E.E. 'Doc' Smith SF Gateway Omnibus: The Skylark of Space, Skylark Three, Skylark of Valeron, Skylark DuQuesne by E. E. (Doc) Smith Page B

new, we both are very well satisfied with its performance.’
    ‘You’re ready for Steel, then? I don’t know what they’ll do when they find out that you don’t intend to do anything with “Old Crip,” but they’ll do something.’
    ‘I hope they blow their stacks,’ Seaton said, grimly. ‘We’re ready for ’em, with a lot of stuff they neverheard of and won’t like a little bit. Give us four or five days to straighten out the bugs Mart told you about – then let ’em do anything they want to.’

XI
    The afternoon following the home-coming of the
Skylark,
Seaton and Dorothy returned from a long horseback ride in the park. After Seaton had mounted his motorcycle, Dorothy turned toward a bench in the shade of an old elm to watch a game of tennis on the court next door. Scarcely had she seated herself when a great copper-plated ball landed directly in front of her. A heavy steel door snapped open and a powerful figure clad in leather leapt out. The man’s face and eyes were covered by his helmet flaps and amber goggles.
    Dorothy leaped to her feet with a shriek – Seaton had just left her and this spaceship was far too small to be the
Skylark –
it was the counterpart of ‘Old Crip,’ which, she knew, could never fly. As these thoughts raced through her she screamed again and turned in flight; but the stranger caught her in three strides and she found herself helpless in a pair of arms as strong as Seaton’s.
    Picking her up lightly, DuQuesne carried her over the lawn to his spaceship. Dorothy screamed wildly as she found that her fiercest struggles made no impression on her captor. Her clawing nails glanced harmlessly off the glass and leather of his helmet; her teeth were equally ineffective against his leather coat.
    With the girl in his arms, DuQuesne stepped into the vessel. The door clanged shut behind them. Dorothy caught a glimpse of another woman, tied tightly into one of the side seats.
    ‘Tie her feet, Perkins,’ DuQuesne ordered, holding her around the body so that her feet extended straight out in front of him. ‘She’s a fighting wildcat.’
    As Perkins threw one end of a small rope around her ankles Dorothy doubled up her knees, drawing her feet as far away from him as she could. He stepped up carelessly and reached out to grasp her ankles. She straightened out, viciously driving her riding-boots into the pit of his stomach with all her strength.
    It was a true solar-plexus blow; and, completely knocked out, Perkins staggered backward against the instrument board. His outflung arm pushed the power lever out to its last notch, throwing full current through the bar, which was pointed straight up as it had been when they made their landing.
    There was the creak of fabricated steel stressed almostto its limit as the vessel shot upward with a tremendous velocity, and only the ultra-protective and super-resilient properties of the floor saved their lives as they were thrown flat upon it by the awful force of their acceleration.
    The maddened space-ship tore through the thin layer of the Earth’s atmosphere in instants – it was through it and into the almost-perfect vacuum of interplanetary space before the thick steel hull was even warmed through.
    Dorothy lay flat upon her back, just as she had fallen, unable even to move her arms, gaining each breath by a terrible effort. Perkins was a huddled heap under the instrument board. The other captive, Brookings’ ex-secretary, was in somewhat better case, as her bonds had snapped and she was lying in optimum position in one of the seats – forced into that position and held there, as the designer of those seats had intended. She, like Dorothy, was gasping for breath, her straining muscles barely able to force air into her lungs because of the paralyzing weight of her chest.
    DuQuesne alone was able to move, and it required all of his Herculean strength to creep and crawl, snakelike, toward the instrument board. Finally, attaining his goal, he