Page:Amazing Stories Volume 07 Number 08.djvu/41

But it was a mystery no longer. Professor Dane, who could not have paid one third of the $60,000 worth of power consumed in one of his experiments, had merely "borrowed" the power, feeling morally justified in so doing by the knowledge that it was for the good of the country. For the sake of secrecy, Dane and I decided that today's experiment would also be left a mystery, for the time being, at least.

We now entered the barn. It had a high ceilinged, capacious interior, being at least 100 feet square and giving a clear headroom of about 30 feet.

The floor was in a state of clutter and mess that would have been a discredit to a burnt-down junk warehouse. Huge transformers, mercury switches, oil circuit breakers and other parts were scattered more or less haphazardly about, propped up and braced by pieces of ill-assorted iron and lumber until one was tempted to believe that the whole business had fallen through the roof. These pieces of equipment were connected and interconnected by a crazy maze of conductors of all sizes and conditions, some running on the floor, some on stilts, and some suspended by ropes and insulators from the ceiling.

Near the center of this mess, and jarring heavily upon the general motif by a display of carefully arranged symmetry, stood three vertical cylindrical structures, about five feet in diameter and ten feet high, which had been accurately placed so that each occupied one vertex of an equilateral triangle about thirty feet on a side. The space inside this triangle was quite dear of the maze of wire that covered the rest of the floor, and in the very center of the triangle stood a sturdy adjustable tripod, upon which a thick walled glass sphere about three feet in diameter sparkled lustrously.

We dodged and stumbled our way over the intervening tangle to get a closer view of the three cylinders, which were obviously the heart of the apparatus. They were made of an opaque, glasslike substance, and Dane explained that they were giant vacuum tubes, each generating and directing a beam of radiation toward the center point between the tanks, where the glass globe was supported. Inside of the glass globe, which was highly evacuated, a tiny pith ball was suspended upon an almost invisible quartz thread so that it hung at the very center of the globe. The apparatus was so adjusted that the field would be formed around the pith bail and inside of the walls of the globe.

"It is absolutely necessary to provide a high vacuum in the region where the field is formed," explained Dane, "for if the field were formed in air, air molecules would constantly be falling into the outer surface of the field. They would immediately be accelerated by the almost inconceivable force there present, and hurled into the inner core at a velocity approaching that of light. Any object in the inner core would be riddled and blasted—instantly raised to a temperature surpassing that of the central core of a giant star."

The professor then led me back to where a wooden observation platform stood slightly behind and above one of the cylindrical vacuum tubes. The rear of the platform was occupied by a neat though intricate switchboard, where all the indicating meters were mounted, and from which all the equipment on the floor could be operated by remote control.

On the front of the platform, two powerful telescopes were mounted. Looking through one, I found that it showed the pith ball in the center of the evacuated globe outlined against a brightly lit white background placed on the other side of the triangle of tubes specially for that purpose.

Looking up again, I saw the professor surveying the horrible tangle of equipment on the floor below with the greatest of pride. "I put that together all alone, with no help whatsoever. What do you think of it?" he exulted.

"Wonderful!" I lied; then, truthfully enough, "I never saw anything like it before."

The professor eyed me suspiciously, but by dint of great effort I managed to keep my face straight.

"It may look slightly untidy," he conceded generously, "but everything is placed in its best position, electrically speaking." And he proceeded to explain the workings of the entire equipment in detail; it was really quite simple when one understood the underlying principle.

This finished, the professor again turned to the board, trembling with eagerness. The experiment was about to begin! Needless to say, by this time I had forgotten that I had ever doubted the possibility of performing such an experiment, yet I was quite as excited as Dane.

The professor placed his finger on the first of a row of tiny switches on the control board. With his characteristic wide grin he said, "Here goes the beginning of another $60,000 arc-over. Watch the power meter."

He flipped the switch in. From the floor came a clattering thump as a monster mercury switch made circuit. The power meter jumped to an indication of four million kilowatts. Nothing further happened. At short intervals, to give the Niagara station an opportunity to meet the demand, Dane threw in more of the switches, until the meter needle trembled at sixteen million kilowatts. Over twenty million horsepower was now rushing into the apparatus, but there was no noticeable effect. Everything remained quiet.

We moved to the telescopes and stared at the globe and its tiny pith ball. For a few minutes nothing happened to that, either. Then, the hazy outlines of a sphere of grayish darkness appeared, almost filling the globe. Its outer regions were indistinct, but near the pith ball, a definite darkening was noticeable. For the first time I saw that the suspending filament had been torn, and that the pith ball, with most of the quartz still attached, was suspended without apparent support, still in the center of the sphere. It was resting upon the inner limit of the force field as solidly as if upon a material body.

Slowly, the darkness thickened. I alternately stared through my telescope and fidgeted about on the platform as the slow minutes passed. The professor had abandoned his telescope entirely, and was so busy taking records of the readings of the various instruments that he had no time to talk.

Gradually the pith ball disappeared in that globe of deepening darkness; finally it became quite invisible. It was nearing the three hour point since the first application of power.

Suddenly, Dane cried, "Watch closely now—it will happen any minute!" and rushed to his telescope. I glued my eye still more firmly to the eyepiece of mine.

Then, with a soul wracking snap, that was sensed rather than heard or felt, the darkness suddenly vanished, and there was the pith ball again, quite unchanged. It appeared in its old position at the center of the containing globe, hung there for a moment, and then fell to the bottom of the same globe.

From a switch close to his telescope, the professor had