Free Campbell-BIInfinite-mo.prc by John W. Campbell Page A

acceleration that would have killed many men!
    Slowly the acceleration of the machine was falling. Arcot pushed the control over to the last ampere, and felt the slight surge, as greater power rushed through the coils momentarily. Soon this was gone too, as the generator behind faltered. The driving power of the atmospheric heat was gone. More than sixty miles below them they could see the earth as a greenish brown surface, slightly convex, and far to the east they could distinguish a silvery line of water! But they had no eyes but for the column of shooting flame that represented the fleeing raider! Out in airless space now, he was safe from them. They could not follow. Arcot turned the plane once more, parallel to the earth, watching the plane above through the roof window. Slowly the machine sank to the fifty-mile level, where there was just sufficient air to maintain it in efficient operation.
    “Well, he beat us! But there is only one thing for us to do. He must hang there on his rockets till we leave, and we can hang here indefinitely, if we can only keep this cabin decently warm. He has no air to cool him, and he has the sun to warm him. The only thing that is worrying him right now is the heat of his rockets. But he can throw most of that out with the gases. Lord, that's some machine! But eventually his rockets will give out, and down he will come, so we'll just hang here beneath him and-whoa-not so fast-he isn't going to stay there, it seems; he is angling his ship off a bit, and shooting along, so that, besides, holding himself up, he is making a little forward progress. Well have to follow! He's going to do some speeding, it seems! Well, we can keep up with him, at our level."
    “Dick, no plane ever made before would have stood the terrific pulls and yanks that his plane got. He was steering and twisting on the standard type air rudders, and what strains he had! The unique type of plane must be extremely strong. I never saw one shaped like-his before, though-it is the obvious shape at that! It was just a huge triangular arrowhead! Did you ever see one like it?"
    “Something like it, yes, and so have you. Don't you recognize that as the development of the old paper gliders you used to throw around as a kid? It has the same shape, the triangular wings with the point in the lead, except that he undoubtedly had a slight curve to the wings to increase the efficiency. Something like the flying wings of fifty years ago, I hope that man is only a kleptomaniac, because he can be cured of that, and I may then have a new laboratory partner. He has some exceedingly intelligent ideas!
    “He's an ingenious man, but I wish he didn't store quite so much fuel in his rocket tubes! It's unbearably cold in here, and I can't sacrifice any power just for comfort. The rocket ship up there seems to be getting more and more acceleration in the level. He has me dropping steadily to get air to run the generator. He is going fast enough!"
    They followed beneath the pirate, faster and faster as the rockets of the ship began to push it forward more and more.
    “Dick, why is it he didn't use all his rockets at first instead of gradually increasing the power this way?"
    “If you were operating the ship, Morey, you'd understand. Look at the speedometer a moment and see if you can figure it out."
    “Hmmm-4.5 miles per second-buzzing right along-but I don't see what that-good Lord! We never will get him at this rate! How do you expect to get him?"
    “I have no idea-yet. But you missed the important point. He is going 4.5 miles a second. When he reaches 5 miles a second he will never come down from his hundred and fifty mile high perch. He will establish an orbit! He has so much centrifugal force already that he has very little weight. We are staying right beneath him, so we don't have much either. Well, there he goes in a last spurt. We are falling behind pretty fast-there we are catching up now-no-we are just holding parallel! He's done it!