Islands of Space

tter?" asked F

ung giant and he threw us for a loss. We drained out three-fourths of the energy from our coils and lost our bearings in

us; it's brighter and nearer." He looked at the instrument panel. "I was using the next lowest

was home, not knowing exactly where it was. But they had one tremendous help-the photographs of the star field aroun

had to rotate the ship through nearly twenty-five degrees to do it. Afte

ng the coils. When he was finishe

going to use the least possible amount of

. Wade decided suddenly to go into his room and stopped himself by grabbing a handhold. Morey, fol

forward with new velocity toward the control room, leav

ght!" Isolated as he was in the middle of the corrido

orey. "It's the most com

sn't old Weakmuscles Fuller! Weighs absolutely nothin

hand-I got you off dead center." F

," said Morey, "and see what you

l, they would remain in free fall, and Fuller

ergy as the space around them became gray; then the star

have to help me. However-" He floundered clumsily as he removed one of his foam-rubber space-boots, "-my brains tel

brought him slowly but sure

o avoid it. Handicapped by the lack of friction, his arms were not quite powerful enough to move his mass as

on by Kid Fuller on a TKO! It appears h

ed Morey. "I con

ed the control room, and the men set about making more observatio

s work, and, as Fuller remarked, this was supposed to be a trip of exploration, not observation. They weren't astronomers; they were on a vacation. Why all the har

te for planets to land on

dom for them? Can't we look for stars like our own su

dea," repl

continued logically. "Let's pick o

s from home. Since they had originally headed out along the narrow diameter of the le

far out," Arcot pointed out. "We're about out o

he almost unbroken night of intergalactic space. Only here and there could they see a

a race out here might make. I mean, suppose that one of those lonely stars had planets, and supp

automatic reading devices attached, hung in the sky for us to watch. We have learned more about space from the stars than all the experiments of the ph

watched their own

y couldn't measure the parallax to the nearest star, so they would have no idea of stellar

ey'd have to wait until one of their s

structure. They might learn a great deal about chemistry and Newtonian physics, and go quite a ways with math, but even there they would be handicapped. Morey, for instance, would never have developed the autointegral calcul

might do to us. They might decide our ship was too threatening and simply wipe us out. Or they might even be so far

er. "With the wonderful advances we've made, there just

nd hundreds of millions yet to come. How can any man of today, with his freshly-opened eyes of science, take in the mighty pyramid of knowledge that will be

d, and a far-off lo

st-so transcendently tremendous-that it frightens me. The energies of all the mighty suns of all the galaxies-of the whole cosmos-in the hand of

ve-I am going to forget it, lest

h awful energies as man had never before conceived. His eyes looked

"Every now and then, I get a new idea and I-I sort of dream. That's when I'm most likely to see the solution. I

or a moment, then M

forty-five degrees from the Galactic plane-to give us a good view of our own Gal

or self. It's been thirty thousand years since I am going to have a meal this morning-whatever it

had been ten chronometer hours since they had eaten, but since they had

ling of hunger is one of them. There was little enough work to be done, so there was no great need for no

ey had done a great deal of hard mental work, the lack of physical fatigue made sleep difficult.

s, we'll take a few photographs and then thr

e red switch. "I'm going to give her half power for ten seconds." The air about them seemed

rrent set up a magnetic field that turned knives and forks and, as Wade foun

Arcot had allowed dragged slowly. Then at last came the heavy crashing of the huge relays; the curren

tle to see; the dim glow of nebulae millions of light years away w

, they saw the mass of the Galaxy f

the distance they had come by measuring th

orey made his observations and began to work swiftly w

at half power-the velocity goes up as the cube of the power-doubling the power, then, gives us eight times the velocity-Hmmmmmm." He read

ut five radii, or half a million light years from the Galaxy. We'll ne

ink you ought to watch the instruments in the power room; this will be our first test at full power. We f

on the intercom to the power room. "All ready, Morey? I just happened to th

beyond the enlarging power range of the telectroscope here. In another half million light years, we'

ication range of the telectroscope. Then why would half a mill

um tube depends on electronic emission; if you get too much amplification, you can hear every single electron striking the plate of the first tube by the time the thing reaches the last amp

level. We'd only get a flickering, blurred image. But if we go on another half million light years, the light signal from th

t additional half million light years.

ned to the interco

me you

ot. He pushed over th

th the terrific electrical energy of the charge. There were little snapping sparks in the air, whic

lightning rods?" he asked indignantly as a

curvature would be so slow to adjust. You see, when we build up our light-rate distortion field, other curvatures are affected. We get some gra

the instruments; leav

nted check tests to make sure the relays were not being burned, which would keep them from r

finished testing the las

out the broad viewport

heir long, longitudinal windows glowing with white light. They seemed to be moving at exactly the same speed, holding grimly to the

y clouded in wonder. Morey, who had come up

long practice with the rays had made them dead shots, and they h

e looked at the ships, "whe