The young officer felt distinctly disconcerted. He did not know exactly what he had expected from this man – what corroboration of his wild surmises – but he was getting nowhere, he admitted. And he resented the cold aloofness of the scientist before him.
"I am not trying to pin you down on anything," he said, and his tone carried a hint of the nervous strain that had been his. "I am trying to learn something."
"Just what?" the other inquired.
"Could that flash have been a signal?"
"You may think so if you wish: I have told you all that I know. And now," he added, and rose from his chair, "I must ask to be excused; I have work to do."
McGuire came slowly to his feet. He had learned nothing; perhaps there was nothing to be learned. A fool's errand! Blake was right. But the inner urge for some definite knowledge drove him on. His eyes were serious and his face drawn to a scowl of earnestness as he turned once more to the waiting man.
"Professor Sykes," he demanded, "just one more question. Could that have been the flash of a – a rocket? Like the proposed experiments in Germany. Could it have meant in any way the launching of a projectile – a ship – to travel Earthward through space?"
Professor Sykes knew what it was to be harassed by the curious mob, to avoid traps set by ingenious reporters, but he knew, too, when he was meeting with honest bewilderment and a longing for knowledge. His fists were placed firmly on the hips of his stocky figure as he stood looking at the persistent questioner, and his eyes passed from the intent face to the snug khaki coat and the spread wings that proclaimed the wearer's work. A ship out of space – a projectile – this young man had said.
"Lieutenant," he suggested quietly – and again the smile had returned to his lips as he spoke – "sit down. I'm not as busy as I pretend to be. Now tell me: what in the devil have you got in your mind?"
And McGuire told him. "Like some of your dope," he said, "this is not for publication. But I have not been instructed to hush it up, and I know you will keep it to yourself."
He told the clear-eyed, listening man of the previous night's events. Of the radio's weird call and the mystery ship.
"Hallucination," suggested the scientist. "You saw the stars very clearly, and they suggested a ship."
"Tell that to Jim Burgess," said McGuire: "he was the pilot of that plane." And the scientist nodded as if the answer were what he expected.
He asked again about the ship's flight. And he, too, bore down heavily upon the matter of acceleration in the thin upper air. He rose to lay a friendly hand on McGuire's shoulder.
"We can't know what it means," he said, "but we can form our own theories, you and I – and anything is possible.
"It is getting late," he added, "and you have had a long drive. Come over and eat; spend the night here. Perhaps you would like to have a look at our equipment – see Venus for yourself. I will be observing her through the sixty-inch refractor to-night. Would you care to?"
"Would I?" McGuire demanded with enthusiasm. "Say, that will be great!"
The sun was dropping toward the horizon when the two men again came out into the cool mountain air.
"Just time for a quick look around," suggested Professor Sykes, "if you are interested."
He took the lieutenant first to an enormous dome that bulged high above the ground, and admitted him to the dark interior. They climbed a stairway and came out into a room that held a skeleton frame of steel. "This is the big boy," said Professor Sykes, "the one hundred-inch reflector."
There were other workers there, one a man standing upon a raised platform beside the steel frame, who arranged big holders for photographic plates. The slotted ceiling opened as McGuire watched, and the whole structure swung slowly around. It was still, and the towering steel frame began to swing noiselessly when a man at a desk touched various controls. McGuire looked about him in bewilderment.
"Quite a shop," he admitted; "but where is the telescope?"
Professor Sykes pointed to the towering latticework of steel. "Right there," he said. "Like everyone else, you were expecting to see a big tube."
He explained in simple words the operation of the great instrument that brought in light rays from sources millions of light years away. He pointed out where the big mirror was placed – the one hundred-inch reflector – and he traced for the wondering man the pathway of light that finally converged upon a sensitized plate to catch and record what no eye had ever seen.
He checked the younger man's flow of questions and turned him back toward the stairs. "We will leave them to their work," he said; "they will be gathering light that has been traveling millions of years on its ways. But you and I have something a great deal nearer to study."
Another building held the big refractor, and it was a matter of only a few seconds and some cryptic instructions from Sykes until the eye-piece showed the image of the brilliant planet.
"The moon!" McGuire exclaimed in disappointed tones when the professor motioned him to see for himself. His eyes saw a familiar half-circle of light.
"Venus," the professor informed him. "It has phases like the moon. The planet is approaching; the sun's light strikes it from the side." But McGuire hardly heard. He was gazing with all his faculties centered upon that distant world, so near to him now.
"Venus," he whispered half aloud. Then to the professor: "It's all hazy. There are no markings – "
"Clouds," said the other. "The goddess is veiled; Venus is blanketed in clouds. What lies underneath we may never know, but we do know that of all the planets this is most like the earth; most probably is an inhabited world. Its size, its density, your weight if you were there – and the temperature under the sun's rays about double that of ours. Still, the cloud envelope would shield it."
McGuire was fascinated, and his thoughts raced wildly in speculation of what might be transpiring before his eyes. People, living in that tropical world; living and going through their daily routine under that cloud-filled sky where the sun was never seen. The margin of light that made the clear shape of a half-moon marked their daylight and dark; there was one small dot of light forming just beyond that margin. It penetrated the dark side. And it grew, as he watched, to a bright patch.
"What is that?" he inquired abstractedly – his thoughts were still filled with those beings of his imagination. "There is a light that extends into the dark part. It is spreading – "
He found himself thrust roughly aside as Professor Sykes applied a more understanding eye to the instrument.
The professor whirled abruptly to his assistant. "Phone Professor Giles," he said sharply; "he is working on the reflector. Tell him to get a photograph of Venus at once; the cloud envelope is broken." He returned hurriedly to his observations. One hand sketched on a waiting pad.
"Markings!" he said exultantly. "If it would only hold!.. There, it is closing … gone…"
His hand was quiet now upon the paper, but where he had marked was a crude sketch of what might have been an island. It was "L" shaped; sharply bent.
"Whew!" breathed Professor Sykes and looked up for a moment. "Now that was interesting."
"You saw through?" asked McGuire eagerly. "Glimpsed the surface? – an island?"
The scientist's face relaxed. "Don't jump to conclusions," he told the aviator: "we are not ready to make a geography of Venus quite yet. But we shall know that mark if we ever see it again. I hardly think they had time to get a picture.
"And now there is only a matter of three hours for observation: I must watch every minute. Stay here if you wish. But," he added, "don't let your imagination run wild. Some eruption, perhaps, this we have seen – an