It was the pressure that he had in the past equated with gravity.
Lesbee stirred hopefully, and when he felt himself move, realized what had happened. The artificial gravity had been shut off. Simultaneously, the ship had made a half turn within its outer shell. The drive power was now coming from below, a constant one gravity thrust.
At this late, late moment, he plunged his hand into the pocket which held the remote control for the pilotless landing mechanism—and activated it.
"That ought to turn on his thoughts," he told himself savagely.
But if Dzing was telepathing to his masters, it was no longer on the human thought level. So Lesbee concluded unhappily.
The ether was silent.
He now grew aware of something more. The ship smelled different: better, cleaner, purer.
Lesbee's gaze snapped over to the speed dials on the control board. The figures registering there were unbelievable. They indicated that the spaceship was traveling at a solid fraction of the speed of light.
Lesbee stared at the numbers incredulously. "We didn't have time!" he thought. "How could we go so fast so quickly—in hours only to near the speed of light!"
Sitting there, breathing hard, fighting to recover from the effects of that prolonged speed-up, he felt the fantastic reality of the universe. During all this slow century of flight through space, the Hope of Man had had the potential for this vastly greater velocity.