THE SKYLARK OF SPACE E. E. Doc Smith Seaton had gone only a short distance from his sweetheart`s home when, over the purring of his engine, he thought he heard Dorothy scream. He did not wait to make sure, but whirled his machine around and its purring changed to a bellowing roar as he opened the throttle. Gravel flew under skidding wheels as he made the turn into the Vaneman grounds at suicidal speed. He arrived at the scene just in time to see the door of the spaceship close. Before he could reach it the vessel disappeared, with nothing to mark its departure except a violent whirl of grass and sod, uprooted and carried high into the air by the vacuum of its wake. To the excited tennis players and the screaming mother of the abducted girl it seemed as though the great metal ball had vanished utterly. Only Seaton traced the line of debris in the air and saw, for a fraction of an instant, an infinitesimal black dot in the sky before it disappeared. Interrupting the clamor of the young people, each of whom was trying to tell him what had happened, he spoke to Mrs. Vaneman rapidly but gently. `Mother, Dottie`s all right. Steel`s got her, but they won`t keep her long. Don`t worry, we`ll get her back. It may be a week or it may take a year; but we`ll bring her back!` He leaped upon his motorcycle and shattered all speed laws on the way to Crane`s house. `Mart!` he yelled. `They`ve got Dottie, in a ship made from our plans. Let`s go!` `Slow down -- don`t go off half-cocked. What do you plan?` `Plan! Just chase `em and kill `em!` `Which way did they go, and when?` `Straight up. Full power. Twenty minutes ago.` `Too long ago. Straight up has moved five degrees. They may have covered a million miles, or they may have come down only a few miles away. Sit down and think -- use your brain.` Seaton sat down and pulled out his pipe, fighting for selfpossession. Then he jumped up and ran into his room, coming back with an object compass whose needle pointed upward. `DuQuesne did it?` he cried, exultantly. `This is still looking right at him. Now let`s go, and snap it up!` `Not yet. How far away are they?` Seaton touched the stud that set the needle swinging and snapped on the millisecond timer. Both men watched in strained attention as second after second went by and the needle continued to oscillate. It finally came to rest and Crane punched keys on the computer. `Three hundred and fifty million miles. Half-way out of the solar system. That means a constant acceleration of about one light.` `Nothing can go that fast, Mart. E Equals M C square.` `Einstein`s Theory is still a theory. This distance is an observed fact.` `And theories are modified to fit facts. Okay. He`s out of control -- something went haywire.` `Undoubtedly.` `We don`t know how big a bar he`s got, so we can`t figure how long it`ll take us to catch him. For Pete`s sake, Mart, let`s get at it!`