The SKYLARK of VALERON
by EDWARD E. SMITH, Ph.D.
Illustrated by Elliot Dold
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Astounding Stories August, September, October,
November, December 1934, January, February 1935.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
PROLOGUE
"Mother-r-r!" A sturdy, auburn-haired urchin of twelve—RichardBallinger Seaton the fourteen hundred and seventy-first—turned to thequeenly young matron who was his mother as the viewing area before themwent blank. "You said that as soon as I was old enough you would letme see the rest of the 'Exploits of Seaton One.' Now grandfather's thechief of the Galactic Council, and I'm twelve, and I'm old enough."
"Perhaps you are, son." Into the beautiful eyes of the young womancame that indefinable, indescribable something; the knowledge that heroldest was no longer a baby. "Tell me the story as it is run for theholiday, and I shall see."
"Richard Ballinger Seaton the First was a Ph. D. in chemistry," the boybegan. "He lived in the city of Washington, in what was then the UnitedStates of America. He was born—"
"Never mind dates and such things, sonny. It would take too longto give all the details. I just want to make sure that you reallyunderstand the story—conditions were so different then from whatthey are now."
"Well, Seaton One discovered Rovolon, which he called 'X' metal atfirst. He found out that it would turn copper into energy, and he andMartin Reynolds Crane One built the very first space ship that was everknown. But the World Steel Corporation wanted all the Rovolon thatSeaton had found; so Dr. DuQuesne, a chemist of theirs, and a kind of aspy named Perkins, tried to steal it away from him. They got a littleof it, but it exploded some copper and killed a lot of people.
"When Seaton heard about the explosion he found out that some of hisRovolon was gone, and they hired some detectives and had an awfultime. A lot more people were killed, and a Japanese assistant ofCrane's, named Shiro, was almost killed, too. Then they went to workand invented a lot of new instruments, such as a compass that pointedat any one thing forever; and attractors and repellers and rays andscreens and explosives and lots of things that are good yet.
"This DuQuesne tried for a long time to get the Rovolon and couldn't,so they built a space ship from Seaton's plans that they stole, andhe carried off Dorothy Vaneman and Margaret Spencer, the girls thatSeaton One and Crane One were going to marry—and they did marry them,afterward, too. Well, Dorothy kicked Perkins in the stomach, and thespace ship ran away and kept on going until it got caught by theattraction of the Dark Mass that the First of Energy has always had somuch trouble with, and while they were falling toward it that Perkinswent crazy and tried to kill Margaret, but DuQuesne killed him instead,and then Seaton One caught up with them and rescued them and—"
"Just a minute, son; there is no great hurry. How did Seaton One getway out there?"
"Well, they had their big new space ship, the Skylark of Space, allbuilt by then, and Seaton One had an object-compass set on DuQuesne,because he'd been watching him a long time since he'd been makinglots of trouble for him. So Seaton One and Crane One followed theobject-compass and found them and rescued them all but Perkins, becausehe was dead already.
"They had an awful time getting away from the Dark Mass, but t