Free 1889: Journey To The Moon (The Far Journey Chronicles) by George Wier, Billy Kring Page B

changing in polarity and masking the ship from all gravities. Merkam had postulated that light was an effect of electromagnetism alone, and they would be immune to all electromagnetism if the engine was running at full throttle.
    He turned his attention to the gear stick. The dial above his head had reached the green band.
    “Powering to Level Two!” he shouted into the speaking tube close by, hoping someone—or anyone on the Bridge—would hear him. He pushed the huge lever forward a quarter of an inch. It clicked into place and the small whirring gears behind the glass covering the transmogrifier’s guts disengaged and slowly spun down while the larger gears picked up speed. The main gear, deep down inside the protective cast iron housing, began a slow, ponderous revolution. At Level Two it should take it nearly a minute to go around. Beneath the spokes of the main gear, the steel and copper ball that was the transmogrifier’s beating heart, picked up its pace. Sparks of blue electric fire danced around it.
    “Good,” came Merkam’s hollow-sounding reply. “Stand by for Level Three. Where is Koothrappally?”
    “On his way,” Ross replied, and then to himself, “I hope. ”
    “Good.”
    Abigail poked her head down inside the main hatch. “Jack. Are you alright? Are you wounded?”
    “I am unharmed,” he said, and thought, Except for my heart. My wife is in love with another man .

     
    [ 19 ]
     
    On the Bridge of the Arcadia , Judah Merkam looked over at Nikola Tesla to make certain he was fastened properly to his seat. The belts were western gun belts, top of the line, cut in half and saddle-stitched to the leather seats. The forward triple-paned and reinforced vulcanized glass showed them the southernmost portion of Colorado Springs and a fierce glow from directly below.
    It was fortunate that he could start the transmogrifier from the Bridge and bring it to Level One without Jack Ross being at his post. That was a design challenge from the first, and it cost them several weeks of their already delayed schedule to get that one factor implemented, but it had worked. Merkam breathed a sigh of relief that his foresight may have saved them.
    He could have brought the engines from Level One to Level Two on his own as well, but dials were not always reliable. For anything above Level One, the Engineer had to be at his post at the transmogrifier. Now the electromagnetic field around the ship produced a shimmer through the front glass. So far, it was working as anticipated.
    “You know, Judah, I must say that trouble follows you everywhere you go,” Tesla said.
    “You don’t know the half of it,” Merkam replied. “By the way, old boy, what would you say that is?” Merkam pointed.
    The stars above them were blotchy, shimmering things, but there were fewer of them than a moment before, and those they could see winked out one by one.
    “Some...blackness,” Tesla replied. “Could be the weather, what with all the cold wind.”
    “You know, Nik, have you ever had one of those...”
    “What?”
    “Uh. Feelings? That something...not good...is about to—”
    The stars disappeared completely.
    The ship shuddered with impact. The bulkhead to Tesla’s right dented inward. The interior of the ship rang like a bell.
    “Oh my God,” Tesla swore. “What the hell?”
    A face thumped into the forward window, illuminated only from within. Then another.
    Judah Merkam ducked his face over to the petals of the speaking tube. “PIRATES!” he screamed.

     
    [ 20 ]
     
    Judah Merkam’s voice came over the loudspeaker with crystal clarity. It was the first time the apparatus had worked without a distant, tinny quality to it, as if from a gramophone. Merkam’s shout froze the blood. “PIRATES!”
    Billy Gostman and Denys Jay-Patten exchanged glances. From the direction of the Bridge at the fore of the ship, Koothrappally called down at them. “Repel the invaders we must!”
    “Get to the Bridge!” Ekka Gagarin