But in that moment came a sudden, shuddering twist. Not hard, not damaging, not shocking, but a sensation as though the Liberty had plowed headlong into a mass of sponge rubber. The nose of the ship flew up, the dreadful vision in the viewpane swung suddenly out of sight—and a moment later the rock which had threatened certain death to all aboard lay far behind!
Dr. Kang smiled. "You see, my friends?"
O'Day said wonderingly, "It—it shunted us! Bounced us up and around it, away from it, as if we were a rubber ball!"
"Exactly," said the Martian. "Our ship is encased in a sphere of electrical force through which no matter can penetrate. A yielding barrier which absorbs the shock of collision. The Bog holds no more perils for us, my friends. You may if you wish, lock your controls and pursue a set course to our destination."
"Well," said Flick Muldoon. "Well, I'll be damned!"
The Bog lay a trifle more than 120,000,000 miles from Mars. Great Jupiter swung in its gigantic orbit a full 225,000,000 farther beyond. Thus a journey of more than three Earth weeks' duration lay before the space questers. Merchantmen were wont to speak of this as a dreary, tedious journey, but those aboard the Liberty did not find it so. They had much with which to occupy their every waking hour.
For one thing, as the final stage of their adventure beckoned closer, it seemed to definitely decide a problem up to now left dangling. That of determining into exactly which quadrant of space should they direct their flight when—and if—they were successful in gaining from the Jovian council the fourth of their needful loans.
"Proxima Centauri," said Dr. Boris Anjers. "That is, of course, the goal toward which we must set our course."
Gary said dubiously, "I'm not so sure. The studies of Millikin, and the later research of Marquart and Thompson Blaine would seem to indicate that cosmic rays emanate not from that sector of space, but rather from the neighborhood of Sirius."[5]