Track, buildings, trees all leaped into vivid relief as he tested the
searchlight control. He shot the beam up, up, till it lost itself,
vaguely, in mist and cloud; then flung it even across the river, where
it picked out buildings with startling detail.
He turned it, finally, square down the launching-way, through the
yawning gates where the track abruptly ended at the brow of the
Palisades--the empty chasm where, if all went right and no mistake
had been made in build, engine-power, or control, the initial leap of
_Nissr Arrib ela Sema_ was to be made.
Came a moment's wait. Faintly the pulsing of the engines trembled
the fabric of _Nissr_. Finely balanced as they were, they still
communicated some slight vibration to the ship. The Master snicked the
switch of the magnetic-anchor release; and now the last bond that held
_Nissr_ to her cradle was broken. As soon as the air-skid currents
should be set going, she would be ready for her flight.
This moment was not long in coming. Another turn of a switch, and all
at once, far below, a faint, continuous hissing made itself audible.
Compressed air, forced through thousands of holes at the bottom of the
floats, was interposing a gaseous cushion between those floats and the
track, just as it could do between them and the earth wherever _Nissr_
should alight.
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