you've rebelled, too? I haven't seen you for a long time, you know.
Why, it's been years!"

"Oh, I'm all right. Guess I got fed up with things about the same way
you did. Knew last time I saw you that you were feeling as I did.
That's why I came after you."

"But this vessel, the _Nomad_. I didn't know such a thing was in
existence. How does it operate? It seems quite different from the
usual ether-liners."

* * * * *

"It's a mystery ship. Invented and built by Thrygis, a discredited
scientist of my country. Spent a fortune on it and then went broke and
killed himself. I bought it from the executors for a song. They
thought it was a pile of junk. But the plans and notes of the inventor
were there and I studied 'em well. The ship is a marvel, Carr.
Utilizes gravitational attraction and reversal as a propelling force
and can go like the Old Boy himself. I've hit two thousand miles a
second with her."

"A second! Why, that's ten times as fast as the regular liners! Must
use a whale of a lot of fuel. And where do you keep it? The fuel, I
mean."

"Make it right on board. I'm telling you Carr, the _Nomad_ has no
equal. She's a corker."

"I'll say she is. But what do you mean--make the fuel?"

"Cosmic rays. Everywhere in space you know. Seems they are the result
of violent concentrations of energy that cause the birth of atoms.
Thrygis doped out a collector of these rays that takes 'em from their
paths and concentrates 'em in a retort where there's a spongy metal
catalyst that never deteriorates. Here there is a reaction to the
original action out in space and new atoms are born, simple ones of
hydrogen. But what could be sweeter for use in one of our regular
atomic motors? The energy of disintegration is used to drive the
generators of the artificial gravity field, and there you are. Sounds
complicated, but really isn't. And nothing to get out of whack
either."

* * * * *

"Beats the rocket motors and bulky fuel of the regular liners a mile,
doesn't it? But since when are you a navigator, Mado?"

"Don't need to be a navigator with the _Nomad_. She's automatic, once
the controls are set. Say we wish to visit Venus. The telescope is
sighted on that body and the gravity forces adjusted so we'll be
attracted in that direction and repelled in the opposite direction.
Then we can go to bed and forget it. The movement of the body in its
orbit makes no dif