Chapter 1

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_Title:_ Skylark Three
_Date of first publication:_ 1930
_Author:_ Edward Elmer (“Doc”) Smith (1890-1965)
_Date first posted:_ July 15, 2017
_Date last updated:_ July 15, 2017
Faded Page eBook #20170711

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[Cover Illustration]

=SKYLARK=
=THREE=

=E. E. “DOC” SMITH=

To “Honey”
SKYLARK THREE

Copyright, 1930, by Experimenter Publications, Inc. Copyright, 1948, by
Edward E. Smith, Ph.D. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States
of America.

C H A P T E R 1

DuQuesne Goes Traveling

In the innermost private office of Steel, Brookings and DuQuesne stared
at each other across the massive desk. DuQuesne’s voice was cold, his
black brows were drawn together.

“Get this, Brookings, and get it straight. I’m shoving off at twelve
o’clock tonight. My advice to you is to lay off Richard Seaton,
absolutely. Don’t do a thing. NOTHING, understand? Just engrave these
two words upon your brain—HOLD EVERYTHING. Keep on holding it until I
get back, no matter how long that may be.”

“I am very much surprised at your change of front, Doctor. You are the
last man I would have expected to be scared off after one engagement.”

“Don’t be any more of a fool than you have to, Brookings. There’s a lot
of difference between being scared and knowing when you are simply
wasting effort. As you remember, I tried to abduct Mrs. Seaton by
picking her off with an attractor from a space-ship. I would have bet
that nothing could have stopped me. Well, when they located me—probably
with an automatic Osnomian emission detector—and heated me red-hot
while I was still better than two hundred miles up, I knew then and
there that they had us stopped: that there was nothing we could do
except go back to my plan, abandon the abduction idea, and kill them
all. Since my plan would take time, you objected to it, and sent an
airplane to drop a five-hundred-pound bomb on them. Airplane, bomb and
all, simply vanished. It didn’t explode, you remember, just flashed into
light and disappeared. Then you pulled several more of your fool ideas,
such as long-range bombardment, and so on. None of them worked. Still
you’ve got the nerve to think that you can get them with ordinary
gunmen! I’ve drawn you diagrams and shown you figures—I’ve told you in
great detail and in one-syllable words exactly what we’re up against.
Now I tell you again that they’ve GOT SOMETHING. If you had the brains
of a louse you would know that anything I can’t do with a space-ship
can’t be done by a mob of ordinary gangsters. I’m telling you,
Brookings, that you can’t do it. My way is absolutely the only way that
will work.”

“But five years, Doctor!”

“I may be back in six months. But on a trip of this kind anything can
happen, so I am planning on being gone five years. Even that may not be
enough—I am carrying supplies for ten years, and that box of mine in
the vault is not to be opened until ten years from today.”

“But surely we shall be able to remove the obstructions ourselves in a
few weeks. We always have.”

“Oh, quit kidding yourself, Brookings! This is no time for idiocy! You
stand just as much chance of killing Seaton. . . .”

“Please, Doctor, please don’t talk like that!”

“Still squeamish, eh? Your pussyfooting always did give me an acute
pain. I’m for direct action, word and deed, first, last, and all the
time. I repeat, you have exactly as much chance of killing Richard
Seaton as a blind kitten has.”

“How do you arrive at that conclusion, Doctor? You seem very fond of
belittling our abilities. Personally, I think that we shall be able to
attain our objectives within a few weeks—certainly long before you can
possibly return from such an extended trip as you have in mind. And
since you are so fond of frankness, I will say that I think Seaton has
you buffaloed, as you call it. Nine-tenths of these wonderful Osnomian
things I am assured by competent authorities are scientifically
impossible, and I think that the other one-tenth exists only in your own
imagination. Seaton was lucky in that the airplane bomb was defective
and exploded prematurely; and your space-ship got hot because of your
injudicious speed through the atmosphere. We shall have everything
settled by the time you get back.”

“If you have I’ll make you a present of the controlling interest in
Steel and buy myself a chair in some home for feeble-minded old women.
Your ignorance and unwillingness to believe any new idea do not change
the facts in any particular. Even before they went to Osnome, Seaton was
hard to get, as you found out. On that trip he learned so much new stuff
that it is now impossible to kill him by any ordinary means. You should
realize that fact when he kills every gangster you send against him. At
all events be very, _very_ careful not to kill—nor even hurt—his wife
in any of your attacks, even by accident, until after you have killed
him.”

“Such an event would be regrettable, certainly, in that it would remove
all possibility of the abduction.”