The Machine That Floats by Joe Gibson (read aloud .txt) 📖

"I see." She was quiet for a while. Then, "I never asked you where you were from, did I?"

"No."

"Small town? Or city." The latter held conviction.

He chuckled. "You're not even warm! Casa Verde, Arizona. A cluster of shacks in the middle of a desert, with sand-stone cliffs rising like mountains of the moon everywhere you looked, and black buzzards circling in a hot, brassy sky—"

She shuddered. "It sounds terrible."

"—And beautiful." He murmured it, gently. "We left when I was six years old. No schools there."

"Then—you're from a different world, is that it?"

"You might say that."

"Strange. We're two utterly different people, aren't we, Bill?" She was gazing up at him, studying his features, watching the dappled light and shadows play over them.

Morrow sensed that he was on perilous ground. He said nothing.

"You aren't happy here, are you, Bill?" she spoke almost in a whisper. "You never will be!"

"Most men I've met are—searching for something," he replied hesitantly.

"But they don't devote all their time to it," she protested. "They at least manage to live fairly normal lives and raise families—"

"Do two utterly different people—" He broke off, leaving the question unspoken. But we're down to brass tacks, now, he mused. We just don't feel the same way about things!

Why was that?

"Look," he said, almost gruffly. "I think of a different world—let's stick to that point, for now. You think of a small town. But then, why do you read science-fiction?"

She frowned in puzzlement. "What do you mean?"

"Well, isn't that a 'different world?'"

"But it's fiction. I don't think of reality—"

He smiled gravely. "You don't think there are horrible monsters lurking in the corners, or little people in the wallpaper, or strange eyes floating around watching you—"

"If I did, I'd be in a booby-hatch!"

"Or you might be a research engineer!" He chuckled softly. "Ignorance is bliss, Gwyn. And how much do you know about reality? What do you know of the mysteries within the atom, or the strange way the Universe seems to be expanding as if it had exploded and the stars, including our sun, were still hurtling outward from the blast?"

"Sounds like a good way to go crazy!" She looked up, intently. "I've never heard you talk like this."

"Well, you aren't quite so ignorant," he amended teasingly. "You realize inwardly that your 'small town' isn't quite so contented as it seems—that beneath the surface, there's unrest. So maybe you read science-fiction because it deals with spectacular forms of unrest—men risking their lives in space travel or on other planets, changes and developments that cause revolutions or wars—and you find solace in that. The little unrest in your 'small town' no longer seems so bothersome."

"Mr. Morrow," she spoke icily. "I do not enjoy having you pick my mind apart!"

Then why must you criticize me? he thought. But he didn't say it aloud....

Sunday afternoon, they went swimming. There was a secluded strip of beach where Morrow spread a blanket out on the sand, and after they had swum and splashed and dived to near-exhaustion, they sprawled themselves out on the blanket and let the warm sun dry their skin. Gwyn lay on her stomach and removed her halter, then rolled her trunks into a narrow band around her thighs. Morrow watched with mingled interest and affection. Gwyn scowled at him, then pretended to ignore him.

When his skin began to sting through the sun-tan oil, Morrow suggested they move into the shade of the trees. Gwyn struggled back into her halter and sat up. They dragged the blanket back into the shade and sat down again. Morrow put his arms around her, and they talked for a while.

When Gwyn came out of the bushes wearing her shorts and blouse, she grinned and wrinkled her nose at him. "This has been wonderful, Bill. I almost wish we could be like this forever!" She let him kiss her, then.

They rode back to town on his little motor-bike and had cokes and hamburgers at a lunch-stand.

The second week passed without significance. The other engineers at the labs treated him coolly, now. They'd be glad when he left. At home, his diagrams were finished. He went over them again, checking them thoroughly.

Friday, a telegram reached him at the labs.

STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA

AUGUST 20 1960

BILL MORROW
WESTERTON, NEW JERSEY

HIRED PLANE AND FLEW RECON. PERFECT SITE LOCATED NEVADA. LEASED
ABANDONED SAWMILL IN SIERRA NEVADAS NEAR HERE. WIRE E-T-A TO L.A.
INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. MEET YOU THERE.

D.P. SMITH

Saturday, he spent most of the day settling his affairs and packing for the trip.

The plan had begun. Whether it worked or not, he was going through with it.

The gravity-control mechanism would not be turned loose on the world to increase the tensions and fears already much too prevalent to the point where mankind would plunge into atomic war.

But the gravity-control mechanism wouldn't be abandoned, either. They'd develop it, secretly. They'd have it ready when the world situation changed—for the better, Morrow hoped—and it could be given to the world. Then, mankind would benefit from it.

That was his whole purpose—that his discovery should benefit mankind, rather than pave the way to the destruction of civilization. Morrow considered it a purpose worthy of all the sacrifices he had to make. His job, his career—perhaps later, if the plan worked, he could regain them.

But he had to try.

The battered, worn truck came whining out of the rutted dirt road, clashed its gears, and rumbled into the wide sawmill yard. On the left, a little mountain stream laughed merrily over the rocks and then widened out, ahead, and trickled sluggishly across a brakish pond. On the right, at the foot of the tall pine trees, were the crumbling ruins of sheds and outbuildings, piles of rotted wood.

The truck halted before the main sawmill building across the yard. The mill was weather-stained and decrepit-looking, with the boards fallen off one wall and the roof sagging on one corner, but it was still standing.

Morrow and Smith climbed down from the cab of the mud-splattered truck and stood gazing around them. "Looks like she's been abandoned for quite a while," Morrow remarked noncommittally.

"She has," Smitty agreed. "But it'll serve our purposes, I think. This main building is large enough to be our hanger-workshop with a minimum of repairs. The timbers have tightened up until they're like iron, else the whole building would've collapsed long ago."

Morrow nodded. "Long as the timbers are sturdy, we can patch up the holes with canvas tarpaulin if we have to."

Smitty hooked his thumb toward the stream. "I got a lab analysis of the water—it's drinkable. But we'll have to spread some oil on that pond to kill the mosquitoes. We don't have any neighbors to worry about within ten miles of here; Yosemite National Park's due south of here about fifteen miles."

"What about fire towers?"

"Forest rangers? The nearest is over on a mountainside twenty miles away. He's not going to see anything at night unless it's a fire." Smitty grinned reflectively. "I figure this can serve as our temporary base until we get the ship built and flight-tested. Then we travel due east across some of the worst desert and mountain country you'll ever see, to the site I've picked for our permanent base. It's in a deep, crooked canyon over on the other side of the Kawich Range, in Nevada."

"Not near any atomic project area, is it?"

"Uh-uh. Not near anything else, either. It's not near any airway routes, and private pilots shun that area because there aren't any fields or meadows available for emergency forced-landings."

"Sounds good!" Morrow complimented him. "Where do we camp, here?"

"I've knocked together a small cabin back in the woods. Grab your stuff out of the truck and come on—I'll fix us some chow!"

Morrow climbed into the rear of the truck and slid his luggage back to the tailgate. Smitty took a couple of suitcases, Morrow the third and his equipment case, and they strode off on a narrow trail winding through the trees.

"Now what was it you've been working on?" Smitty asked as he led the way.

"I've been working, on?" Morrow echoed blankly, his mind filled with sensations of clear, cool mountain breeze and the smell of tall pines and the eternal silence of the woodland.

"Yeah!" Smitty prompted. "When we were having dinner, back in L.A., remember, we were talking about the event of anyone catching us at this, that we'd be finished if they did? You said you'd been working on something that would protect us from discovery."

"Oh, that!" Morrow grinned. "I merely figured out a means of camouflage."

"Camouflage?"

"It's still just in its theoretical stage, but I think it'll work. I'll show you my diagrams."

"Show me while we're eating."

The little shack nestled under the pines was cozy and weather-proof, built out of rough lumber and fitted out with hand-made furniture. The air was filled with the aroma of fried bacon, coffee, and wood smoke. They sat at the small, wooden table and ate out of tin plates, washing it down with tin cups of coffee, and Morrow spread his diagrams between them and explained his idea to Smitty.

"—So it's all designed around that propulsion unit," he said. "The gravity-control ring establishes a focus of 'false gravity' inside the tail-pipe so that air is sucked in through the scoops on the ship's hull. The air 'falls' into that focus of 'false gravity' and goes on past it to shoot out the tail-pipe at an estimated sixty-mile-an-hour gale."

"Couldn't we do just as well with a large electric fan?" Smitty asked, half-jokingly.

"This propulsion unit will cost only a fraction of the price of a large air-conditioning fan and motor," Morrow pointed out.

Smitty grinned at the diagrams. "Okay, but you've certainly sketched in a fancy-looking ship, there! Aero-dynamically, I'm afraid it wouldn't be too practical—"

"I know," Morrow admitted. "But we'll have to work that out and still keep this fancy-looking ship."

"How come?"

"Because that's the whole idea, Smitty! Think a minute. Suppose we've built our ship and are flight-testing it. So there's always the possibility that someone will see it—"

"—And call the cops!"

"Right. Normally, that would bring on an investigation and we'd be finished."

"I hope they serve good food at Leavenworth!"

"Stop interrupting, will you? Now, the idea is this: suppose whoever sees us thinks they're seeing a ship from outer space?"

Smitty's grin faded. He stared at Morrow for a moment, then picked up his cup and took a healthy swig of coffee. "I see what you mean," he said, replacing his cup carefully on the table. "They think they're seeing a rocket ship from Mars, or something like that. So they go to the cops and start yelling about it. And that's happened so often—"

"We won't have to worry about any thorough investigation," Morrow concluded, smiling. "They might check the area in which our ship was sighted—"

"Which isn't likely to be around here!"

"—But that's all. Even if it is around here, they aren't going to ask us too many questions so long as we don't have two heads, blue skin, and arms like an octopus!"

Smitty chuckled mirthfully. "You'd better keep out of sight, then!"

"Cut the quips!" Morrow growled mockingly. "I think the idea will work. We'll just have to design the ship so it looks weird enough to excite the imagination. It may have some aerodynamic faults, but it's worth the trouble."

"We can't make it too fancy," Smitty warned. "It's still gotta fly!"

"We don't want it too fancy—just so it looks like a spaceship! First thing we'll have to do, though, is check the costs of plastic construction materials for aircraft." Morrow gulped the last of his meal down with a swallow of coffee, stacked his cup, plate, and utensils, and set them aside. "We don't want to go too deep into our capital to build this ship," he said wryly. "The lease on this property has already soaked us two thousand."

"What'll the shop machinery come to?" Smitty asked pensively.

"Around a thousand, I think."

"Then I think we can build the ship for around—well, anywhere from one to three thousand dollars. At the most, that'll be just over half our capital down the drain." He frowned. "What'll the rest of it be for? Operating expenses?"

"Mostly that. There are a few other ideas I'd like to try out, though—experiments with these mechanisms. But remember that we're dedicated to this thing until the world situation changes and we can turn it loose without any risk. That may not come for years!"

"I've thought about it," Smitty retorted, grinning. "There's a deer run over near our Kawich mountain hide-out, and other game is plentiful. Our meat supply for the next hundred years costs no more than the price of a couple of hunting rifles."

Morrow shook his head. "That might be fine, Smitty. Maybe we could plant a vegetable garden, too, and live off the land. But I don't think we should subject