"Suppose we could budge it," Ione said. "All we could do would be to push it around, this piece of matter we are on. That wouldn't help. We've got to get it out of space. We can't push it hard enough to do that. It's got to be shot out suddenly—"
"And we haven't got a gun handy," Phil remarked droopingly.
"Not exactly a gun. A sort of sling—"
Phil leaped to his feet.
"A sling. Why! To be sure! The vines!"
Without another word, both of them got up and ran. They hastened in a direction opposite to the one they had at first taken on their trip of exploration, and this brought them first past the "space" of the Tinkertoy-like animals. As they went by, several of these beasts darted at them, one of them snapping at Ione's heels. She uttered a scream, causing Phil to turn about and kick right and left among them. He drove them back and escaped from them, rejoining Ione.
"Wait," he said, when they reached the vines. "Remember those wooden balls. If I could get a few to throw at those critters—"
In a moment they were off, and finally arrived at the point from which they first saw the balls. Odd it seemed, how they hung suspended in space, thousands of them, all sizes. Phil reached out and grasped one about the size of a baseball and drew it toward himself. He felt a dizzy lurch and heard Ione scream.
"Let go!" she screamed again.
When he suddenly realized what was going on, he found himself prostrate on the ground, with Ione across him, her arms about his knees.