CHAPTER VIII
In an ordinary group, such an announcement might have brought hysterical outbursts from the women and at least some kind of clamor from the men. Eli's motley guests were either slower of comprehension or else hardened to vicissitudes. McGruder turned a rather ghastly color, murmured "Jees!" and sat down heavily on a packing box. No one else evinced more than bewilderment.
"So what?" queried Sally Camino. "Where are we going and how do we get back? Whose bright idea was this anyway?"
"Nobody's," Marlin informed her. "Eli left the forcefield in operation and accidentally pushed the starting lever last night. Since nothing happened, it never occurred to him to swing it back. The explanation seems to be that when enough power had accumulated, the anti-gravity polarization occurred, and we parted company with Mother Earth."
Link greeted this with a snicker.
"I was just thinkin'," he explained when the others focused puzzled eyes upon him, "what a su'prise that sheriff an' his dep'ties is gonna have when they find the old mud-ball gone this mornin'. Maybe some of 'em was on guard when it whooshed up into the sky afore their eyes."
No one laughed.
"No use kidding ourselves," Marlin commented. "We're in a tough predicament. We don't know where the sphere is headed; there's nothing but that hopelessly inadequate periscope to guide it by, and personally, I don't see the ghost of a chance of our landing anywhere. We're just a mote of dust in the void of space."
"It's just like Pearlie said, ain't it dearie?" cackled Maw Barstow unexpectedly. "We are all goin' on a long journey. Pearlie never makes a mistake."
"Oh, I don't know!" retorted DuChane, slyly. "I could cite an instance. Or maybe it's just faulty arithmetic. There were to be four and four, not three and five—at least 'that's the way I heard it.'"
"And that's all you know, smarty," chuckled Maw.
Sally winked at the older woman, while Marlin controlled his features with an effort.
"Ask her when we're gonna land—and where at?" suggested Link, peering hopefully.
"Pearlie will tell us everything in her own good time," retorted Maw, grandly. "Won't you darlin'? Don't you want to tell us where we're goin'?"
The girl smiled sweetly, and uttered the first words Marlin had heard from her lips.
"There are so many stones."
McGruder laughed hoarsely. Maw checked him with a ferocious look. "Go on, dearie," she urged. "Tell us more?"
The girl stared upward, as if visioning something in the distance. Her words slurred together; she seemed only half aware of speaking them.
"The world is a stone. There are many stones. So many lonely stones."
Marlin again experienced the uncanny sense of chills spiraling up his back—for no reason that he could comprehend. He looked uncertainly from one face to another. All were staring at the Sybil of the strange voyage.
Maw spoke with vague conviction. "That means something, and don't you mistake it. We'll have to figger it out. Pearlie don't always talk in plain words fer just ever'body to understand."
From behind the huge bank of coils, Elias Thornboldt emerged. He glowered in annoyance.
"Go away!" he ordered. "None of you are permitted in this room." He looked them over with sudden awareness and spoke bitterly. "What a crew for the pioneer flight into space! Instead of a distinguished gathering of world-famous scientists and statesmen, what do I have? Criminals! Go! Out of my sight!"
As they straggled out, DuChane observed with a show of resentment: "We might remind him that if it wasn't for a device rigged up by some of his despised crew, he wouldn't even know his contraption was off the ground."
Burning questions raced through Marlin's mind, but he frankly doubted the scientist's ability to answer them. A genius in his line Thornboldt might be; nevertheless, he was singularly impractical in other directions. One of Marlin's questions related to the persistence of almost normal gravity within the sphere. The explanation, DuChane suggested, must lie in the repulsion plates. While one surface exercised this force, the opposite surface compensated for it by exercising attraction. Though he tentatively accepted this theory for want of a better, Marlin was dissatisfied with it.
Another question related to the direction of their flight. Were they speeding toward or away from the sun? Was there danger of crashing into some planet, moon, or meteoric body, and if so could they avoid such a fate? Observations through the periscope might presently solve the question of direction. Possibly Eli had instruments which would help.
The days that followed settled down to a dull, monotonous routine. There was nothing—almost literally nothing—to do but eat, sleep, and chafe at the helplessness of their position.
Lacking any measurement of time in the uniform semi-gloom of the sphere, they established an arbitrary day of twenty-four hours. They slept and ate in accustomed routine and kept track of the days of the week.
The initial feeling that something must be done—and done immediately—toward getting out of the predicament, gradually gave way to a sense of hopeless resignation. When they goaded Eli with the necessity for action, he flew into violent rages. They realized at length that he was as much at a loss as any of the party.
How could they guide their course, when the limited observations possible through the periscope scarcely told them whether they were traveling toward the sun or away from it? They might, indeed, be hanging inert in space. Marlin contended that they were moving away from the sun.
"It's a cinch we started in that direction, since our ascent took place at night, when the sun was on the opposite side of the earth."
"If that's correct," growled DuChane, "it means that instead of roasting to death, we're doomed to perish of cold, when this hunk of dough gets so far away that there aren't any more of the sun's rays for it to absorb."
"We'll be dead of starvation long before that," Marlin added moodily.
The store of provisions seemed enormous at first glance. Now, faced by stern questions of survival, they calculated that it would actually last them not more than five months, and a careful rationing was instituted.
The water tanks would supply them for a period somewhat longer. Bathing and washing were restricted but not altogether denied, for the equipment included an efficient settling tank as well as an electric incinerator and an air-purifying system that was a credit to Eli's foresight.
"Evidently we'll starve to death before we have a chance to perish of thirst," was DuChane's comforting observation. "Unless the goo of our outside shell proves to be edible. It seems to have about every other property we could ask. Storage battery, heat absorber and distributor, healing agent, and waste converter."
He referred to their discovery that the waste products discharged through locks were seemingly absorbed by the clay-like outer coating. "I believe it digests the stuff. Remember how the pit absorbed those birds and small animals that became imbedded in it?" reminded DuChane. "I sometimes feel as if—"
"As if what?" demanded Marlin, looking at him curiously.
"Nothing. I couldn't put it into words if I tried."