Then we four were moving across the roof toward the looming framework that upheld the space-flier, pausing inside its clear space to face the World President. It was a moment of cosmic drama, that moment in which Earth and the silent peoples of Earth, that had gathered in millions there to watch us, were sending forth four of themselves into the trackless void for the first time, sending them forth with Earth's one chance for life in their hands. The World President, facing us, did not speak, though; did not break the thick silence that seemed to lie over all the mighty city. He reached forth, gripped our hands with his own, grasped them tightly, silently, his steady eyes upon ours, and then stepped back. And then Marlin leading, we were clambering up the framework to the flier's screw-door, passing silently inside and then screwing that great door hermetically shut behind us. That done, we passed across the little vestibule-chamber and through the second screw-door, closing it likewise behind us.
Then, clambering up to the four suspended chairs in front of the control-panels, we took our places in them; Marlin in the right chair, his telescope and astronomical equipment before him, I in the next one, with the six controls of the space-flier's movements before me, Randall in the third chair, the recording dials and minor controls of the flier before him, and Whitely in the fourth or left chair, the dials and switches of the generators before him. Seated there, the constellation of Sagittarius and the other southern stars were full before us in our big window, for our space-flier was so supported in its framework that by turning on its great force-ray from the lower ray-opening we would be shot out by the terrific repulsive force straight toward Sagittarius, toward Neptune, slanting out tangent-wise from Earth's surface. And now Marlin was peering through the short, strange-looking tube of the telescope, was touching its focusing wheels lightly, peering again, and then turning to me.
"Neptune," he said quietly. "We'll start when it reaches the center of this telescope's field of view—when the flier is pointed directly toward it."
"But we can maneuver the flier in any direction in space, could head out from Earth and then toward Neptune," Randall commented, as I applied my own eye to the telescope, and Marlin nodded.
"We can, but by starting straight toward Neptune we'll use less of our generators' power."
While he spoke I was gazing through the telescope, and though I had gazed upon Neptune many times before it was never with such feelings as gripped me now. Like a little pale-green spot of calm light it was, floating there in the darkness of the great void, its single moon not visible to me even through the powerful telescope. Then as I straightened from the telescope's eye-piece Marlin had taken it again, gazing intently into it now, to call out to me the moment when the planet reached the center of its field of view, when our space-flier would be headed straight toward it. For it was then, as Marlin had said, that we planned to hurtle out toward the planet with all the power of our great force-rays, not only reacting but pushing against Earth as light pushes. But since we must necessarily change our course once in space, to allow for Neptune's own movement among other things, we would use less power by making our first start straight toward it.
Now, as we sat tensely there, I had turned, nodded to Whitely, and he had thrown open the switches before him that controlled the great generators, their throbbing suddenly sounding behind us as they went into operation, generating the force-vibrations that in a moment would be released backward from our flier as mighty force-rays. As Whitely moved the switches, the throb of the generators died to a thin hum, then rose to a tremendous drone, and then slowly sank to a smooth throbbing beat at which he rested the switches. And now Marlin, beside me, was calling out to us the divisions of the specially-designed telescope's field, as Neptune passed across them to the zero mark at which we would hurtle outward.
"—45—40—35—30—"
As his steady voice sounded periodically beside me I sat as though a poised statue, my hand upon that lever among the six lever-switches before me that would send the power of our throbbing generators stabbing out with colossal force from the flier's ray-opening behind us, that would send that flier hurtling outward. "—25—20—15—." As the calm voice of Marlin broke the silence beside me I felt my heart racing with excitement, saw that Randall, and even Whitely, beside me, had hunched tensely forward as the moment approached. I glanced out a moment through the flier's windows, seeing in a blurred impression the breathless, watching crowds, the brilliant lights. "—10—5—zero!" And as that last word sounded I threw open in one swift motion the lever-switch in my grasp!
The next instant there was a colossal roaring about us, we seemed pressed down in our chairs with titanic, crushing force, and saw crowds and lights and great buildings vanishing from about our flier with lightning-like swiftness as a great pale ray of light, of colossal force, stabbed down and backward from the flier's ray-opening behind us! In a split-second all about us was blackness and then the great roaring sound about us had ceased, marking our passage out past the limits of Earth's atmosphere! Now through the windows before and about us, as we clung there, we saw the heavens around us brilliant with the fierce light of undimmed hosts of stars, while as our great flier reeled on at mounting speed into the great gulf, we saw behind and beneath us a great gray cloudy ball that was each moment contracting in size. Earth was receding and diminishing behind us as we flashed out through the void toward distant Neptune, to save that Earth from doom!