A hand was raised, with positive assurance, and Arnie nodded in that direction. At least someone was listening closely enough to want to ask a question. It was an Air Force officer, looking young for the high rank that he held.
“You’ll pardon my saying this, Professor Klein, but aren’t you getting something for nothing? Which I have been taught is impossible. You are negating the Newtonian laws of motion. There is not enough power in the sub’s engines, no matter how applied, other than by a block and tackle, to lift its mass and hold it suspended. You mentioned relativity, which is based solidly on the conservation of momentum, mass energy, and electric charge. What appears to have happened here must throw at least two out of the three into doubt.”
“Very true,” Arnie agreed. “But we are not ignoring these restrictions; we are simply using a different frame of reference in which they do not apply. As an analogy I ask you to consider the act of turning a valve. A few foot pounds will open a valve that will allow compressed gas to leave a tank and expand into a bag and cause a balloon to rise. An even better comparison might be to think of yourself as hanging by a cord from that bag, high above the Earth. An ounce or so of pressure on a sharp blade will cut the cord and bring you back to the ground with highly dramatic effects.”
“But cutting the cord just releases the kinetic energy stored by lifting me to that height,” the officer said warmly. “It is the gravity of the Earth that brings me down.”
“Precisely. And it was the released gravity of Earth that permitted Blaeksprutten to fly.”
“But that is impossible!”
“Impossible or not, it happened,” an even higher ranking Air Force officer called. “You damned well better believe your own eyes’, Preben, or I’ll have you grounded.”
The officer sat down, scowling at the general laughter, which died away as Admiral Sander-Lange began to speak.
“I believe everything you say about the theory of your machine, Professor Klein, and I thank you for attempting to explain it to us. But I hope you will not be insulted when I say that, at least for me, it is not of the utmost importance. Many years back I stopped trying to understand all the boxes of tricks they were putting on my ships and set myself the task of only understanding what they did and how they could be used. Could you explain the possibilities, the things that might be accomplished by application of your Daleth effect?”
“Yes, of course. But I hope that you will understand that there are still a number of ‘ifs’ attached. If the effect can be applied as we hope—and the next experiment with Blaeksprutten will determine that—and if the energy demands are within reason to obtain the desired results, then we will have what might be called a true space drive.”
“What exactly do you mean by that?” Sander-Lange asked.
“First consider the space drive we now use, reaction rockets such as the ones that power the Soviet capsule that is now on its way to the Moon. Rockets move through application of the law of action-and-reaction. Throw something away in one direction and you move in the other. Thousands of pounds of fuel, reaction mass, must be lifted for every pound that arrives at its destination. This process is expensive, complicated, and of only limited usage. A true space drive, independent of this mass-to-load ratio, would be as functionally practical as an automobile or a seagoing ship. It would power a true spacegoing ship. The planets might become as accessible as the other parts of our own world. Since reaction mass is not to be considered, a true space drive could be run constandy, building up acceleration to midpoint in its flight, then reversing direction and decelerating continuously until it landed.
This would make a simply incredible difference in the time needed to fly to the Moon or the planets.”
“How big a difference?” someone asked. “Could you give us some specific figures?”
Arnie hesitated, thinking, but Ove Rasmussen stood to answer. “I think I can give you some help. I have been working it out while we have been talking.” He lifted his slide rule and made a few rapid calculations. “If we have a continuous acceleration and deceleration of one G—one gravity—there will be no feeling of either free fall or excess weight to passengers in the vehicle. This will be an acceleration of… nine hundred eighty—we’ll call it a thousand for simplicity—centimeters per second per second. The Moon is, on the average, about four hundred thousand kilometers distant. The result would therefore be…”
There was complete silence as he made the calculations. He read off the result, frowned, then did it over again. The answer appeared to be the same, because he looked up and smiled.
“If the Daleth effect does produce a true space drive, there is something new under the sun, gentlemen.
“We will be able to fly from here to the Moon in a little under four hours.”
During the unbelieving silence that followed he made another calculation.
“The voyage to Mars will take a bit longer. After all, the red planet is over eighty million kilometers distant at its closest conjunction. But even that voyage will be made in about thirty-nine hours. A day and three-quarters. Not very long at all.”
They were stunned. But as they thought of the possibilities opened up by the Daleth effect a babble of conversation rose, so loud that Arnie had to tap on the blackboard with his chalk to get their attention and to silence them. They listened now with a fierce attention.
“As you see, the possibilities of the exploitation of the Daleth drive are almost incalculable. We must change all of our attitudes about the size of the solar system. But before we sail off to the Moon for a weekend of exploration we must be sure that we have an adequate source of motive power. Will the drive work away from the Earth’s surface? Is it precisely controllable—that is can we make the minute course adjustments needed to reach an object of astronomical distances? Do we have a power source great enough to supply the energy demands for the voyage? Is the drive continuously reliable?
“The next flight of Blaeksprutten should answer most of these questions. The craft will attempt to rise to the top of the Earth’s atmosphere.
“As the most qualified person in regard to the drive equipment, I shall personally conduct the tests.” He looked around, jaw clamped, as though expecting to be differed with, but there was only silence. This was his day.
“Thank you. I would suggest then that the second trial be begun immediately.”
8
“I’m beginning to see why they might need an airline pilot aboard a submarine,” Nils said, spinning the wheel that sealed the lower hatch in the conning tower.
“Keep the log, will you?” Henning asked, pointing to the open book on the little navigator’s table fixed to the bulkhead.
“I’ll do just that,” Nils said, looking at his watch and making an entry. “If this thing works you’ll be the only sub commander ever to get flight pay.”
“Take us out, please, will you, Commander Wil-helmsen?” Arnie said, intent upon his instruments. “At least as far as you did the first time.”