"But the Neptunians who had suggested this plan now calmly explained how that colossal deed could be accomplished. Long before, indeed, we had discovered force-vibrations, finding them a vibration that exerted tangible and definite pressure or force upon whatever matter they struck. And we had used those force-rays in some ways. We had used them to propel our cylindrical vehicles out through space from Neptune to Triton, and vice versa. We had used them also, concentrated into slender, pencil-like rays of great power, as weapons, since those concentrated rays penetrated and destroyed all that they touched. Now our scientists proposed to use them for this huge plan—to reach across the void, across the solar system, and to turn the sun ever faster, until the desired division of it had happened.
"Nor was this, as they outlined it, impracticable. The sun, turning there in space at the center of the solar system, has naturally one edge or limb turning away from us, and the other turning toward us. Now, if we constructed colossal generators of the force-vibrations, generators that could produce a gigantic ray that would have almost inconceivable power, and shot that ray across the solar system toward the edge of the sun turning away from us, what would happen? It was clear that that great ray, striking against the side of the sun's mass turning away from us, striking that side with titanic pressure and force, would tend to turn that side faster away from us, would tend in that way to make the whole sun turn faster! Such a gigantic ray, though it would increase the sun's spin thus but slowly, would continue to increase the sun's spin steadily as long as it was kept turned upon the sun's side. Slowly, but steadily, the sun would turn ever faster, until soon it would have reached that critical rotatory speed, of one turn in one hour, that would make its centrifugal force so great as to make it divide into a double star, and so save us of Neptune from the cold death that hung over us.
"Thus this mighty plan was presented to us, and it was at once accepted by us of the Council of Thirty, by all of the Neptunian races. For we saw that in it lay our one chance for life, our one chance to halt the doom of our races, our worlds, and to halt that doom we were willing to make any effort. We knew that the other planets of the solar system, that the seven other worlds of this universe and all their moons, would go to flaming death when our plan succeeded, would be annihilated when the sun divided, but we recked not of that. For the last necessity was upon us, the last closing down of the doom that we had fought against so long, and to remove the shadow of that doom from over us, we were willing to send to a more terrible doom all the other planets of the solar system.
"Only one great difficulty lay before us. That gigantic ray could be generated and shot forth by us, since it would not be difficult, by concentrating all efforts, to construct the generators and mechanisms needed, but from what place was that ray to be shot toward the sun? And how? It was evident that the giant ray could not be sent from Neptune's surface. For not only would it be almost impossible to keep its great mechanism working in the constant terrible cold that reigned there, but Neptune's rotation would make it impossible to send the ray forth from any spot on the great planet, since because of Neptune's rotation, it would follow that that spot—that great ray, would be toward the sun half the time, on Neptune's sunward side, and the other half would have turned and point away into space from its dark or outer side. It was apparent, therefore, that the great ray could not be sent forth from Neptune, since to achieve its effect that ray must play constantly upon the sun's one side or edge; and it became apparent that only from Triton could it be sent forth, since Triton kept one face always toward the sun and it would therefore be necessary only to set the great ray's mechanisms in that sunward side, when it would point unchangingly toward it.
"As far as position was involved, therefore, it was quite feasible to drive the colossal force-ray out from Triton's sunward side toward the sun. But there was another point involved, one that bid fair to ruin the whole great plan. When this gigantic force-ray reached out across the gulf, and struck the sun, it would push the sun's side with inconceivable power, as was planned, with a power great enough to turn that sun's titanic mass faster. It would be, in effect, like a solid arm reaching forth from Triton to press against the sun's edge. But the sun is gigantic, is millions of times greater in mass than Triton, and so what would be the result of that great pressure of the ray? It would, without doubt, turn the huge mass of the sun with that pressure very slowly, but it would, by that pressure and by its reaction, push back against the infinitely smaller mass of Triton itself, and push it away from the sun; it would push it back away from the sun with such colossal power that Triton would be torn loose from the grip of Neptune, its parent-world; would be torn loose almost instantly from the solar system itself, and would be hurtled straight out into the awful void of interstellar space away from the sun and all its planetary worlds!
"It was the same principle, indeed, as that of our cylindrical space-fliers. Those cylinders, generating inside themselves a powerful force-ray, shot that force-ray down against the planet upon which they were. But that force-ray striking with great pressure from the comparatively tiny cylinder to the great planet, did not move the planet, of course, with its push. It moved instead the cylinder itself, hurtling it upward from the planet because its mass was so infinitely smaller than the planet's. And it would be the same way with Triton and the sun. For Triton, sending forth the great force-ray generated upon it, toward the turning sun's edge, pressing against the sun's huge mass with colossal power, would not move the sun, would not turn it noticeably faster as we planned, but would move Triton itself out from the solar system into the void of space. Almost instantly, by that terrific push, Triton would be hurled out into the awful gulf of space, and thus by that terrific push outward would be torn loose from the attraction of the sun and its planets forever, and would by its own inertia shoot out through the interstellar void for all time! And that meant, of course, death for all the massed Neptunian races upon Triton, since in the sunless, awful void of space outside our universe, our solar system, they would at once perish!
"This seemed, indeed, the difficulty, which was to make our great plan impossible. But with only that obstacle standing between us and success, we did not despair, but sought to overcome it. And at last we found a remedy for this difficulty, found a means by which it might be overcome. Triton would be pushed out into the gulf of space away from the solar system forever, when its great force-ray struck the sun's edge. But what, it was asked, if Triton were braced against the push outward of that great ray, were braced by a great force-ray of equal colossal power shooting out from it in an opposite direction against some great mass, tending in that way to push Triton inward toward the sun even as the great ray striking the sun would tend to push it outward? The result would be, obviously, that Triton would be pushed on either side by the two opposing great force-rays with equal power, and being so pushed between them it would not move either inward or outward. And thus being immovable, being braced against the pressure of the ray shot toward the sun by the pressure of the ray shot out into the void against as great a mass, Triton's ray striking the sun's edge would, as we desired, turn that sun faster and faster, spin its huge mass faster without affecting Triton itself! For, the two great rays being so exactly balanced in power, Triton would not be affected in the least in its own positions or motions.
"There was needed, then, only a second great force-ray to go out into space opposite in direction to that of the first. It meant, however, that since the first was radiating straight toward the sun from Triton's sunward side, the second must radiate straight away from the sun from Triton's dark side, which would make the second ray point out into the void toward the constellation in which it would be in reference to the sun. That is, we calculated that by the time all would be ready for us to send the force-ray in toward the sun, the constellation Sagittarius would be straight out from Neptune and the sun; then the second ray would need to be sent out toward Sagittarius. For it would be, then, against one of the great stars of Sagittarius that this second opposing force-ray would strike, to brace Triton against the other ray striking the sun, the star calculated best for that purpose being the bright star in the quadrilateral of Sagittarius. It was apparent, therefore, that when the great force-ray was shot toward the sun, the second or bracing ray should be shot out against that bright star in Sagittarius to brace Triton against the first ray's push.
"Yet in reality the problem was not as simple as that. For that star in Sagittarius, we well knew, lay like all the stars infinitely farther from us than the sun. It would require but a little more than four hours for the first great force-ray, which travels as you know almost as fast as light itself, to reach the sun. But it would require a number of years for the second great force-ray, traveling at the same speed, to reach the bright star in Sagittarius and strike against it. For even the nearest of the stars, of course, lies so far from our solar system, our universe, that it requires years for light to cross that colossal distance; in consequence it would require as long or longer for the second force-ray to cross such a great distance, traveling as it would at a speed almost that of light. Thus, since that bright star in Sagittarius that had been fixed upon lay dozens of light-years from our solar system, it would require dozens of years for that second great force-ray to reach that star!