"Perhaps we're behind time," suggested Ardan.
"What have you to say to that, Barbican?" asked the Captain. "You know the Cambridge men said the journey had to be done in 97 hours 13 minutes and 20 seconds. That's as much as to say that if we're not up to time we shall miss the Moon."
"Correct," said Barbican. "But we can't be behind time. We started, you know, on December 1st, at 13 minutes and 20 seconds before 11 o'clock, and we were to arrive four days later at midnight precisely. To-day is December 5th Gentlemen, please examine your watches. It is now half past three in the afternoon. Eight hours and a half are sufficient to take us to our journey's end. Why should we not arrive there?"
"How about being ahead of time?" asked the Captain.
"Just so!" said Ardan. "You know we have discovered the initial velocity to have been greater than was expected."
"Not at all! not at all!" cried Barbican "A slight excess of velocity would have done no harm whatever had the direction of the Projectile been perfectly true. No. There must have been a digression. We must have been switched off!"
"Switched off? By what?" asked both his listeners in one breath.
"I can't tell," said Barbican curtly.
"Well!" said Ardan; "if Barbican can't tell, there is an end to all further talk on the subject. We're switched off—that's enough for me. What has done it? I don't care. Where are we going to? I don't care. What is the use of pestering our brains about it? We shall soon find out. We are floating around in space, and we shall end by hauling up somewhere or other."
But in this indifference Barbican was far from participating. Not that he was not prepared to meet the future with a bold and manly heart. It was his inability to answer his own question that rendered him uneasy. What had switched them off? He would have given worlds for an answer, but his brain sorely puzzled sought one in vain.