In a flash he was wide awake. His hands groped out in front of him, coming into contact with a smooth, metallic surface. He seemed to be lying on the floor, and immediately formed the conclusion that he had fallen off his chair while sleeping.
As he endeavored to rise to his feet the floor began to recede from him slowly! It was then that he remembered the steadily decreasing attraction of the Earth as the Sphere shot farther and farther away into space. He quickly concluded that the “floating” stage had been reached. The Sphere would be maintaining its established momentum just like a planet which hurtles through space century after century, impelled by its original momentum by reason of the complete absence of any obstruction in space to hinder it; and of course their bodies followed serenely with the Sphere in its interior. They were as a component part of it—little worlds of their own.
As the metal surface continued to recede from him, he suddenly discovered that the engines and dynamo were missing! Yet the steady purr of the gyrostats was plainly, reassuringly audible. Then abruptly the solution of it all dawned upon him. He had fallen on to the ceiling—not the floor!
Suddenly a realization of his danger confronted him. He was drifting slowly toward the gyrostats! Should he be caught in their racing mechanism his body would be whipped into shreds!
Desperately he strove to jerk his body over into a convenient position to assist him in grasping one of the four perpendicular rods surrounding the gyrostats. With nothing to brace himself against, his efforts were strangely akin to those of a cat falling through the air, though, for lack of practise, they were not nearly so adept. Luckily they sufficed to turn his body over facing the gyrostats. Fortunately too, one of the uprights was within reach. He clutched this as a drowning man clutches a tossed rope, and the danger was over.
He lowered himself breathlessly to the floor. For the first time he noticed that he was perspiring freely.
“Close shave, that,” he muttered, mopping his face nervously. “Have to rig a guard around this.”
He looked sharply toward where the professor and the reporter had lain. Strangely enough they were still in the same spot. Then he became aware that there was still a slight pull toward the floor. The Earth had not yet entirely released its hold upon the Sphere even though it had long since ceased to be visible to them. Evidently he had made some abrupt move in his sleep with sufficient force to send him slowly upward to the ceiling against the dwindling force of terrestrial gravity.
The following days were interesting ones for the adventurers, but inconvenient—though amusing.
With the passage of each day the Earth’s attraction for them became weaker until finally it was completely neutralized by the counter attraction of Mars.