From behind the huge bank of coils, Elias Thornboldt emerged. He glowered in annoyance.
"Go away!" he ordered. "None of you are permitted in this room." He looked them over with sudden awareness and spoke bitterly. "What a crew for the pioneer flight into space! Instead of a distinguished gathering of world-famous scientists and statesmen, what do I have? Criminals! Go! Out of my sight!"
As they straggled out, DuChane observed with a show of resentment: "We might remind him that if it wasn't for a device rigged up by some of his despised crew, he wouldn't even know his contraption was off the ground."
Burning questions raced through Marlin's mind, but he frankly doubted the scientist's ability to answer them. A genius in his line Thornboldt might be; nevertheless, he was singularly impractical in other directions. One of Marlin's questions related to the persistence of almost normal gravity within the sphere. The explanation, DuChane suggested, must lie in the repulsion plates. While one surface exercised this force, the opposite surface compensated for it by exercising attraction. Though he tentatively accepted this theory for want of a better, Marlin was dissatisfied with it.
Another question related to the direction of their flight. Were they speeding toward or away from the sun? Was there danger of crashing into some planet, moon, or meteoric body, and if so could they avoid such a fate? Observations through the periscope might presently solve the question of direction. Possibly Eli had instruments which would help.
The days that followed settled down to a dull, monotonous routine. There was nothing—almost literally nothing—to do but eat, sleep, and chafe at the helplessness of their position.
Lacking any measurement of time in the uniform semi-gloom of the sphere, they established an arbitrary day of twenty-four hours. They slept and ate in accustomed routine and kept track of the days of the week.
The initial feeling that something must be done—and done immediately—toward getting out of the predicament, gradually gave way to a sense of hopeless resignation. When they goaded Eli with the necessity for action, he flew into violent rages. They realized at length that he was as much at a loss as any of the party.
How could they guide their course, when the limited observations possible through the periscope scarcely told them whether they were traveling toward the sun or away from it? They might, indeed, be hanging inert in space. Marlin contended that they were moving away from the sun.