Shortly thereafter they settled lightly in the landing cradle at the
Arcot Laboratories. Arcot's father, and Morey's, were there, anxiously
awaiting their return. The elder Arcot had for many years held the
reputation of being the nation's greatest physicist, but recently he had
lost it--to his son. Morey Senior was the president and chief
stockholder in the Transcontinental Air Lines. The Arcots, father and
son, had turned all their inventions over to their close friends, the
Moreys. For many years the success of the great air lines had been
dependent in large part on the inventions of the Arcots; these new
discoveries enabled them to keep one step ahead of competition, and as
they also made the huge transport machines for other companies, they
drew tremendous profits from these mechanisms. The mutual interest,
which had begun as a purely financial relationship, had long since
become a close personal friendship.
As Arcot stepped from his speedster, he called immediately to his
father, telling of their find, the light-matter plate.
"I'll need a handling machine to move it. I'll be right back." He ran to
the elevator and dropped quickly to the heavy machinery lab on the lower
floor. In a short time he returned with a tractor-like machine equipped
with a small derrick, designed to get its power from the electric mains.
He ran the machine over to the ship. The others looked up as they heard
the rumble and hum of its powerful motor. From the crane dangled a
strong electro-magnet.
"What's that for?" asked Wade, pointing to the magnet. "You don't expect
this to be magnetic, do you?"
"Wait and see!" laughed Arcot, maneuvering the handling machine into
position. One of the others made contact with the power line, and the
crane reached into the ship, lowering the magnet to the plate of
crystal. Then Arcot turned the power into the lifting motor. The hum
rose swiftly in volume and pitch till the full load began to strain the
cables. The motor whined with full power, the cables vibrating under the
tension. The machine pulled steadily, until, to Arcot's surprise, the
rear end of the machine rose abruptly from the floor, tipping forward.
"Well--it _was_ magnetic, but how did you know?" asked the surprised
Wade. Since the ship was made of the Venerian metal, coronium, which was
only slightly magnetic, the plate was obviously the magnet's only load.
"Never mind. I'll tell you later. Get an I-beam, say about twenty feet
long, and see if you can't help lift that crazy mass. I think we ought
to manage it that way."
And so it proved. With two of them straddling the I-beam, the leverage
was great enough to pull the plate out. Running it over to the elevator,
they lowered the heavy mass, disconnected the cable, and rode down to
Arcot's laboratory. Again the I-beam and handling machine were brought
into play, and the plate was unloaded from the car. The five men
gathered around the amazing souvenir from another world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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