Out Of The Silence by Erle Cox — Read

THE month that Earani stipulated before the search for Andax commenced was passing swiftly. Dundas used the interval for making all necessary arrangements of his private affairs for an absence that might be prolonged or brief as circumstances fell out. He found it imperative that he should leave 'Cootamundra' occasionally, but the greater part of his time was passed with Earani.

They prepared for their journey by hours of work in the great machinery gallery, where, under Earani's supervision, they gathered together for removal to the surface the parts of the vessel that would bear them to their destination. It was a task that fascinated and bewildered Dundas. It seemed to him that the vessel itself was one of the greatest wonders of the gallery. When completed, she would be over a hundred feet long, yet each part was so made that it could be easily handled by two people, and with a little difficulty, by one, if necessary. Its torpedo-shaped hull was a marvel of enormous strength, combined with lightness. The plans of the completed vessel showed no propellers, nor, indeed, any projection outside the hull. The power generators occupied only a fraction of the interior space. Earani showed Dundas how the pull of gravitation from the earth was first neutralised until the hull and contents, weighing perhaps eighty tons, could be lifted by one hand, and then the attractive force from bodies millions of miles away from the earth's orbit was used to obtain both vertical and lateral movement, so that almost incredible speeds could be obtained--speeds that were only limited by the heating of the vessel through atmospheric friction. She demonstrated how they would speed on their journey at the rate of about three hundred miles an hour, and how special vessels built to reduce the friction on the hull could be sent flashing through the air at almost twice that speed.