" he asked. "We are still in Earth's orbit; where are we going?"

Nadir Khan looked up from the opposite window from which he had been devouring the spectacle of celestial space. He stared at Mitchell with a knowing smile. "You are going home again, my friends. Not to Mars; not to Venus; not to Mercury