“We’re going in a projectile,” said Dolores. “At least they say it looks like a projectile.”
“Like Mallen’s moon rocket of 1989,” Tim exclaimed.
Dr. Weatherby shook his head. “The various anti-gravity methods devised so far would help us very little, except Elton’s electronic neutralization of gravity. I use that principle merely in starting the flight. A trip to the moon, such as Mallen’s rocket made, had nothing in common with this journey of ours.”
“They say Mallen is going himself next year—to Mars,” Alice remarked.
“Let’s see our projectile,” Jim demanded.
“In a moment,” Dr. Weatherby said. “There is, first, one conception I want to make sure you have grasped. Forget our earth now. Forget yourself. Conceive the material universe to be a vast void in which various densities are whirling.
“From the infinitely small to the infinitely large, they are of every size and character. Yet all are inherently the same, merely apparently solid. I will ask you, Leonard, this space between the earth and Mars—of what would you say it is composed?”
I hesitated. “Nothingness,” I ventured finally.
“No!” he exclaimed warmly. “There is where you fail to grasp my fundamental conception. The void of space itself is a mass of particles, a mass of densities, of every possible size and character.
“The earth is one; a wandering asteroid is another. And meteors, meteorites, down to the smallest particles of dust. And still smaller, are the particles of light, far flung everywhere through space. Other entities are again still smaller—call them intimes—down in size to infinity.