A hot rage began to boil within him. The Plutonians had known it all along! With their science they could have kept him alive until they had learned how to build a ship that would not melt from the heat of the sun.
Now, Marcius Kemble's unretarded speed carried him through the orbit of the earth while it was still many thousands of miles distant. He began to feel the boiling heat of the sun and realized what it would be like when the insulation of his space suit gave way to that awful heat, but he decided that he would never live to suffer it. Better to let the vacuum of space draw his life from him quickly and painlessly.
Slowly, he reached up to unscrew his helmet. He gave it a slight tug, then twisted with all his might. The helmet did not budge. For a moment he could not think clearly. Then it came to him. The air pressure within the suit was so great, in relation to the vacuum of space, that it bound the threads together with a friction that he could never hope to overcome!
With fear-filled eyes, he watched the hot disk of the sun expand around him as he fell toward it.
The system would soon be rid of Marcius Kemble.