9
How long he had slept he did not know, but he was awakened suddenly by a blow in the face!
In a flash he was wide awake. His hands groped out in front of him, coming into contact with a smooth, metallic surface. He seemed to be lying on the floor, and immediately formed the conclusion that he had fallen off his chair while sleeping.
As he endeavored to rise to his feet the floor began to recede from him slowly! It was then that he remembered the steadily decreasing attraction of the Earth as the Sphere shot farther and farther away into space. He quickly concluded that the “floating” stage had been reached. The Sphere would be maintaining its established momentum just like a planet which hurtles through space century after century, impelled by its original momentum by reason of the complete absence of any obstruction in space to hinder it; and of course their bodies followed serenely with the Sphere in its interior. They were as a component part of it—little worlds of their own.
As the metal surface continued to recede from him, he suddenly discovered that the engines and dynamo were missing! Yet the steady purr of the gyrostats was plainly, reassuringly audible. Then abruptly the solution of it all dawned upon him. He had fallen on to the ceiling—not the floor!
Suddenly a realization of his danger confronted him. He was drifting slowly toward the gyrostats! Should he be caught in their racing mechanism his body would be whipped into shreds!
Desperately he strove to jerk his body over into a convenient position to assist him in grasping one of the four perpendicular rods surrounding the gyrostats. With nothing to brace himself against, his efforts were strangely akin to those of a cat falling through the air, though, for lack of practise, they were not nearly so adept. Luckily they sufficed to turn his body over facing the gyrostats. Fortunately too, one of the uprights was within reach. He clutched this as a drowning man clutches a tossed rope, and the danger was over.
He lowered himself breathlessly to the floor. For the first time he noticed that he was perspiring freely.
“Close shave, that,” he muttered, mopping his face nervously. “Have to rig a guard around this.”
He looked sharply toward where the professor and the reporter had lain. Strangely enough they were still in the same spot. Then he became aware that there was still a slight pull toward the floor. The Earth had not yet entirely released its hold upon the Sphere even though it had long since ceased to be visible to them. Evidently he had made some abrupt move in his sleep with sufficient force to send him slowly upward to the ceiling against the dwindling force of terrestrial gravity.
The following days were interesting ones for the adventurers, but inconvenient—though amusing.
With the passage of each day the Earth’s attraction for them became weaker until finally it was completely neutralized by the counter attraction of Mars.
This point was reached by the ninth day out, when, according to Professor Palmer’s reckonings, the Sphere had traversed more than half the distance between the two worlds.
Ordinary movement about the compartment became an impossibility. Walking was an accomplishment of the past. In order to move from one end of the chamber to the other it became necessary merely to place a hand against the wall and push. Immediately they were propelled across the room through space as if suspended by a well-oiled trolley conveyor. The chief requisite was a careful sense of direction and control of strength exerted. Otherwise they were apt to find themselves precipitated roughly into one corner, against the ceiling, or headlong into the whirring machinery.
The reckless Taggert was frequently the cause of much merriment, because of his careless or awkward antics. Once he brought their hearts into their mouths by narrowly missing the smashing of a window pane when his shoulder was brought up sharply against the glass. After that even he exercised extreme caution in his movements.
It became necessary to lash each other to some stationary object for protection so that they could sleep safely. When on watch, Robert was obliged to keep hold upon some stable part to maintain any single position for a time.
The managing of fluids was at once ludicrous and exceedingly difficult. The mere task of drinking a cup of coffee called for more skill than the biting of an apple in a tub of water at a Halloween party. One was apt to have more of the beverage applied externally than internally.
A cup of fluid could be kept safely intact only by a centrifugal motion, as by whirling it round in a circle, bottom outward. Otherwise, at the critical moment the contents would drift off in an irregular, pulsating sphere, like a soft little world of its own held together merely by the slight affinity of its molecules.
A scheme of drinking through a tube from a covered bucket by means of a hole drilled through the cover proved fairly successful and became temporarily the vogue.
During the first of these days the Sphere evinced a tendency to revolve slowly and at random because the delicate but sensitive stabilizer could no longer find a central point of gravity. Here, then, was a grave danger confronting them; for with the growing inclination of the Sphere to revolve at random it became apparent that they would not be able to hold it to any one course. This because, as the Sphere revolved, it would be necessary to constantly shift the direction of the disk; and thus it would be almost impossible to continue constantly with accuracy. Consequently they were facing the possibility of drifting about in space through eternity!
Their predicament might have been likened in a way to that of a sailing vessel caught in the doldrums; but in the Sphere’s case there appeared to be no chance of relief. Curiously enough, this problem had not occurred to Robert and Professor Palmer in their preparations for the journey. In fact, to their minds, there seemed no possible solution.
Even Taggert’s hitherto unfailing good spirits deserted him as the three gloomily faced the dreadful prospect of slow death through starvation or suffocation. The fact that they were millions of miles from the Earth in the midst of a great black void did not make their fate any easier to consider.
Professor Palmer now divided his time between frequent corrections in the Sphere’s wavering course toward Mars, and the writing of the log.
“Who knows,” he remarked resignedly to his companions, “some other more successful adventurers may attempt this venture some time. There is just a chance in a billion that they may find the Sphere and this document; or the Sphere may finally gravitate back to the earth.”
Almost constantly he watched and guided the Sphere on its intricate course, insisting upon doing the major part of this difficult task, which only his expert knowledge of the heavens made possible to such a degree of accuracy. But even he was beginning to find it almost impossible to keep the Sphere on its true course, as it continued to swing more and more widely from its former stability. Loss of sleep and the terrific strain were beginning to tell upon his iron constitution. It was clear to all three that theirs was a losing struggle. The professor’s faint hope that they could decrease their distance from Mars sufficiently to establish a substantial stability upon its attraction faded more and more as gradually the little Sphere began to swoop in ever-increasing deviations from its course.
Realizing with sinking heart the hopelessness of the situation, Professor Palmer endeavored to conceal the sureness of their fate from Robert and Taggert. But they sensed it intuitively and each bravely sought to steel himself against the realization of the end.
The thought of conserving their energy by stopping the gyrostats occurred to Robert. For with gravitation virtually equalized from all directions, their operation was scarcely of any assistance at this point.
And then came the thought that caused his heart to halt an instant in its beat. Could it be that both the professor and he overlooked the one possible solution? Was it too late?
“Fool—fool!” he expostulated bitterly as he realized the opportunity that had all but slipped away from them by his failure to think of the solution sooner.
“Robert!” cried Professor Palmer, fearing for his mind. “What is it?”
“Can you hold her to the course steadily for a minute?” Robert almost shouted in his excitement, not having heard the professor’s question.
Professor Palmer suddenly realized with a flash of hope that Robert had thought of a possible way out of their predicament.
“Yes, yes,” he answered eagerly. His waning strength and alertness rallied temporarily under the inspiration of hope. His tired eyes became as keen as ever as he carefully nursed the drunkenly rolling Sphere back to its course and managed with supreme skill to steady it there for several seconds consecutively.
“How long, boy?” he cried hoarsely in desperation, gripping his voice as he realized that he could not balance the Sphere accurately on its course more than a few seconds longer. He felt his control slipping. Too bad—too bad. The boy had had the idea, and he had failed—failed. He felt suddenly broken, as a very old man. His gray head nodded wearily. Too bad!
“Professor—professor,” someone was whispering huskily. He recovered from his lapse of semi-consciousness as he felt a hand placed nervously upon his shoulder. He turned to see Robert’s eager young face behind him, smiling! That might mean—but he hesitated even to hope, stifling its ray of comfort almost before it came to him. He waited dully for Robert to go on.
“We are holding our course now,” went on Robert, controlling his voice with an effort. “See?” he pointed to the glittering heavens visible through the observation windows.
Instead of the dizzily swerving canopy of lights with which they were already too familiar, the stars hung stationary.
“How did you do it, Robert?” gasped the professor. As he spoke he was suddenly aware that the gyrostats had stopped!
“You see, it came to me like a flash,” explained Robert, “that it all hinged on velocity. If the disk was suddenly shut off—covered—the Sphere would at once cease to be pulled around in various directions. Instead it would then rush ahead only in the direction in which it was last moving when the disk’s power was shut off. Beyond the forces of gravitation and with nothing but void on all sides, we would shoot forward forever until stopped by nearing some planet.”
“Of course, of course,” murmured the professor. “Why didn’t I think of that before? Dunce that I am!”
“That is why I asked you to try to hold the Sphere in its course for a little bit—long enough to maintain its momentum toward Mars, when I would stop the wavering interference of the disk. First, I stopped the gyrostats. Then, as I clicked the shutters to cover the disk’s face, the Sphere became simply a dead weight already launched with terrific velocity toward our goal. With the influence of the gyrostats removed, the heaviest or bottom side of the Sphere became the head of our velocity. Result—the eccentric revolutions of the Sphere ceased at once. We have established a temporary stability of our own—velocity.”
“Robert,” said the professor, after a pause, “we owe our lives to your keenness of mind. You thought of what it was my business to have known in the first place. With the Sphere’s course automatically maintained now, it remains but to wait until we are near enough Mars to establish stability based on its attraction. Then we can again control the Sphere at will. In the meantime we conserve all our power.”
“Just as simple as A-B-C,” broke in Taggert, who had been roused from his sleep by their excited talking, and had been listening interestedly for some time, unobserved.
“But,” interjected Robert, struck by a fresh disquieting thought, “if we are now rushing directly toward Mars, won’t we be left far behind by the time we reach its present location because of its rapid movement along its orbit?”
“Oh, what’s a few million miles or so to us?” said Taggert with extravagant nonchalance.
“Your deductions are partly correct, Robert,” answered Professor Palmer, smiling at their guest’s sally. “There is a curious thing about moving bodies in a void: they will continue in one direction indefinitely until attracted or propelled, by some other force. In the case of a propelling force, unless it is in a directly opposite direction, it will simply result in the body going off at a tangent, still maintaining its original rate of velocity in the original direction in conjunction with its new direction. For example: Mars and the Earth moving in virtually parallel directions in their respective orbits at present, it was a comparatively simple matter to lay a straight course for Mars, as the Earth’s orbit velocity was imparted to the Sphere when we left it. But since the Earth moves somewhat faster along its orbit than Mars, we would gradually forge ahead of Mars if we had laid what at first appeared to be a direct course toward it, and would only have arrived finally by continually correcting our course, and having swung round in a vast curve. Instead, by calculating the difference in the known orbit velocities of the two planets, and accordingly laying a course which at first appeared to be toward a point already passed by Mars, we promptly found ourselves on very nearly a direct course toward the planet.”
Notwithstanding his comparative ignorance of astronomy, Taggert unconsciously echoed Robert’s sigh of relief over this assurance that they were on the correct course. It was clear, even to him, that with no basis of stability they would be in a bad way should they pass Mars at a distance too great to establish gravitational contact with it. With their limited reserve of power and provisions they could not afford to knock around the universe at random.