Read Stowaway to Mars for Free Online Page B

workmen was tipping over staging and steps together to load them across a lorry. The movie vans and the journalists' cars began to jolt over the grass towards the Press enclosure. Not far behind them followed the trucks carrying the last of the workmen. The Gloria Mundi, glowing in the rays of the sinking sun, was left sheer and solitary.
    Barnes, of the Daily Photo, looked back at her with resentment.
    'No appeal,' he grumbled. 'No woman's angle. That's the trouble about this job. Damn it all, it's a wife's duty to show up at a time like this and to bring the kid. The public wants to see pictures of the final embrace it's got a right to. Instead of that, his wife sits at home and watches it all over the radio. Can you beat it? It's not fair on us nor on the public. If I were him, I'd damn' well see that my wife'
    'Oh, shut up,' said his neighbour. 'What the hell do your people run an art department for if it isn't to do a bit of montage at times like this. You have a look at our picture of the last farewell tomorrow. It's good. Nearly brought tears to my eyes when I first saw it last week.'
    The cars ran into the enclosure. Their freight disembarked and made for the bar. Once more the loudspeakers burst out with 'Curty, the King of the Clouds'. The minute hands of thousands of watches passed the figure twelve and began to loiter down the final half hour.

     

Chapter VI.   THE START.
----
    'TWENTY minutes,' said Dale, unemotionally.
    If the others heard him, they gave no sign of it. He looked at them, noticing their reactions to the strain of waiting as they stood clustered close to the circular windows. Of the five men in the steel room he was the least affected. His years of rocket racing had bred in him the ability to face the start of an adventure in a spirit of cold fatalism or, perhaps more accurately, to anaesthetize temporarily his natural emotions. The other four were gazing through the thick fused quartz panes across the unlovely Plain as though it were the most beautiful view on Earth.
    Geoffrey Dugan, the youngest of them, took the least trouble to hide his feelings. Dale looked sympathetically at his eyes shining brightly with excitement, noted his parted lips and quick breathing through closed teeth. He knew just what Dugan was feeling. Had he not gone through it all himself', He had been twenty four, just Dugan's present age, when he had flown in the Equatorial race, and lie had not forgotten his sensations before the start. The lad was the right stuff. He was glad that he had chosen him out of the thousands of possibles to be his assistant pilot and navigator.
    Frond, the journalist, turned and caught his eye, grinned unconvincingly, and then looked back to the window. Dale noticed that he was fidgeting. So the tension was getting under that cynical gentleman's skin, was it?
    James Burns, the engineer, leaned against the glass, looking out. To appearance he was almost as calm as Dale himself, but when he moved, it was with a tell tale, irritable jerk. The expression on his face maintained a proper solemnity as would become one about to attend his own funeral.
    As far as his crew was concerned Dale's only misgivings were on account of its last member. The sight of the doctor's face, ominously white and haggard, worried him. There had been much criticism of his decision to include this man of fifty six in his party, and it began to look as if the critics might be justified. Still, it was too late now for regrets one could only hope for the best.
    Doctor Grayson lifted his eyes to the clear blue sky and gave an involuntary shudder. His face felt clammy and he knew that it was pale. He knew, too, that his eyes were looking glassy behind his thick spectacle lenses and his utmost efforts could not altogether restrain the trembling of his hands. Moreover, his imagination was persistently perverse. It continually showed him pictures of city streets filled with crowds, noisy with rumbling traffic, brilliant with