ON the morning of March 16th, Dustin and Sanders set out for the Galapagos in the former’s swift Blettendorf super-electroplane, which was capable of a speed of eight hundred miles an hour. They arrived about noon and worked assiduously, with the result that the gun was loaded and ready for the Herculean task of lowering it into the emplacement by night.
On the seventeenth it was pointed according to the calculations of the young inventor, and on the eighteenth was braced in place by hundreds of tons of special, fast-setting, reinforced concrete.
On the nineteenth the U.S. Aerial Battleship Hawaii arrived with a group of trained observers, representing the Associated Governments of the Earth. She was equipped with high power telescopes, spectroscopes, and photographic apparatus, all to be used by or under the direction of this assembly of picked scientists.
Busy as he was in getting his men and equipment loaded and away from the danger zone, Dustin was compelled to hold a reception for his distinguished visitors, show them the gun and its emplacement, and answer a thousand questions. Sanders, however, assumed the burdens of the executive to such good purpose that before the scientists had boarded the Hawaii to be taken to their point of observation and there await the zero hour, he had everything loaded and off the island.
All that night, and up until one thirty on the twentieth, the inventor busied himself connecting the automatic firing apparatus and seeing that it was in perfect order.
By that time, Dustin, Sanders and Bevans, the pilot, were the only humans left in the archipelago. After a cold lunch and a final tour of inspection, each man made ready to play his part.
It was estimated that the moon would cross the path of the earth at 6 hours, 53 minutes and 13 seconds past noon, central standard time. This brought the firing time to 2 hours, 32 minutes and 22 seconds past noon, or approximately 2:30 P.M.
Promptly at 2:20, Bevans started the helicopter blades and rising above the rim of the crater headed northwest toward the point on the equator, 97 1/2 degrees west longitude, which it was thought would be most favorable for observation, and to which the scientists had gone the evening before. This was less than a forty minute run for the powerful super-electroplane.
As they hurtled along, Ted glanced, from time to time, at the chronometer. At 2:30 he hastily unslung his binoculars, opened the rear window and trained them in the direction of Daphne Major.
“Can’t see the island from here, can you?”
“Hardly. It’s a good two hundred and fifty miles back and we couldn’t possibly rise high enough to bring it to our horizon line.”
“Then what do you expect to see?”
“Some sign of the explosion, possibly. Take a look for yourself.”
While Roger trained his own binoculars rearward, Ted called up to Bevans:
“Start the smoke trail at 2:35,” he ordered, “and watch for aerial waves. We may be in for a good shaking up.”
“Very well, sir.”
At 2:32, Ted and Roger sat with bated breath, their binoculars directed toward the archipelago, listening intently while the chronometer ticked off the seconds.
The zero hour arrived and for two seconds thereafter the anxious watchers saw nothing. Then, with amazing suddenness, a gray, mushroom-shaped cloud spread skyward above the horizon. Just above it, a thin pencil of smoke was barely discernible through the glasses, pointing straight toward the zenith.
“Hurray! She’s off!” shouted Roger.
Ted did not answer. His face grew suddenly grave.
“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Roger. “Isn’t everything all right?”
“I’m afraid we’ve started something we didn’t consider in our calculations,” he replied. “Do you see that black cloud forcing its way upward through the gray one?”
“Yes.”
“And the band of yellow immediately beneath it?”
“Yes. What is it?”
“A volcanic eruption,” replied Ted. “Daphne Major, you will remember, was the crater of an extinct volcano. We’ve blown off the top, and outraged Mother Earth is doing the rest. Appears like a terrific eruption from here, too. And look: There’s a reply from the heavens. See those flashes in the clouds? A thunder storm has formed in the upper regions.”
At this moment thick, black smoke began belching from the rear of the electroplane, and their view to the rear was obscured.
“Full speed ahead, Bevans,” shouted Ted. “Give her all you’ve got. We’re due for a heavy squall in less than five minutes.”
Shortly thereafter, signs of terrific agitation in the atmosphere were registered in the rear of the smoke trail.
“Ascend at an angle of 45 degrees,” ordered Ted. “We’ll ride with the gale.”
Scarcely had he spoken ere the plane received such a shock that both Ted and Roger were thrown to the floor. It was accompanied by a continuous roar as of a thousand thunderclaps let loose at once, echoing and re-echoing with seemingly undiminished intensity for several minutes.
Rising with difficulty, for the ship careened frightfully, Ted dragged himself to the rear window and looked out. Their smoke trail had been completely dissipated, and once more he had a clear view toward the rear. Two things he noted, almost simultaneously—a mountainous; white-crested wall of water swiftly overtaking them on the surface of the Pacific, and just above it a swirling, tumbling mass of clouds, black beneath and silvery white above, with vivid flashes of forked lightning playing between them. He shouted up the speaking tube:
“Higher, Bevans. Use your helicopters, man, or we’re lost!”
There was a jerk and a roar as Bevans hastily threw the helicopters into gear, then a rapid upward movement that glued them to the floor until their bodies had gained momentum.
Quick though he had been in carrying out orders, the pilot was not quick enough for the forces of Nature. As if incensed at this puny attempt of man to conquer her, she seized the frail craft in the grasp of her powerful winds and played with it as if it had been a feather. At the first impact, Ted saw Roger strike his head on the edge of the refrigerator and slump to the floor. He tried to go to him, but found this impossible. The craft dipped dizzily, spun like a top, and rolled end over end. Gripping the doorknob, unable to help his fallen companion, he found his feet sometimes in midair, sometimes on the wall, and sometimes on the very ceiling. There was an unending glare of lightning and a continuous roar of thunder. Rain, sleet, and ice pellets alternately beat in through the unclosed rear window.
The craft steadied a bit for an instant, and Ted succeeded in seizing Roger’s ankle. Dragging the limp form of his companion toward him, he passed his arm beneath the slender body and held it as best he could, meanwhile keeping a tight grip on the doorknob. Though the storm continued outside, Bevans seemed to be getting the plane under control once more, for it rocked less and less as time went on.
Presently, too, the lightning flashes appeared farther apart, and the intervening darkness grew steadily lighter.
As soon as he was able to release his grip on the doorknob, Ted gently lowered his assistant to the floor of the disordered cabin. Switching on the light, he made a hasty examination of the gash in the pale forehead and found, to his relief, that there was no skull fracture. After carefully dressing it from the contents of the emergency kit, he placed a pillow beneath the head of the still unconscious Roger, and made his way to the rear window. At a glance, he saw that they had risen above the electrical storm, but were still beneath a dense cloud stratum that shut off the sunlight like a blanket. He shouted up to the pilot:
“All right, Bevans?”
“Sound as a dollar, sir.”
“Good. Keep those helicopters going and see if we can get up into the sunlight.”
“Yes, sir.”
Roger moaned feebly, then opened his eyes as Ted bent over him.
“Wh-what happened?” he asked.
“You were knocked out. Nothing dangerous. Be all right soon. Want anything?”
“Cigarette.”
“Sure thing. Here.”
Ted placed it between the ashen lips and fired it with his atomic lighter.
“Lie still for a while,” he counseled. “I’m going to try to make some observations if we can ever get above these confounded clouds.”
It was some time before the welcome flash of sunlight appeared. After making his observations, Ted calculated that they had been driven more than three hundred miles southwest of their course by the storm. When the plane was once more headed toward the point where they hoped to find the Hawaii, he descended the stairway to see what he could do for Roger. He found him in one of the cabin chairs, curiously examining a film of dust that had formed on the map-table.
“Where do you suppose that came from?” he asked, poking it with his finger.
“Volcanic ash,” replied Dustin. “Sometimes travels clear around the world, so we needn’t be surprised to find it here after that huge upheaval. How’s the head feeling now, old man?”
“Better, thanks.”
“Good. We’ll just have time for a cold snack before we board the Hawaii.”
As soon as they had eaten, Ted took food up to the pilot and steered the ship while he ate.
“Nearly there, aren’t we, sir?” asked Bevans, after he had swallowed the last morsel.
“Almost. I’ll give you the signal to descend, from the cabin. We’re going to need our searchlight, I’m afraid.”
Once more in the cabin, Ted consulted his instruments. Presently he gave the order to descend. In a moment they were plunged into deep gloom which the mighty searchlights failed to penetrate for more than fifty feet in any direction.
“We’ll never find them this way,” said Ted. “Try the radio, Roger, will you?”
Sanders sat down in front of the powerful instrument and turned the dials.
“She’s dead,” he announced. “That electrical storm must have burned out something.”
“Here. You keep watch while I see what’s wrong,” replied Ted.
It only took the inventor a moment to find the trouble.
“Burned out every tube,” he said, “and I forgot to bring a spare set. We’ll just have to keep cruising around, I guess, and hope for luck. A nice mess we’ve gotten into.”
“For my part I’m thankful to be alive, radio or no radio,” said Roger.
“Righto, but I’ll certainly be disappointed if I can’t be aboard the Hawaii with those official observers when the projectile strikes the moon. We may be able to see it with our binoculars, but I doubt it.”
As they cruised about in ever widening circles, the time slipped away, but there was no sign of the Hawaii. Presently, when the chronometer showed 6:20 Ted gave up the search and ordered Bevans to hurry back to the designated observation point. They barely reached it at 6:50, and another minute was consumed in rising above the highest cloud stratum.
The sun had set and the half-illumined orb of the moon was just above the western horizon. Both men trained their binoculars on it simultaneously. Came 6:53 and they waited tensely for the thirteenth second, at which instant the projectile was calculated to strike.
The thirteenth second came and went without incident. The fourteenth—and then—directly in the center of the celestial target things happened. Both men simultaneously saw a tiny light flash for an instant across the dark side of the moon’s sunrise line, while a small black spot slowly grew in size on the sunlit side of the line.
“Hurray! She hit dead center!” shouted Roger.
Ted watched the black spot in silence for a moment.
“Seems to have landed plumb in the middle of the crater, Hipparchus,” replied Ted. “Thought I had miscalculated the time, for an instant, but I see the reason now. We saw the flash just 1.25 seconds after it took place because it takes light that long to travel from the moon to the earth.”
The black spot faded perceptibly. In a minute more it had disappeared completely.
“There goes our evidence,” said Ted. “I hope they saw it while it lasted.”
He called up through the speaking tube:
“Back to Chicago, Bevans.”