My inquiring look showed that I did not understand this, and he continued.
“Projection is the extreme penalty of our laws. In it the criminal is locked up in a spherical shell of cast iron having two small glass windows and furnished with compressed air in alumina flasks, and food sufficient to last from a few days to two years according to the severity of the sentence, the larger amount of food going with the more severe sentence. After he is fastened in, the repulsion of gravitation is turned on and the ball instantly projects itself into space bounding off at a terrific speed. Yet no matter what direction it takes it can never come into collision with any body whether planet or sun, but whenever it approaches one it is instantly repelled, and thus it continues to be hurled from one to another forever, and the longer the criminal lives to perceive and reflect that he is an outcast from all worlds, the greater his punishment is supposed to be. It is a theory of some of our scientists that a projected person continues to be repelled from sun to sun till at last he reaches the edge of creation and is hurled completely out of the universe. However this may be, the friends of a projected person never know where he is.”
“I hope,” said I, “that you are not often under the necessity of inflicting such a terrible punishment as that.”
“No one has been projected for over forty years, but 500,000 years ago the punishment was frequently resorted to.”
“In traversing the space between the earth and the moon, I suppose you will first move by repulsion from the earth?”
“Yes, I use repulsion for the first part of the journey. This gives me a rapid send off from the earth. My speed constantly increasing till I reach the distance of 216,000 miles from the earth, at this point the repulsion of the moon—which by the way is exerted against me from the time I leave the earth—is just equal to that of the earth, but the momentum acquired by that time carries me almost home, the moon’s repulsions constantly diminishing the speed and at last bringing me to a stand still or sheering me off to one side. It is then necessary to turn on attraction, which causes me to approach the moon with a speed which is easily checked and regulated by using repulsion when necessary.”
“The terrific speed with which you travel or fall, as we might say, from one planet to another, I should think would overpower you—take your breath away.”
“We have to guard against this, while we traverse the atmosphere, both at this and at the other end of the journey, but once clear of the atmosphere we fall through empty space without the slightest sensation of motion and realize that we are going only by the rapid decrease in the apparent size of the globe we are leaving and increase of the one we approach. It is impossible to conceive a more thrilling experience than is conveyed by the perception of the growth in a few hours of your earth from a ball six feet in diameter as it appears to us at the start, to the vast and illimitable expanse of variegated beauty it gets to be before we reach it.
“On the journey, it is necessary to guard against the blistering heat of the sun’s rays upon the side on which they fall, and the intense cold which we encounter on the shady side; and we must look out that neither ourselves nor any of the loose articles we carry in the car such as our flasks of compressed air, our food etc. are repelled from the car and allowed to fall to earth or moon by their ordinary gravity, for the change to repulsion only applies to the iron part of the car and not other things. It cannot be applied to wood or to animal or vegetable tissue etc. We guard against all these contingencies by having a stout cover over our car, supported by steel hoops, when we are on an intermundane trip. When we travel on the ground, this is folded up and not used.”
“Then I suppose the wheels of your car come into use when you travel on the ground, for I can see no use for them in your “intermundane” journeys.”