of space itself as the fulcrum against which it applied its power, was
like the vibration of a note struck somewhere near the bottom of a piano
keyboard, or the rumble of a contra bassoon.

As the intensity of the gravitational field decreased, the velocity of
the ship increased--not linearly, but logarithmically. She shrieked
through the upper atmosphere, quivering like a live thing, and emerged
at last into relatively empty space. When she reached a velocity of a
little over thirty miles per second--relative to the sun, and
perpendicular to the solar ecliptic--Mike the Angel ordered her engines
cut back to the lowest power possible which would still retain the
one-gee interior gravity of the ship and keep the anti-acceleration
fields intact.

"How does she look, Multhaus?" he asked.

Both of the men were checking the readings of the instruments. A
computerman second class was punching the readings into the small table
calculator as Multhaus read off the numbers.

"I think she weathered it, sir," the chief said cautiously, "but she
sure took a devil of a beating. And look at the power factor readings!
We were tossing away energy as though we were S-Doradus or something."

They worked for nearly an hour to check through all the circuits to find
what damage--if any--had been done by the strain of Earth's
gravitational and magnetic fields. All in all, the _Brainchild_ was in
pretty good shape. A few circuits needed retuning, but no replacements
were necessary.

Multhaus, who had been understandably pessimistic about the ship's
ability to lift herself from the surface of even a moderate-sized planet
like Earth, looked with new respect upon the man who had designed the
power plant that had done the job.

Mike the Angel called the bridge and informed Captain Quill that the
ship was ready for full acceleration.

Under control from the bridge, the huge ship yawed until her nose--and
thus the line of thrust along her longitudinal axis--was pointed toward
her destination.

"Full acceleration, Mister Gabriel," said Captain Quill over the
intercom.

Mike the Angel watched the meters climb again as the ship speared away
from the sun at an ever-increasing velocity. Although the apparent
internal acceleration remained at a cozy one gee, the acceleration in
relation to the sun was something fantastic. When the ship reached the
velocity of light, she simply disappeared, as far as external observers
were concerned. But she