"We knew that we had won! For the other ray had struck the star in Sagittarius at the same moment, balancing Triton against the pressure of the sun-ray, and now as we observed the sun, we saw by our instruments that it was turning faster already! Its huge mass was spinning faster as our great ray stabbed from Triton to press against that mass's edge with colossal force! Within the first Earth-day the pressure of that great ray against the sun's edge had increased the sun's speed of spin at almost the exact amount we had calculated, had decreased its rotatory period by four hours. And each day thereafter the steady pressure of that colossal force-ray has turned the sun ever faster at the same steady rate, has decreased its rotatory period by four Earth-hours more. So that even as we had calculated, we saw, within 150 Earth-days from the first sending forth of the sun-ray, that the sun would be spinning so fast beneath that ray's pressure, its rotatory period decreased to the critical period of one hour, that it would no longer be able to hold together and would divide into a double star!
"And even now that great plan which we, the Neptunians, and we, the Council of Thirty, carried out, comes at last to its fruition! For already more than one-half of that time, more than eighty days, have passed, and there remains hardly more than three-score days before the great sun-cataclysm comes. Hardly more than three-score days from now the end, for all your inner planets, for all the planets save Neptune, will come, the sun reaching that critical rotatory period of one hour and spinning then so fast, beneath the pressure of our great ray, that it cannot longer hold together, will divide into two suns that will whirl apart from each other and engulf in their fires all the planets save our own outermost one, sending them with all their peoples to fiery doom! For to that doom we Neptunians are sending them to save ourselves from a doom, in another way, equally as terrible."
CHAPTER XI
Desperate Chances
As the great globe's voice ceased for a moment, that strange, staccato voice to which for many minutes Marlin and I had listened, I found my brain whirling with the things we had just heard. For a moment I glanced around as though to assure myself of the reality of what was about me, of what had just been told us. The great globe, the thirty silent Neptunians of the Council around it, the other disk-bodied Neptunians who guarded us—these, with the towering black walls and strange twilight about us, only deepened the strange trance of horror in which I had listened. And now the great globe was speaking again.
"Thus it is clear to you how unalterable is the doom that we are loosing upon the sun's other planets, upon your own planet, to save our own. Nothing now can save your world, and the other worlds of the sun, from annihilation, and it is to make that clear to you that we of the Council have told you this much of what we have done. Nothing can save your world from death, yet you two of that world shall escape that death with us Neptunians. For it is evident that your race and you must have considerable scientific knowledge to enable you to imitate our great force-ray and use it to venture out here to Neptune. So that, though lesser than our own great ancient race in science and knowledge, it may well be that you have certain knowledge, which would be new and useful to us. For that reason you have been saved, and have been taught our Neptunian tongue. From now on our scientists will question you, and whatever of new knowledge you are able to give to us, you shall give. You have heard, from us, how hopeless it is to think more of your own doomed world, and you know, of course, how entirely in our power you are. Therefore think well, when you are taken back to your cell, upon what you have learned here, since it is only for the sake of what little our knowledge might gain from you that you two have been preserved from the death."
The great globe was silent, and before we could reply to it, could gather even our whirling thoughts, the Neptunians guarding us had closed about us again, pointing to the door through which we had come. As in a daze Marlin and I were led through that door, the great globe turning and following us with its single vision eye as we went out. I think that neither Marlin nor I came to complete realization of our surroundings until we had been thrust once more into our little cell. For it was only then, staring toward me as though half-unseeingly, that Marlin repeated slowly the great globe-mechanism's last words.
"The death that in days will overtake our world! And the Neptunians are loosing that death on our world and all the sun's other worlds to save their own races!"
"And that is the explanation of all!" I exclaimed. "The great ray that turns the sun faster, the other ray shooting out toward the stars, the dead and deserted surface of Neptune, the crowded surface of Triton—God, Marlin, if we could only get back to Earth with what we know!"