was smiling like a gleeful and excited child, as Bennion swung her out over the abyss.
When she got out at the bottom, he made the upper end of the rope secure and then slid nimbly down it. A short brisk walk across the chip-strewn quarry floor brought them to the door of the fence. Bennion unlocked the padlock and took her inside the enclosure.
"She's a beauty," exclaimed Katherine, gazing up at the gleaming metallic vessel that had been erected within the frame of a launching cradle. The daylight was fading down here, but the fine, graceful lines of the ship were evident. The sheen on its special phosphor bronze hull plates glowed brightly.
"I've named her the Katherine, in honor of you," Bennion said, pleased with her delight over his handiwork, for he had spent all his spare time for three gruelling years in building the craft. "Climb that ladder and I will show you what it is like inside."
The ship rested at an angle, looking much like an airplane bomb, nose pointed up. Entry could be made through a port a little over half-way forward that led into the control room. Although she gave the impression of possessing tremendous power and speed, the ship was a tiny one, hardly exceeding forty feet. Therefore the climb was an easy one. Bennion waited at the foot of the ladder until the girl had reached the top. He gave one final proud glance toward the as yet useless driving tubes clustered about the sharp tail-tip of the tear-drop-shaped vessel. Then he climbed the ladder behind Katherine. He inserted another key and let her go in.
"It's even duckier inside," she remarked, surprised, as he snapped on the lights for her to see.
The room was circular and switch-boards and instrument panels lined the walls. Kitty noticed a cabinet where cooking could be done. Two spring-slung hammocks indicated where its two passengers would sleep. Overhead there were a number of optical instruments for observations of the stars that would be seen through the many round lucite ports that faceted the domed ceiling.
"Anrad?" she inquired, pointing at the black curtains neatly folded back beside each of the viewports.
"Yes. The first man to hop into space is likely to get a lot of surprises. We can't know what fierce radiation is loose up there above the screen of our atmosphere. I'm taking no chances. The material of those curtains is Anrad."
"Anrad" was their abbreviation of the fuller term Anradiaphane, a substance not unlike rubber in appearance and texture, though far different in its qualities. Its composition was their own well-guarded secret, for it was one of his more recent inventions of which Steve Bennion Was most proud. Anrad possessed the miraculous virtue of being able to stop the terrible Gamma rays far more effectively than even lead. A thin sheet of it, made into a garment, was a safer screen than clumsy and ponderous armor made of several inches of lead.
Bennion frowned momentarily. Mention of Anrad reminded him of unpleasant things. Given an incorrupt government, he would have patented this invention long ago. But sad experience had made him cagey. Three times before he had made application for patents on other important ideas and processes, only to have them rejected with the curt statement that the identical idea had been patented a day or so before by the powerful General Atomics Corporation.
Other independent research workers had had similar experiences — much too often to be explained away as coincidences, even if the great electronics combine did possess wonderful laboratories of its own and had many brilliant scientists oh its payroll. Thus Bennion had come to the conclusion that something was radically wrong with the Patent Office. This had driven him to secrecy and taught him to keep notebooks in cipher. For, ironically enough, he was actually paying to General Atomics exorbitant royalties for the privilege of using some of his own stolen inventions!
"Have a look below," he said, more soberly, trying to dismiss the subject from his mind. He lifted a trapdoor and showed her how to climb down.
Under the floor of the control room were the recoil cylinders that let the floor above spring back under sharp acceleration and thereby cushion the shock of the takeoff. Below them were storerooms, air and water recovery machines, and the spare fuel bins. Lowest of all was the motor room. Up into this chamber projected the butts of the driving tubes. On top of them was built a compact little cyclotron, actuated by its own motor. Its job would be — when suitable fuel was supplied — to start it into atomic eruption.
"Well, honey, you've seen it all," said Bennion at length. "Perhaps I have been too optimistic — building the ship before the final rocket fuel has been prepared — but I know that is merely a matter of time now."
"I hope you are right, Steve," the girl said earnestly. "But something worries me. I don't know why — or how. But I do, too! I've been wrong not to tell you before. But you've been acting so much like a kid at Christmas that I hated to spoil things. Steve, a car was driven out to the lab yesterday morning and stopped near the gates. Four men got out and studied the building for a long time through glasses. And they made a lot of notes."
Bennion frowned down at her troubled face. Then he smiled.
"So they spied, eh? And what did it matter? It will take more powerful glasses than any I know of to reveal what goes on behind our lab walls. Don't let it bother you."
"I wouldn't have — only one of those men was Farquhar," she admitted reluctantly.
"What?" ejaculated Bennion. "Come on! Let's get out of here!"
The name of Farquhar startled the electronic engineer. And with good reason. Farquhar was the vice-president and general manager of the greedy General Atomics Company. Whenever he showed a personal interest in a plant or a man, that plant or man was as good as gone. He was ever anxious to acquire brains as well as equipment and completed inventions — always on the cheapest terms.
Thrice already had Steve Bennion been cheated of the just rewards for his work. Now, one of the few surviving independent research engineers, Bennion thought of that overdue bank note. One of General Atomics' favorite tricks was to catch a man in a neat financial trap and then give him the choice of ruin or going to work for the monopolistic company that wrecked him.
More deeply concerned than he wanted his secretary and assistant to know, Bennion hustled her out of the ship and down the ladder. Hastily padlocking the heavy fence door behind him, Bennion left the girl to follow and bounded across the quarry in great leaping strides. By the time Katharine reached the waiting sling chair, he was almost at the end of his feverish overhand climb up the rope to the top of the pit. Without waiting for a breather, he began hauling her up.
Within two minutes they were careening down the rough mountain trail, heading back toward the laboratory at a furious and dangerous speed.
"When I came up here with you today," the girl explained breathlessly, "I left Billy on guard at the gate. I instructed Mike not to leave the office until we got back. They would die for you, Steve. Please, why the great hurry?"
Bennion laughed shortly, harshly.
"You don't know that pirate Farquhar like I do, Kitty," he said grimly. "No, danger of Billy and Mike having to die for me. Those General Atomic burglars are too smooth to do things in such a clumsy manner. Their strong-arm squad is made up of clever lawyers and grasping bankers. I thought I was preparing an ace in the hole in building the Katherine, and I may have been asleep on a more important job."
The car was on the paved road now, and the going was smoother. Bennion's foot was pressed hard against the accelerator, and the car fairly roared down through the foothills.
"Oh!", exclaimed Katherine faintly. Then: "If things do get bad, Steve, could we get together another stake by selling the little space ship?"
