Centerberry, which had been far in the distance, seemed right below. It was not possible to see individual buildings. The entire city showed as a mere cluster of checkered squares, and those squares, as fine as the meshes of a tea strainer, Click knew were, in reality, full city blocks.
Chapter 3
Defying Gravity
The professor was shouting.
“I didn’t do that. We’re out of control, falling upward!”
“Falling upward?” asked Click, suddenly having recovered his voice.
“Falling upward. Something’s happened — no, wait. Look at those controls. Quick, the gun!”
Professor Wagner, his bandaged shoulder bare, his suspenders flapping about his scrawny legs, made one swift reach for the revolver, approached the inner shell, and flung open a door.
“Come out!” he shouted.
Click realized, suddenly, that his laboring lungs were crying in vain for life-giving air. He was weak, dizzy, seeing things as in a dream.
He saw a man come staggering out of the inner shell. He noticed that this man’s face was warped in a smile of triumph.
“The oxygen tanks, Dad!” shouted the girl. “They’re jammed, won’t open.”
Professor Wagner gave Click the gun.
“Keep him covered. Be careful how you move. When you walk just tap the tips of the toes gently on the floor.”
Then he backed away.
Click realized why he had the dreamlike impression of objects when he saw the manner in which Professor Wagner backed away.
He merely tilted backward, slowly, as though he were making the motions in a slow motion picture camera. Then he tapped a toe gently on the floor and sailed through the intervening space to the table. He thrust over a lever, slid the button along the grooved guide.
Click was panting for air, suffocating. He saw that the man on whom he trained the gun was in as bad a way. He staggered about as though he would have fallen had it not been for the suspended power of gravitation. As it was, he wobbled weakly back and forth, swaying like a bit of seaweed swinging to the ocean currents. His face was the color of putty.
Then, as Professor Wagner pulled the slide over, there was a sudden tug of gravitation. Click felt his legs buckle under the quick pull, braced himself, felt that he would give much for a single breath of air, then crashed to the floor.
Almost instantly he felt light again, felt a peculiar sense of ease. He saw the professor swimming in the air above him, approaching the inner shell. He heard the rasp of metal, and then the professor came plunging out, like a trout darting through a shaded pool.
“He — had — the other set of controls. Had one of the windows open — oxygen escaped — air rarefied, cold. We’re falling now. Won’t be long, better air — turn that compressed air cock.”
Click saw the face of the girl. It was a purplish hue of convulsed agony. He saw her turn a valve, heard a hissing stream of escaping air, felt his eardrums swell until it seemed they would burst, and then his lungs sent great gulps of life-giving air into his blood.
Professor Wagner had stood the ordeal the best of any, notwithstanding the shock of the wound in his shoulder. And he was cool, alert, vigorously watchful.
“All right, Kendall. Feel better now? Watch through that floor window. I’ll watch the instruments. We’re falling with gravitation accelerated a thousand per cent. We’ve got to watch out.”
Click pressed his face to the window.
The earth was leaping up to meet him.
“Too fast!” he yelled.
Professor Wagner flipped his wrist.
It seemed that ten thousand crushing hands pressed Click’s body to the floor. He tried to move, couldn’t. It was all he could do to breathe.
In an agony of suspense he watched the rushing ground.
He felt a slight ease in the pressure, caught a breath, turned, and saw Professor Wagner’s face set in taut lines.
“Something’s wrong,” gasped the professor. “Shouldn’t act like this. Some factor overlooked! But we’ve got to stop. Hold fast!”
His wrist twitched. The lever moved.
It seemed as though a ton of water pressed Click down and down. The very metal of the floor seemed to bulge out with the pressure.
The ground was still far away, but it was rushing up rapidly. They were almost over Centerberry now. The buildings rushed into view. The squares were like those of a checkerboard, grew until they were as patterned linoleum.
The terrific pressure increased. The ground hesitated in its mad upward rush. The pressure upon Click’s chest relaxed enough so he could breathe.
Click could see the streets, the people scurrying about like ants, the moving automobiles, the belching smokestacks, the tangle of tracks in the railroad yards, the spires of churches, the roofs of buildings.
Closer and closer came the ground. The pressure was terrific. The buildings zoomed up, seemed rushing into his very face. He couldn’t breathe. The air that had been in his lungs whooshed out. He felt that he would rather die a thousand deaths than suffer such agony.
He felt a relief in the cruel pressure and managed to raise his face. A welcome flood of air was in his lungs. He gave a great gasp.
Then suddenly every bit of pressure was relieved. He was as light as he had been before. He saw Professor Wagner draw the back of his left hand over his head while his injured right arm dangled at his side.
“A close squeak, a mighty close call. We developed too much acceleration falling through the rarefied upper atmosphere,” rasped the professor. “I threw it back to stop it, but even with gravitation accelerated to twice normal falling speed the check was so great that it nearly crushed us with momentum. I’m afraid there’s some factor that’s escaped my calculations. But we managed to check ourselves, and just in time, too. Look out and see where we are and what happened.”
Click glanced downward, gasped.
He found that the shell had finally come to a stop not more than a hundred feet above the tops of the office buildings in the main business district of Centerberry.
Just below him were the intersections of Main Street, First Avenue, and Center Square. And those intersections were thronged with people. Every face was upturned. They had detected the strange metal container as it hung poised above them.
Traffic had stopped. People stood exactly as they had paused to look up. Some were halfway across the streets. Some were entering stores.
Then people began to swarm out of buildings, into the street. Even stalled automobiles debouched their startled passengers.
The shell drifted gently downward. The tops of the buildings became closer. Then the metal actually dropped into the canon between the buildings, drifting over the heads of the people as a drifting soap bubble. People became panicky, ran for shelter, trampled and jostled in a squirming mass.
“We’re getting lower and lower,” shouted Click, and turned to see if Professor Wagner was aware of their danger. To his consternation he found that the professor had fainted, that his daughter was bent over him solicitously.
The shell was down below the seventh floors of the buildings now, drifting ever downward. It got closer to the north side of the street, finally brushed against the windows of the building. Those windows were black with packed humanity.
Click could see their faces, see the startled eyes, big with wonder, could even see their lips moving in shouts. But no sound penetrated to the interior of the shell.
The man on the floor, who had become unconscious when the oxygen content of the air had been sucked out through the open window in the interior shell, stirred.
As lightly as a bit of thistle down blown by a gentle breeze, the metal shell rubbed along against the office building. Click saw that it was the McKinstry Building, even recognized one of the stenographers who stared with popping eyes at the shell.