Skylark Three by E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith

Book Details

Skylark Three by E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith is the second book of the classic Skylark trilogy. Skylark Three is “the tale of the galactic cruise which ushered in Universal Civilization.”

Skylark Three – The Tale of the Galactic Cruise Which Ushered in Universal Civilization – A Serial in Three Parts
Chapter I – DuQuesne Goes Traveling
Chapter II – Dunark Visits Earth
Chapter III – Skylark Two Sets Out
Chapter IV – The Zone of Force Is Tested
Chapter V – First Blood
Chapter VI – The Peace Conference

Part 2 – What Went Before
Chapter VII – DuQuesne’s Voyage
Chapter VIII – The Porpoise-Men of Dasor
Chapter IX – The Welcome to Norlamin
Chapter X – Norlaminian Science

Part 3 – What Went Before
Chapter X (Continued) – Norlaminian Science
Chapter XI – Into a Sun
Chapter XII – Flying Visits—Via Projection
Chapter XIII – The Declaration of War
Chapter XIV – Interstellar Extermination
Chapter XV – The Extra-Galactic Duel
Epilogue

After the huge success of The Skylark of Space in 1928, Amazing Stories asked E.E. Smith (1890-1965) to write a sequel. Lee Hawkins Garby, Smith’s co-author of the first Skylark novel was uninterested in another collaboration and so Smith set out to write the book that became Skylark Three. It was originally published in Amazing Stories in three parts in 1930, beginning with the August issue.

Skylark Three has 9 illustrations.

Files:

1. SkylarkThree.epub

Excerpt: Skylark Three

Chapter I

DuQuesne Goes Traveling

IN THE innermost private office of Steel, Brookings and DuQuesne stared at each other across the massive desk. DuQuesne’s voice was cold, his black brows were drawn together,

“Get this, Brookings, and get it straight. I’m shoving off at twelve o’clock tonight. My advice to you is to lay off Richard Seaton, absolutely.  Don’t do a thing. Nothing, hold everything. Keep on holding it until I get back, no matter how long that may be,” DuQuesne shot out in an icy tone.

“I am very much surprised at your change of front, Doctor. You are the last man I would have expected to be scared off after one engagement.”

“Don’t be any more of a fool than you have to, Brookings. There’s a lot of difference between scared and knowing when you are simply wasting effort. As you remember, I tried to abduct Mrs. Seaton by picking her off with an attractor from a space-ship. I would have bet that nothing could have stopped me. Well, when they located me—probably with an automatic Osnomian ray-detector—and heated me red-hot while I was still better than two hundred miles up, I knew then and there that they had us stopped: that there was nothing we could do except go back to my plan, abandon the abduction idea, and eventually kill them all. Since my plan would take time, you objected to it, and sent an airplane to drop a five-hundred-pound bomb on them. Airplane, bomb, and all simply vanished. It didn’t explode, you remember, just flashed into light and disappeared, with scarcely any noise. Then you pulled several more of your fool ideas, such as long-range bombardment, and so on. None of them worked. Still you’ve got the nerve to think that you can get them with ordinary gunmen! I’ve drawn you diagrams and shown you figures—I’ve told you in great detail and in one-syllable words exactly what we’re up against. Now I tell you again that they’ve got something. If you had the brains of a pinhead, you would know that anything I can’t do with a space-ship can’t be done by a mob of ordinary gangsters. I’m telling you, Brookings, that you can’t do it. My way is absolutely the only way that will work.”

“But five years, Doctor!”

“I may be back in six months. But on a trip of this kind anything can happen, so I am planning on being gone five years. Even that may not be enough—I am carrying supplies for ten years, and that box of mine in the vault is not to be opened until ten years from today.”

“But surely we shall be able to remove the obstructions ourselves in a few weeks. We always have.”

“Oh, quit kidding yourself, Brookings! This is no time for idiocy! You stand just as much chance of killing Seaton—”

“Please, Doctor, please don’t talk like that!”

“Still squeamish, eh? Your pussyfooting always did give me an acute pain. I’m for direct action, word and deed, first, last, and all the time. I repeat, you have exactly as much chance of killing Richard Seaton as a blind kitten has.”

“How do you arrive at that conclusion, Doctor? You seem very fond of belittling our abilities. Personally, I think that we shall be able to attain our objectives within a few weeks—certainly long before you can possibly return from such an extended trip as you have in mind. And since you are so fond of frankness, I will say that I think that Seaton has you buffaloed, as you call it. Nine-tenths of these wonderful Osnomian I things, I am assured by competent authorities, are scientifically impossible, and I think that the other, one-tenth exists only in your own imagination. Seaton was lucky in that the airplane bomb was defective and exploded prematurely; and your space-ship got hot because of your injudicious speed through the atmosphere. We shall have everything settled by the time you get back.”

“If you have, I’ll make you a present of the controlling interest in Steel and buy myself a chair in some home for feeble-minded old women. Your ignorance and unwillingness to believe any new idea do not change the facts in any particular. Even before they went to Osnome, Seaton was hard to get, as you found out. On that trip he learned so much new stuff that it is now impossible to kill him by any ordinary means. You should realize that fact when he kills every gangster you send against him. At all events be very, very careful not to kill his wife in any of your attacks, even by accident, until after you have killed him.”

Excerpt From: E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith. “Skylark Three.”