"Do you see?" cried Fort, fairly squirming in his seat. "Do you see what I've done, Mona?"
"I've taken Ernol and his friends—the bunch I rescued from the prison—and put them to work. Put them to work digging a tunnel! We've been flying above that tunnel just now. It runs—from the contact to the cannon—the bottom of the cannon, Mona!
"When Powart's shot was fired, the recoil—the kick—broke the contact! Understand? Do you see it?"
Mona stared in dull wonder. When she found voice it was strangely flat and commonplace.
"Yes, but—I don't see how the recoil could separate two worlds as large as Hafen and Holl!"
Fort chuckled breathlessly. "Your forget something. You're thinking only of the gravitation; you're forgetting the centrifugal force."
Hafen and Holl, by their daily rotation—around the contact as a center—were always tending to separate. That recoil was just enough to turn the balance; they'll never touch again.
"And what's more," he rushed on, "Powart's shot is sure to miss! The recoil threw the cannon out of line. Hafen had already mooved before the projectile left the gun. Powart—has failed!"
Suddenly the surgeon wheeled upon the athlete. "Boy, we're headed in the wrong way! We'll land in Holl, not in Hafen!"
"Who wants to live in Hafen now?" he shouted, clinging desperately to his controls. The craft was tossing in the newly created air-currents. "Don't you see?