SPACE

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 58, 9 March 1935, Page 8 (Supplement)

SPACE

fby Professor A.M.Loio |g.

The Story So Far.

Peter Handley, Phillip Joyce and Victor Standish were on" jii a motor cycling- holiday, when Vic's cycle breaks down. The Ijoys, unable to repair the damage, begin wheeling the machines towards the town. On the way, however, they see a shed, and, taking- It to toe some kind or workshop, Phillip goes on* to ask lor assistance. He comes toack In breathless excitement, and calls the boys to investigate. Inside tlio shed they Unci a weird contraption something , like a stratosphere balloon. It has been built by Professor Slater, who to-day intends to commence a voyage into the stratosphere. The boys climb Into the balloon, and Phillip curiously lingers a little gadget. Immediately there is a low hissing noise and the balloon rises, pushing the shed above It, just as Professor Slater and his two friends, Professor Marsdcn and Dr. Harrison, enter *ne Held. CHAPTER ll.—Continued. , The stratosphere balloon was going lip! As they watched, it was already ilOft or 50ft in the air, and the wood and canvas of the shed had fallen from the balloon back to the ground. Professor Slater stood horrified as lie -watched. He was unable to say si word, although his lips trembled. "Stop!" Involuntarily Professor 3ffarsdcn lifted up his hand and ehouted to whoever might be in the balloon. Then the three men on the ground Siad another moment of breathless horror. Not far from the hangar—or what had been the hangar—was an enormous radio mast, almost 1000 ft in height. Caught by tho wind, the balloon, bbviously out of control, was carried swiftly towards the mast, spinning round like a top ae it did so. "Good gracious!" shouted Slater, ■who had now recovered his speech, "It's going to hit . . . it's going to hit . . . it'll be smashed like an PES '" He buried his face in his hands. CHAPTER Ilf. Hurtling Into Space. Inside the balloon itself there were jfchree terrified and unwilling pasfeengcrs. It was the idle curiosity of Phillip that had landed them in this astonishing predicament. He had touched the ascending valve, and Peter, having become thoroughly alarmed by the continued hissing, ;wae about "to get out, insisting that the others should do so, when the fcalloon had suddenly gone up.

Actually he had his hand, on the cabin door when the Aeronauticus began to rise. Then it was too late. The excitement of the professor and his companions below had been clearly observed by the three men.. Vic was pale with fright. It was lie who saw the radio mast and shouted to the others.

None of them knew anything about the balloon, and Peter looked-round the cabin for eome kind of control wheel or lever—something that would enable them quickly to avoid tho huge steel pylon. But he could see nothing that he understood.

In desperation he yelled out, "Hurl yourselves against this side. Quick — as hard as you can."

Not knowing why they did it, the others obeyed.

The balloon stopped spinning and began to bump its way slightly to the left. Peter's sudden idea had been an inspiration, and, for the moment, they were safe.

They drew a deep breath of relief as they glided past the pylon, which was now so near that they could almost have touched it with their hands.

The balloon was rising steadily, and with anxious faces the trio looked down at the receding earth. No longer could they make out the figures of the three men; houses and buildings were assuming minute size.

Realising that if they were to get down again, something would have to be dono quickly, Peter and liis companions made another survey of the contents of the cabin. But it was all such a fearful jumble. Not one of them could make head or tail of it. There were several levers in line, but nothing to indicate what they were for, and the young men dared not touch any of them for fear of the consequences. "If we pull one," reasoned Peter, "it might deflate the confounded balloon, and we'd drop to earth like a stone." "Why didn't the fellow who built it label his gadgets?" put in Vic. "We must be at least five thousand feet up now," said Phillip, who had remained quiet all this time. "We're probably rising at a speed of one thousand feet a minute. I wonder if the thing will stop itself?" At that moment the cabin of the balloon plunged into darkness. "Gosh!" cried Phillip. "What's happened?" Peter laughed.

"It's .all right," he told them. "We've reached a big cloud and we're passing upwards through it, that's all."

Moisture, which collected quickly on the thick windows of the cabin, gave confirmation to Peter's explanation.

A feyr seconds later the balloon emerged from the. cloud and light poured into the cabin once more.

"I was just thinking," said Phillip. "What was this balloon built for? It was obviously meant for some definite purpose. A great deal of time and money must have been spent on it."

"There's no doubt," replied Peter, "that it's one t>f the balloons built for exploring the stratosphere. My paper has printed a number of articles lately about experiments to see if it isn't possible for an aeroplane to fly in a few hours across to America by first of all reaching the stratosphere."

"I've read about it, too," interposed Vic. "But —but —I say, thoee people go up 10 miles or more, don't they? You don't think we're going up 10 miles, do you?" "Not if we can help it," replied Phillip. "The question is how are we to stop ourselves?" Peter looked at the others. "I remember reading in another newspaper about some secret attempt that was going to be made on the stratosphere," ho said. "Our senior reporter was talking about it in the oflice the other day. Ho eaid it was all being huslied up. It was to be something on a big scale, and that Professor Slater, or Salter, I think the name was —was eaid to be building a eecret balloon somewhere. Heavens, I wonder if this is his balloon!" He had hardly finished speaking, when the balloon suddenly came to a complete standstill. The trio looked at one another in astonishment that was not unmixed with fear. They held their breaths, wondering what was going to happen next. The minutes went by and all three stood still and tense, but the balloon showed no signs of any further movement.

More than an hour had passed and the balloon still remained motionless. The hour had been filled by intense discussion on the part of Peter, Phillip and Vic. They had taken careful stock of the interior of the cabin and had made notes and diagrams of it. As they now stared at the row of levers they wished that some heavensent inspiration would help them to decide which was the right one to pull to'makc the balloon descend to the earth as steadily as it had risen. All the levers looked exactly alike. At last Peter came to a sudden decision. "Now listen," he said. "We'll have to take a chance. I suggest that we pull-back the first lever jufit an inch or two at first to give us time to discover what its effect will be, and if possible, by pushing the lever back quickly, avoid any unpleasant consequences."

The others agreed to the suggestion and watched breathlessly as Peter, with intense caution, took hold of the first lever and attempted to pull it slightly. It would not budge, and he applied more pressure. Still the thing refused to work. Then Peter gave it a.tug. Instantly the lever drew back to its full extent. The balloon trembled violently and all three looked at each other with frightened faces. A moment later there was a roar from below the floor of the cabin and a great sheet of flame leapt out. The cabin itself became filled with smoke. The trembling of the balloon increased in violence for a second or two, and suddenly Peter shouted hoarsely: "It's a rocket balloon. I've fired off one of the rockets! Lie on the floor and hold tight!" Almost at once the balloon shot madly through the air, gathering speed with astounding swiftness. Faster! Faster! Lying, clutching the floor of the smoke-filled cabin, the .three men were being hurled into tho stratosphere at the rate of a thousand miles an hour. A deafening, thundering noise was in their ears, and they were thinking desperately of their lives and safety. Strong as their fear was, they had no conception of the perils which lay before them in the uncharted regions of space.

CHAPTER IV. Smashing Back to Earth! Screaming up through space at a thousand miles an hour in a strange machine they knew nothing about! The three young men were in a terrifying predicament, and the immediate effect upon them was for their minds completely to "black out" for several tense seconds. They recovered to find that the balloon had turned on its eide, and was travelling parallel with the earth. Looking out of an observation window, Peter, the eldest of the three, and a young journalist, could see the earth, far below, hurtling past in one long panorama. "Gosh!" he breathed. "We've stopped going lip." His two companions in distress, short, dumpy Phillip Joyce and young Victor Handley joined him at the observation window, when, suddenly, the balloon gave another startling tremor, and went pointing down towards the earth again, leaping towards it at an appalling speed. "We'll be smashed to pulp!" Victor gasped the words in horror. Peter caught a glimpse of some jungle country, but he hadn't time to think where it was. Something had gone wrong with the balloon and in less than a minute they would all bo hurled to their deaths. In such moments the mind can act with amazing speed, and so it was in this case. Peter remembered seeing attached to the air control switch the words "Balloon release," but ho had had no idea what they meant. Now it came to him in a flash. (To be continued.)