The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe universe wreckersThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The universe wreckersAuthor: Edmond HamiltonIllustrator: Leo MoreyHans Waldemar WessolowskiRelease date: August 23, 2024 [eBook #74302]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: Jamaica, NY: Experimenter Publications Inc, 1930Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNIVERSE WRECKERS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The universe wreckersAuthor: Edmond HamiltonIllustrator: Leo MoreyHans Waldemar WessolowskiRelease date: August 23, 2024 [eBook #74302]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: Jamaica, NY: Experimenter Publications Inc, 1930Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Title: The universe wreckers
Author: Edmond HamiltonIllustrator: Leo MoreyHans Waldemar Wessolowski
Author: Edmond Hamilton
Illustrator: Leo Morey
Hans Waldemar Wessolowski
Release date: August 23, 2024 [eBook #74302]
Language: English
Original publication: Jamaica, NY: Experimenter Publications Inc, 1930
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNIVERSE WRECKERS ***
The Universe WreckersA Tale of NeptuneBy Edmond HamiltonAuthor of "Locked Worlds," "The Other Side of the Moon," etc.Illustrated by WESSOIt is problematical whether the enormous distance that lies between the Earth and Neptune is the only reason why so much on that planet remains a mystery to astronomers. If the great sphere were not so remote, much might be revealed to us. What might have happened to some of the other planets, perhaps so much older than the Earth, and what might be found upon them, might easily exceed the pale of human conception. But that is exactly why the subject of the possibilities of life 2000 millions of miles away from us, opens such a fertile field for writers of scientific fiction. And there is no assurance that the sun, for instance, should continue indefinitely to turn at its present speed. What might happen if it should, for some reason, begin rotating at an increasing frequency? Mr. Hamilton, who needs no introduction to readers ofAmazing Storiesand certainly needs no further commendatory note, concerns himself chiefly with the trip to Neptune and "life" on Neptune. "The Universe Wreckers" is certainly the best interplanetary story by this author that we have published thus far.[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced fromAmazing Stories May, June, July 1930.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
A Tale of Neptune
By Edmond Hamilton
Author of "Locked Worlds," "The Other Side of the Moon," etc.
Illustrated by WESSO
It is problematical whether the enormous distance that lies between the Earth and Neptune is the only reason why so much on that planet remains a mystery to astronomers. If the great sphere were not so remote, much might be revealed to us. What might have happened to some of the other planets, perhaps so much older than the Earth, and what might be found upon them, might easily exceed the pale of human conception. But that is exactly why the subject of the possibilities of life 2000 millions of miles away from us, opens such a fertile field for writers of scientific fiction. And there is no assurance that the sun, for instance, should continue indefinitely to turn at its present speed. What might happen if it should, for some reason, begin rotating at an increasing frequency? Mr. Hamilton, who needs no introduction to readers ofAmazing Storiesand certainly needs no further commendatory note, concerns himself chiefly with the trip to Neptune and "life" on Neptune. "The Universe Wreckers" is certainly the best interplanetary story by this author that we have published thus far.
It is problematical whether the enormous distance that lies between the Earth and Neptune is the only reason why so much on that planet remains a mystery to astronomers. If the great sphere were not so remote, much might be revealed to us. What might have happened to some of the other planets, perhaps so much older than the Earth, and what might be found upon them, might easily exceed the pale of human conception. But that is exactly why the subject of the possibilities of life 2000 millions of miles away from us, opens such a fertile field for writers of scientific fiction. And there is no assurance that the sun, for instance, should continue indefinitely to turn at its present speed. What might happen if it should, for some reason, begin rotating at an increasing frequency? Mr. Hamilton, who needs no introduction to readers ofAmazing Storiesand certainly needs no further commendatory note, concerns himself chiefly with the trip to Neptune and "life" on Neptune. "The Universe Wreckers" is certainly the best interplanetary story by this author that we have published thus far.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced fromAmazing Stories May, June, July 1930.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
CHAPTER I
A Warning of Doom
It was on the third day of May, 1994, that the world received its first news of the strange behavior of the sun. That first news was contained in a brief message sent out from the North American Observatory, in upper New York, and signed by Dr. Herbert Marlin, the observatory's head. It stated that within the last twenty-four hours a slight increase had been detected in the sun's rotatory speed, or rate of spin, and that while that increase might only be an apparent one, it was being further studied. That brief first message was broadcast, a few hours later, from the Intelligence Bureau of the World Government, in New York. It was I, Walter Hunt, who supervised the broadcasting of that message at the Intelligence Bureau, and I remember that it seemed to me of so little general interest that I ordered it sent out on the scientific-news wave rather than on the general-news wave.
Late on the next day, however—the 4th—there came another report from the North American Observatory in which Dr. Marlin stated that he and his first assistant, an astronomical student named Randall, had checked their observations in the intervening hours and had found that there was in reality a measurable increase in the sun's rotatory speed, an increase somewhat greater than had been estimated at first. Dr. Marlin added that all the facilities of the observatory were being utilized in an effort to determine the exact amount of that increase, and although it seemed at first glance rather incomprehensible, all available data concerning it would be gathered. And at the same hour, almost, there came corroborative reports from the Paris and Honolulu Observatories, stating that Dr. Marlin's first observations had already been confirmed independently by their own observers. There could be no doubt, therefore, that the sun was spinning faster!
To astronomers this news of the sun's increased rotatory speed became at once a sensation of the first importance, and in the hours following the broadcasting of Dr. Marlin's first statement, we at the Intelligence Bureau had been bombarded with inquiries from the world's observatories regarding it. We could only answer those inquiries by repeating the statement already sent out on the scientific-news wave and by promising to broadcast any further developments instantly from our Bureau, the clearing-house of the world's news. This satisfied the scientifically-minded, while the great mass of the public was so little interested in this slight increase in the sun's rate of spin as not to bother us with any questions concerning it. I know that I would have taken small interest in the thing myself, had it not been for a personal factor connected with it.
"Marlin!" I had exclaimed, when the Intelligence Chief had handed to me that first report for broadcasting. "Dr. Herbert Marlin—why, he was my astronomy prof up at North American University, two years ago."
"Oh, you know him," the Chief had remarked. "I suppose then that this statement of his on the sun's increased rate of spin is authentic?"
"Absolutely, if Dr. Marlin gave it," I told him. "He's one of the three greatest living astronomers, you know. I became good friends with him at the University, but haven't seen him for some time."
So that it was with an interest rather unusual for me, that I followed the reports on this technical astronomical sensation in the next few days. Those reports were coming fast now from all the observatories of Earth, from Geneva and Everest and Tokio and Mexico City, for almost all astronomers had turned their interest at once toward this unprecedented phenomenon of the sun's increased rate of spin, which Dr. Marlin had been first to discover. The exact amount of that increase, I gathered, was still somewhat in doubt. For not only did the sun turn comparatively slowly, but the problem was complicated by the fact that it did not, like the Earth or like any solid body, rotate everywhere at the same speed, but turned faster at the equator than at its poles, due to its huge size and the lack of solidity of its mass. Dr. Marlin, however, stated that according to his observations the sun's great fiery ball, which had rotated previously at its equator at the rate of one rotation each 25 days, had already increased its rate of spin, so as to be turning now at the rate of one rotation each 24 days, 12 hours.
This meant that the sun's rotatory period, or day, had decreased 12 hours in three Earth-days, and such an unprecedented happening was bound to create an uproar of excitement among astronomers. For to them, as to all, who had any conception of the unvarying accuracy and superhuman perfection of the movements of the sun and its worlds, such a sudden increase of speed was all but incredible. And when on the fourth day Dr. Marlin and a score of other observers reported that the sun's rotatory period had decreased by another 4 hours, the excitement of the astronomers was unprecedented. A few of them, indeed, sought even in the face of the recorded observations to cast doubt on the thing. The sun's rotatory speed, they contended, could be measured only by means of the sun-spots upon its turning surface, and it was well known that those sun-spots themselves often changed position, so that this sudden increase in speed might only be an illusion.
This contention, however, found small support in the face of the indisputable evidence which Dr. Marlin and his fellow-astronomers had advanced in the shape of numerous helio-photographs and time-recordings. The sun was spinning faster, that was undoubted by the greater part of the world's astronomers—but what was making it do so? Was it due to some great dark body passing the solar system in space? Or was it due to strange changes within the sun's great fiery sphere? It was the latter theory, on the whole, that was favored by most astronomers, and which struck me at the time as the most plausible. It was generally held that a great shifting of the sun's inner layers, a movement of its mighty interior mass, had caused this sudden change in speed of rotation. Dr. Marlin himself, though, when questioned, would only state that the increased rate of spin was in itself beyond doubt but that no sound theory could as yet be formed as to the phenomenon's cause.
And while the astronomers thus pondered and disputed over the thing, it had begun to arouse repercussions of interest in the non-scientific public also. More and more inquiries concerning it were coming to us at the Intelligence Bureau in those first few days, those inquiries becoming so numerous as to cause us to switch the news on the thing from the scientific-news wave to the general-news wave, which reached every communication-plate in the world. It was, no doubt, out of sheer lack of other topics of interest that the world turned thus toward this astronomical sensation. For sensations of any kind were rare now in this peaceful world of ours. The last mighty air war of 1972, which had ended in the total abolition of all national boundaries and the establishment of the World Government with its headquarters in the new world-capital of New York, had brought peace to the world, but it had also brought some measure of monotony. So that even such a slight break in the order of things as this increase in the sun's rate of spin, was rather welcomed by the peoples of the world.
And now, the thing had passed from the realm of the merely surprising to that of the astounding. For upon the fifth and sixth days had come reports from Dr. Marlin and from the heads of the other observatories of the world that the strange phenomenon was still continuing, that the sun's rotatory speed was still increasing. In each of those two days, it was stated, it had decreased its period of rotation by another 4 hours, the same daily decrease noted previously. And the exactness of this decrease daily, the smoothness of this strange acceleration of the sun's spin, proved that the acceleration could not have been caused by interior disturbances, as had at first been surmised. A great interior disturbance of the sun might indeed cause it to spin suddenly faster, but no such disturbance could be imagined as causing an exact and equal increase in its speed of spin with each succeeding day. What, then, could be the cause? Could it be that in some strange way the universe was suddenly running down?
But while Dr. Marlin and his fellow-astronomers discussed this matter of the phenomenon's cause, it was its effects that had begun to claim the attention of the world at large. For that increase of the sun's speed was already making itself felt upon Earth. Even the great storms in the sun's mass, those storms that we call sun-spots, indeed, make themselves felt upon Earth by the intense electrical and magnetic currents of force which they throw forth, causing on Earth electrical storms and auroras and strange weather-changes. And now all the usual phenomena were occurring, but enhanced in intensity. On the third day of the thing, the 6th of May, there occurred over the mid-Atlantic an electrical storm of such terrific power as to all but sweep from the air the great air-liners caught in it, the Constantinople-New York liner and a grain-ship bound from Odessa to Baltimore having been forced down almost to the sea's surface by the terrific air-currents. Great auroras were reported farther south than ever before, and over all our Earth changes in temperature were quick and sudden. And among the other new phenomena called into being, apparently by the sun's increased spin, were the new vibrations discovered at that time by Dr. Robert Whitely, a prominent physicist and a colleague of Dr. Marlin's at North American University.
Dr. Whitely's report, though rather obscured in interest by the central fact of the sun's increased speed of spin, was yet interesting enough to physical students, for in it he claimed to have discovered the existence of a new and unknown vibratory force, emanating apparently from the disturbed sun. This was, he claimed, a vibration whose frequency lay in the octaves between light and Hertzian or radio vibrations, an unexplored territory in the domain of etheric vibrations. Dr. Whitely himself had for some time been endeavoring to push his researches into that particular territory, but though he had striven with many methods, he had been able to produce or find no etheric vibrations of that frequency until the strange increase of the sun's rotatory speed had begun. Then, he stated, his instruments had recorded new vibrations somewhere out in space toward the sun, whose frequency lay between the light and Hertzian frequencies, and which seemed a force-vibration of some sort, weak reflections from it only being recorded by his instruments. It seemed possible, he stated, that this strange new force-vibration was being generated somewhere inside the disturbed sun itself, and he was studying it further to determine the truth of this theory.
This discovery of Dr. Whitely's, however, interesting though it was, seemed to be but a side-issue of the real problem, the acceleration of the sun's rotation. After the sixth day, there were no further reports from Dr. Marlin and his fellow-astronomers. During all the seventh and eighth and ninth days there came no word to the Intelligence Bureau regarding it, from any of the astronomers who had formerly reported to us on it. And though we got into touch with Dr. Marlin and the others by communication-plate, none of them in those three days would make any statement whatever on the thing, saying only that it was being carefully studied by them and that a statement would be issued soon. It was evident from this universal sudden silence on their part that the astronomers of the world's observatories were acting in conjunction, but why they should want to withhold from an interested world the news on this strange acceleration of the sun's spin, we could not understand. The great electrical storms and temperature-changes that had prevailed over Earth continued, and we were anxious to know how much longer we might expect them to continue.
"One would think that Dr. Marlin and the other astronomers had some great secret they were keeping from us," I remarked to Markham, the Intelligence Chief, and he shook his head.
"Secret or not, Hunt, they're doing us out of the first unusual news-subject we've had for a year," he said. "Why don't they give us whatever they've learned about this change in the sun's rate of spin?"
It was a question repeated by more than one in those days, for the great public having become interested in the matter was irritated by this silence on the part of Dr. Marlin and his fellow-scientists. Whatever they had learned or guessed as to the thing's cause, why did they not give their information to the Intelligence Bureau for distribution to the world? It was hinted freely that the whole matter was a hoax devised by Dr. Marlin, which had duped the astronomical world for the time being, and which they were reluctant to acknowledge. It was suggested also that the World President or the World Congress should take action to make the astronomers give out their usual reports. The public was quickly working itself into a state of indignation over the matter, when there suddenly burst upon it that doom-laden and terrible statement by Dr. Marlin, which was to loose an unprecedented terror upon the peoples of Earth.
It was on May 13th, the tenth day after Dr. Marlin's first announcement of the thing, that he gave to the world through the Intelligence Bureau that epochal statement, and in it he referred first to his silence and to the silence of his fellow-astronomers in the preceding few days. "In those days," he said, "every observatory in the world has been engaged in an intensive investigation of this acceleration of the sun's rotation, which I discovered. And in each of those days the sun's rotatory speed has continued to increase at exactly the same rate! In each day that speed has increased so much as to cut down the sun's rotatory period 4 hours more, so that now, ten days after the beginning of the thing, its rotatory period has been cut down by 40 hours. In other words, ten days ago the sun turned as it had always turned to our knowledge, at the rate of one turn in every 25 days, at its equator. Now the sun's rotatory speed has increased to the rate of one turn in every 23 days, 8 hours.
"And that increase of rotatory speed continues. With each passing day the sun's rate of rotation is growing greater by the same amount, with each passing day it is lessening its rotatory period by 4 hours. And that steady increase of rotation of the sun, if it continues, spells destruction for the sun as we know it! All know that the sun in rotating generates in its own mass a certain amount of centrifugal force, force which tends to break up its mass. That force is not large enough, however, in our own sun to affect its great mass, since our sun's speed of rotation is not great. We know that over vast periods of time a sun's rotatory speed will increase, due to the slow shrinkage of its mass, and that when the speed has increased to a point where its centrifugal force is greater than its own power of cohesion, the sun breaks up like a bursting flywheel, breaks up or divides into a double or multiple star. Thousands upon tens of thousands of the stars of our universe are double or multiple stars, having been formed thus from dividing single suns, whose speed or rotation became too great.
"But as I have said, our own sun seemed in no danger of this fate, since the natural increase of a sun's rotatory speed, due to the shrinkage of its mass, is so unthinkably slow, requires such unthinkable ages, that it is out of all concern of ours. For our sun has rotated once in 25 days at its equator, and it has been calculated that it would need to reach a rotatory speed of once in one hour before its centrifugal force would be great enough to divide it, to break it up. And because of that eon-long slowness of a star's natural increase of rotatory speed, there seemed, indeed, no slightest peril of our own sun dividing or breaking up thus, because before it could reach that speed of rotation required, unthinkable ages must elapse.
"But now, due to some cause, which none of us have been able to guess, some great cause utterly enigmatic and unknown to us, our sun's rotatory speed has begun suddenly to grow greater, to increase! Faster and faster every day the sun is spinning, its speed of rotation increasing by the same amount each day, its rotatory period decreasing by exactly 4 hours each day! You see what that means? It means that if the sun's speed of spin continues to increase at that steady rate, if its rotatory period continues to decrease by that amount each day, as it shows every sign of doing, within 140 days more the sun's rate of rotation will have increased so much that it will be turning at the rate of one turn in one hour, will have reached that speed at which our calculations show that its great mass can no longer hold together! So that 140 days from now, if this increase of rotatory speed continues, our sun will infallibly divide into a double star!
"And that division means death for Earth and almost all its sister-planets!For when the sun divides into two great new suns, the first force of their division will send those two mighty balls of fire apart from each other, and pushing thus apart from each other, they will inevitably engulf in their fiery masses all the inner planets and most of the outer ones! Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars will undoubtedly be engulfed in the fires of the two dividing suns upon their first separation, their first division. Jupiter and Saturn and very probably Uranus will be drawn inevitably into fiery death also in one or another of those great suns, if they too are not overwhelmed in the first separation. Neptune alone, the outermost of all the sun's planets, will be far enough out to escape annihilation in the dividing suns when the terrific cataclysm occurs. For if the sun continues to spin faster, as it is now doing, that cataclysm must inevitably occur, and must as inevitably plunge our Earth to fiery doom and wreck our solar system, our universe!"
CHAPTER II
To Neptune!
"Doom faces us, a fiery doom in which the dividing sun will annihilate Earth and most of its sister-planets! Panic even now grips all the peoples of Earth, such panic as has never been known before, as that doom marches inevitably toward them! Yet inevitable, inescapable as that doom seems, we of the World Congress, we who represent here all the gathered peoples of Earth, must endeavor to find even now some last chance of lifting this awful menace from us!"
The World President paused, his dark, steady eyes searching out through the great room at whose end, upon a raised platform, he stood. Behind him on that platform sat a row of some two-score men and women, garbed like himself and all others in the modern short and sleeveless garments of differing colors, while before him in the great room stretched the rows of seated members of the great World Congress, the twelve hundred men and women who represented in it all the peoples of Earth. Just beneath the great platform's edge sat Markham, the Intelligence Chief, and myself; before us were the switches that controlled the communication-plates throughout the room that broadcast all proceedings in it to the world. And sitting there, I could glance up and see among those two-score behind the World President two figures well known to me; the strong figure of Dr. Marlin, with his intense gray eyes and gray-touched hair; and the lounging, dark-haired form of Dr. Robert Whitely, his somewhat sardonic countenance and cool eyes turned now with keen interest toward the World President before him. And as the latter began again to speak my own gaze shifted toward him.
"It has been just three days," the World President was saying, "since Dr. Herbert Marlin and his fellow-astronomers gave to the world a warning of this doom that hangs above it, gave to us a warning that in less than five months more, if the sun's rotatory speed continues to increase, it must inevitably divide into a double star and in so doing wreck our universe and plunge most of its planets into fiery death. I need not speak now of the terror that has reigned over Earth since that announcement. It is sufficient to say that the first wild riots, inspired by that terror in Europe and Northern Asia, have been suppressed by the dispatch of police cruisers, and that throughout the world order is being maintained and most of our world's activities are being carried on as usual. Yet it is clear to all that the panic which that statement inspired has not subsided, rather it is growing in force over the Earth's surface with the passing of each day. For each day is bringing our Earth nearer to death!
"For each day, each of these three intervening days, the sun's speed of rotation has continued to increase by the same exact amount! Each day its rotatory period has decreased by 4 hours more! It cannot be doubted then that whatever is causing this strange acceleration, it will keep on, until in a mere 137 days from the present, the sun's rotatory period will have reached the figure of one hour. When that occurs our sun will, as Dr. Marlin has warned us, divide into a double star! Nothing in the universe can save our Earth or its neighboring planets then. Our one hope, therefore, to save ourselves, is to prevent that thing from happening, to halt this acceleration of the sun's spin before it reaches its critical point 137 days from now! For it is only by halting that steady increase of its rotatory speed that we can avoid this terrific cataclysm that means death for us!
"But can we halt this acceleration of the sun's spin when none of our astronomers has been able to ascertain its cause? That is what you will ask, and in answer to that I say, some hours ago two of our scientistsdidascertain that cause. They learned at last what great, what almost incredible cause is responsible for this acceleration of our sun's rotatory speed. Those two scientists are well known to all of you, for they are Dr. Herbert Marlin himself, who first discovered the fact of the sun's faster spin, and Dr. Robert Whitely, his physicist-colleague, who has been studying the new vibrations recorded by his instruments since the beginning of that acceleration of the sun's rotatory speed. These two men have found, at last, the terrible cause of our sun's strange behavior, and it is that you might hear it that I have called you of the World Congress together at this time. It is Dr. Marlin himself, then, who will tell you what he and his fellow-scientist have discovered."
The World President stepped aside, and as he did so Dr. Marlin rose, stepped forward to the great platform's edge, and looked quietly out over the great room's occupants. I was aware as he did so of a quality of utter tension in all the hundreds in that room, of a hushed silence, in which the slightest sound seemed unnaturally loud. Through the great windows there came a deep hum of sound from the sunlit surrounding city, but in the big room itself was silence almost complete until Dr. Marlin's strong, deep voice broke it.
"It was thirteen days ago," he said, "that the acceleration of our sun's rotatory speed was first noted, thirteen days ago that it first began to spin faster. In those days we of the world's observatories have sought unceasingly for the cause, whatever it was, that was behind this strange acceleration of the sun's spin, and have sought for that cause even more intently in the last few days, since it was recognized by us, that this increasing rotatory speed foreshadowed the division of the sun and the doom of almost all its planets. That acceleration of speed was too exact, too uniform each day, to be the result of interior disturbances. It could not be the result of the influence of some dark body passing the solar system in space, for such a body would affect the planets also. What, then, could be the thing's cause? That is what I and all astronomers have been seeking to solve in the last days. That great enigma has finally been solved, not by an astronomer, but by a physicist—by Dr. Robert Whitely, my fellow-professor at North American University.
"It will be remembered that when the first great effects of the sun's increased spin became apparent on Earth, the great electrical storms and temperature-changes that still are troubling Earth, Dr. Whitely announced the discovery of new vibrations which were apparently emanating from the troubled sun also. That new vibration lay in frequency between the Hertzian and the light vibrations, an unexplored territory in the field of etheric vibrations. It seemed, Dr. Whitely then stated, a force-vibration of some sort, the weak reflected impulses from it, that reached his instruments, affecting them as tangible force. It seemed reasonable to suppose, therefore, that this new force-vibration or ray was being generated inside the sun's disturbed mass, just as light vibrations and heat vibrations and cosmic-ray vibrations and many others are generated by and radiated from the sun.
"In the next days, however, Dr. Whitely continued to study this new vibration, and endeavored to trace it accurately to the sun by using recording instruments which recorded it as strongest or weakest in various quarters of space. By means of these instruments, he was able to plot the course of this force-vibration or ray in space, to chart the path of its strongest portion in space. And by doing this he found that this new force-vibration, contrary to his expectations, was not being radiated out equally in all directions as one might expect. It was being shot forth in a great force-beam or ray, one which cut a straight path across half our solar system! And that mighty force-ray, whose weaker reflected pulsings only struck his instruments here on Earth, was not being generated and shot forth by the sun, but wasstrikingthe sun! And tracing its path out across the solar system by his charts he found that the great force-ray was being shot out from the planet Neptune, was stabbing across the great gulf from Neptune, the outermost planet, and striking the sun!
"And it was that giant force-ray, as Dr. Whitely and I soon saw, that was and is making our sun's rotatory speed steadily increase! For that great ray, as we found, is one that can stab across space and strike any object with terrific force, as though it were solid and material! You know that even light rays, light vibrations, exert a definite pressure or force upon the matter which they strike. Well, these force-vibrations, of greater wavelength than the light vibrations, also exert pressure and force upon any matter which they strike, but they exert an infinitely greater pressure, can stab across the vast void and strike any object with colossal and unceasing pressure. In this way, then, this great force-vibration or ray hurtles across space and strikes all matter in its path with terrific force, as though a solid arm were pushing across the gulf.
"And this terrific ray of force, stabbing in through the solar system from Neptune, was striking our sun just at its edge, just at its limb, at its equator. It struck that edge turning always away from Neptune, and striking that turning edge of the sun with terrific force as it did, the great pushing ray made it turn even faster away from Neptune at that edge, made the sun turn faster and faster! Pressing always upon the turning sun's edge with the same great power, this mighty force-ray has made the sun rotate faster each day, has made its rotatory speed increase by the same amount each day. And since that great ray is still stabbing across the gulf from Neptune to the sun, is still accelerating the sun's spin, it is to that ray that we will owe the division of our sun into two parts, 137 days from now, and the consequent wrecking of our solar system!
"For Neptune alone will escape the cataclysm that will take place when the sun divides, and it is from Neptune, from intelligent beings on Neptune, there can be not the slightest doubt, that this great force-ray comes. For it cannot be doubted for an instant that this mighty force-ray is the work of intelligent creatures upon Neptune. Never in all the many discussions concerning the possibility of life on the other planets have astronomers conceded any possibility of life on Neptune, the outermost of the sun's worlds, for though we have always known it to have air and water, its great distance from the sun must needs make it so cold a world as to be unable to sustain life. That was our belief before, but now with this great ray from Neptune swiftly wrecking our solar system before our very eyes, we can no longer doubt that life, intelligent life, exists there!
"It is the beings of Neptune, therefore, the creatures of the sun's outermost world, who are making the sun spin faster and faster, who are deliberately planning to make our sun divide into a double star, to wreck its universe! What their reason is for doing this, we cannot now guess. We know that Neptune, almost alone among the sun's planets, will survive the great cataclysm of its division, and we can but hazard the thought that it is for some great advantage to themselves that the Neptunians are engaged upon this colossal task. Neither can we guess just how, exactly, they are doing it, how they are able to push against the sun with such colossal force without Neptune itself being pushed out into the void by the tremendous reaction from that push. But these things are not of the greatest interest to us now.
"The thing of greatest interest to us now is this: Can we halt this acceleration of the sun's rotation, can we thwart the doom which the Neptunians would loose upon us? To do that there is but one remedy! That is to bring to an end this great force-ray which the beings of Neptune are playing upon our sun's edge, with which they are making that sun turn faster. And to bring that ray to an end, to destroy it, it is necessary that we go out to Neptune, to the source of that great ray. For it is only at its source, whatever that source may be, that this force-ray can be destroyed! And it is only by destroying that force-ray that Earth and its sister-planets can be saved!
"This proposition, this plan to go out to Neptune itself, may seem to you impossible. For greatly as our scientific knowledge has risen in the last decades, we have been unable to bridge the gulf to even the nearest of the planets. True, we have managed to send rockets to our moon and explode flares there by means of them, but never yet have any of us reached even the nearest of our neighboring planets. And thus to propose to go out to Neptune, the farthest and outermost of all the planets, the last outpost of our solar system, may appear to you quite senseless. But it is not so, for now, at last, there is given to us the power to venture out into the gulf of space to other planets! And that power is given to us by the very doom that now threatens us, since it is the force-ray or vibration with which the beings of Neptune are turning our sun faster, which we can use to cross the gulf of space!
"For since his instruments first received and recorded that vibration, the weak reflected pulsings of the great ray, Dr. Whitely has studied it intensively, and has been able, by reversing the hook-up of his receiving and recording instruments, to produce similar vibrations, a similar ray, himself! He has been able to devise small generators which produce the same force-ray, and on that principle larger generators also can be devised and constructed, to shoot forth a force-ray of immense power. With such a force-ray, generated from inside a strong, hermetically-closed flier, one could shoot out at will into the great void! For if such a flier, resting on Earth, turned its powerful ray down upon Earth, that ray would strike Earth with terrific force. Being so vast in mass, and the flier from which the ray is shot down being so small, it would not be Earth that would be perceptibly moved by the ray, but the flier itself would be shot instantly up and outward into space by the ray's great pushing reaction!
"It would be necessary only to head the space-flier out toward the desired planet upon starting, and the pushing force of the great ray, constantly turned on, would so accelerate the flier's speed that it would be pushed out toward that planet at a terrific velocity, a speed which could be controlled by the power of the pushing ray. To escape the attraction of other planets among which it might pass, the space-flier would need only to shoot a similar great force-ray out toward whatever planet was attracting it, and the pushing force of that ray would hold the flier out from it. And when the space-flier neared the planet that was its goal, it could gradually slow its progress by means of a ray shot ahead toward that planet, braking its forward rush thus, and being able to land smoothly and without harm upon that planet!
"Such a space-flier as that might be built and operated in that way, with the great force-ray or vibration of the beings of Neptune to propel it, and in such a flier it would be possible to go out across the gulf to Neptune itself! Such a flier, pushing itself out into space with a great ray, could be brought to such colossal speeds that the journey out through the gulf to the distant planet could be accomplished in but a score or more of days. We have the power to build that flier, we have at last, at this tense moment, the power to send such a space-flier out into the void. And I propose that such a space-flier be built with the greatest speed possible and be sent out to Neptune to locate and if possible to destroy the source of the mighty force-ray whose colossal power is spinning our sun ever faster, threatening Earth and most of its sister-planets with a final doom!
"A single space-flier capable of holding three or four men and their equipment and supplies, could be built in a month or more, if all energies were concentrated upon it, and if the great generators of the force-ray which it would need could be constructed in that time. That single flier, when built, should be sent out to Neptune at once! For little enough time remains to us before the break-up of our sun; little more than four months indeed. And that single flier, going out with its occupants at once, could locate the source of the mighty force-ray on Neptune, and if it could not destroy that ray's source, could at least return to Earth with exact knowledge of its position. And in the interval, there could be constructed here on Earth a fleet of such space-fliers, so that with a knowledge of the great ray's source these might be able to destroy it. All depends, however, upon constructing and sending out that first space-flier, while there is yet time!
"It would not be possible to construct a large space-flier in the short time of a month that I have mentioned, but a small one capable of holding four men, say, could be built in that time if all efforts were concentrated upon it. And I myself will be one of those four! For upon disclosing this plan to the World President, I was asked by him to be the commander of such a space-flier on its venture out to Neptune; and I accepted! Another of that four must be Dr. Whitely, whose discovery of the great force-ray from Neptune has shown us whence our doom is coming, and which discovery has alone made such a space-flier possible. It is my intention to take as a third my own assistant, Allen Randall, and as the fourth person to make this momentous voyage it would be best, no doubt, to have some younger member of the Intelligence Bureau, so that a complete report on the great ray's source and on all else encountered could be brought back, in case we were unable to destroy the ray ourselves.
"This, then, is the one chance for our Earth, that in such a space-flier or fliers we of Earth can go out to Neptune and put an end to that mighty force-ray from Neptune that is spinning our sun ever faster. For if we can do that, if we can construct such a space-flier or fliers and reach Neptune and bring an end to that ray before the 137 days left to us have elapsed, we will have halted this acceleration of our sun's spin, will have prevented its division. But if we cannot do that, if we are unable in the short time remaining to us to accomplish the task of destroying that mighty force-ray, then the beings of Neptune will have accomplished their colossal purpose, will have caused our sun to divide into a double star and will have sent all its planets except Neptune to a fiery doom!"
Dr. Marlin's strong voice ceased, and as it did so an utter silence reigned over the great room for some moments, broken at last by the voices of the twelve hundred members of the great World Congress—breaking into a vast, indistinguishable roar! My heart was pounding at what I had heard, and I turned, spoke swiftly to Markham beside me, and then as he nodded was leaping up myself upon the great platform! Was leaping up to where Marlin was standing now with Dr. Whitely and the World President, the whole great room trembling now with the cheering shouts with which those in it greeted Dr. Marlin's announcement. And there I was speaking rapidly to the World President, and to Dr. Marlin.
"The fourth man, sir!" I cried. "The fourth man that's to go in the space-flier—let me be that fourth!"
The World President, recognizing me, turned inquiringly toward Dr. Marlin, who nodded, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Hunt is from the Intelligence Bureau," he said, "and he's young and has had scientific training—was one of my own students. We could have no better fourth."
My heart leaped at his words, and then the World President nodded to me. "You will be the fourth then, Mr. Hunt," he said, shaking my hand. And as I stood there on the platform with Marlin and Dr. Whitely, the World President was turning back to the hundreds of shouting members, a sea of faces extending back to the great room's walls. Cheering as they were at this last chance to save Earth and its peoples that had been proposed to them, this last hope given to them to halt the terrible doom overshadowing them, their great uproar yet stilled for a moment as the World President turned toward them, as his voice went out to them over the great room.
"You, the members of the World Congress," he said, "have heard that which Dr. Marlin has told you. With this last hope in view, it is unnecessary for me to tell you to bend now all the world's energies toward that one chance, toward the construction of the first space-flier. For since upon that space-flier rests the only chance to save Earth, to prevent the sun's cataclysmic division, which this great ray from Neptune is accomplishing, I have no fear but that in a month from now that space-flier will be completed. Have no fear but that in it, a month from now, Dr. Marlin and his three friends will start on their unprecedented and momentous voyage out from Earth into space; will start on their great flight out through the void—to Neptune!"
CHAPTER III
The Space-Flier Starts
"Three more days and the last work will be done—the space-flier will be finished!"
It was Dr. Marlin who spoke and Whitely beside him, nodded. "Three more days," he said, "and we'll be starting."
We four, Marlin and Whitely and Randall and myself, were standing on the flat roof of the great World Government building, that gigantic cylindrical white structure that looms two thousand feet into the air at the center of the new world-capital, New York. All around us there stretched the colossal panorama of New York's mighty cylindrical buildings, each rearing skyward from its little green park, extending as far away as the eye could reach, many of them rising on great supporting piers out of the waters of the rivers and bay around the island. In the late afternoon sunlight above them there swirled and seethed great masses of arriving and departing aircraft, unfolding their helicopter-vanes from their long hulls as they paused to rise or descend, seeming to fill the air, while away to the south the great Singapore-New York liner was slanting smoothly down toward the great flat surface of the air-docks. Yet it was to none of these things, nor to the masses of humans that swarmed and crowded in the city's streets far beneath us, that we four were giving our attention at that moment, for we were gazing intently at the great object that stood on the roof before us.
That object was a great gleaming metal polyhedron that loomed in a supporting framework beside us like a huge ball-like faceted crystal of metal. This great faceted ball of metal, though, was fully thirty feet in diameter, and here and there in the great, smooth, faceted, plane-surfaces of it were set hexagonal windows of clear glass, protected by thick raised rims of metal around them. There were also set in six of the facets six round openings a foot in diameter, one of these being in the faceted ball's top, one in its bottom, and four at equi-distant points around its equator. In one of the flat facet-sides, also, was a screw-door of a few feet diameter that now was open, giving a glimpse across a small vestibule-chamber inside through a second open screw-door into the great polyhedron's interior. That interior seemed crowded with gleaming mechanisms and equipment, attached to the inner side of the great metal shell.
Marlin was contemplating the great thing intently as we stood there on the roof beside its supporting framework. "Finished—in three more days," he repeated. "Everything's ready for the last generator."
"That will be done in two days more," said Randall, beside me. "Everything else at the World Government's laboratories has been suspended in order to get these generators ready for us."
"They've worked fast to get three of the generators in the flier already," Marlin acknowledged. "Especially since Whitely here, in directing them, had only his own first crude models to work on."
"Lucky we are to get the generators completed and the space-flier finished in the month we estimated!" I exclaimed. "If the whole world hadn't centered its energies on the space-flier's completion we'd never have done it—and even so it's been a tremendous task."
It had, indeed, been a period of tense and toiling activity for Marlin and Whitely and Randall and me, that time of four weeks that had elapsed since Marlin had proposed his great plan to the World Congress. In those weeks all our efforts, and all the efforts of the world too, it seemed, had been concentrated upon the building of that space-flier in which we four, first of all men, were to venture out into the great void, to flash out to Neptune in our attempt to halt the great ray that was spinning our sun ever faster to its destruction and to ours. For each day of those four weeks the rotatory speed of the sun had grown ever greater, its rotatory period decreasing by an exact four hours each day. The instruments of Dr. Whitely, too, showed that the mighty force-ray was still playing unceasingly from Neptune upon the turning sun's edge, spinning that sun ever faster. Already the terrific pressure of that great ray had lowered the sun's rotatory period to 18 days, 4 hours, and in hardly more than a hundred days more, we knew, would have brought the sun's rotatory period down to that critical figure of one hour at which it could no longer hold together, at which it would divide into a double star and plunge Earth to doom and wreck the solar system.
And with that knowledge, all the world had sought to aid in the construction of our space-flier. Dr. Marlin had directed that construction, aided by his assistant, young Randall, whom I had met for the first time and had found a sunny-haired fun-loving fellow of my own age. And it had been Dr. Marlin who, after consultation with the world's greatest engineering authorities, had chosen for the flier the form of a great polyhedron. Such a form, it had been found, could resist pressure from within and without much better than the spherical form that had been at first suggested, and it was realized that this power of resistance would be necessary. For upon venturing out from Earth's gravitation-field into gravitationless space, the very interior stresses of such a space-flier would tend to explode it unless it was braced against those stresses. Also the space-flier was to be shot out through the void and maneuvered in that void by the pushing reaction of its own great force-rays against the Earth or other planets, and though that force would thus hurtle the flier out at terrific speed, it would also crumple the flier itself unless it were strong enough to withstand the force-ray's terrific pressure.
With the space-flier's form decided and the plans for it drafted, work upon it had begun at once. At the World President's suggestion, it was being set up on the great flat roof of the World Government building. From over all Earth had come the world's most brilliant engineers and scientists to aid in its construction, for the world lay still beneath the great shadowing wing of fear that had been cast over it, when the peoples of Earth had learned first of the doom that Neptune and its beings were loosing upon the solar system. So that though the world's first wild panic had subsided, it had been replaced by a waxing realization and dread that had made the peoples of Earth and their representatives offer to us their help in this plan of ours, which alone held out any chance, however slender, of escape from the annihilation that was nearing Earth. Laboring ceaselessly day and night therefore, in picked crews of workers that every few hours replaced each other, Dr. Marlin and Randall and myself and our eager workers had swiftly brought the great space-flier's metal shell into being.
That great crystal-like shell, at Dr. Marlin's suggestion, had been made double-walled, the space between the two walls being pumped to as complete a vacuum as possible so that vacuum might insulate the flier's interior from the tremendous differences in temperature that it would meet in space. For where the sun's heat-radiations struck the flier in space it would be warm, hot even, but those parts in shadow would be subjected to the absolute zero of empty space. Each of these thick double walls, in turn, was itself built up of alternate layers of finest steel and of non-metallic, asbestos-like insulating material, pressed and welded together by titanic forces into a single thickness. And the great faceted wall-sections of the flier, when in place, had been so welded and fused one to the other by the new molecular-diffusion fusing process, that the great ball-like faceted flier might have been and was, in fact, a single and seamless polyhedron, its strength enormous.
In one of the flier's facets was the round screw-door, admitting one through a small vestibule-chamber, and then through a second hermetically-sealing door into the flier's interior. In that interior, all the flier's mechanisms and equipment had been attached directly to the inner side of its great crystal-like ball, with hexagonal windows, made double and of thick unbreakable glass, here and there in the walls, between the mechanisms. Just inside one of those large windows, at what might be called the ball-like flier's front, were ranged on a black panel of several feet in length the space-flier's controls. The most central of these controls were six gleaming-handled levers which controlled the flier's great force-rays, shooting them forth from any one of the six ray-openings in its sides, to send the flier hurtling through space by reaction, or to use against asteroids or other objects as a great weapon. Supported from the wall in front of those levers was a metal chair that swung on pivots and on sliding pneumatic shock-absorbing tubes, a metal strap across it to hold its occupant in it. And the occupant of that chair, with the six force-ray controls before him, thus controlled the flier's flight through space, and could, if necessary, use its great rays as weapons.
To the left of those controls were the recording dials and switches of the four great generators. Those four gleaming cubical generators themselves were attached to the other side of the flier's hollow interior, along with the marvelously compact and powerful Newson-Canetti batteries. Operating from those batteries whose power-stores were almost exhaustless, the generators, when turned on, would generate the great force-vibrations which, of a wavelength higher than that of light vibrations, exerted a terrific pressure or force beside which the pressure of light was as nothing. These vibrations were carried by thick black cables running between the flier's double walls to the projecting-mechanisms inside the six ray-openings, and from those openings the great force-vibrations were released as great force-rays by the operator of the flier's six controls. These great force-rays, we had found, almost equalled the speed of light itself in the velocity with which they shot out from the flier's ray-openings.
In front of the generators' recording dials and switches was suspended a metal chair like that of the control-operator, while between those two was a third chair before which, on the control-panel, were ranged the instruments recording the space-flier's conditions of flight. There was a space-speed indicator, working by means of ether-drift, a set of dials that accurately recorded the gravitational pull of celestial bodies in all directions, inside and outside temperature recorders, inside and outside air-testers, and beside others the controls of a number of the necessary mechanisms attached at different points inside the hollow faceted ball of the flier. Among these were the controls of the flier's air-renovator, which automatically removed the carbon-dioxide from the flier's breathed air by atomic dissociation and replaced it with oxygen from the compact tanks of compressed liquid-oxygen; the controls of the heating-mechanism, which beside its own heating coils was to utilize the heat of the sun on the flier's side in space; and the control of the hooded lights set above the flier's control-panel and mechanisms.
To the right of the control-operator's chair, too, there was a fourth similar chair before which were ranged on the control-panel a compact but extremely efficient battery of astronomical instruments. There was a ten-inch refracting telescope, its lens set directly in the big hexagonal window over the control-panel, the tube of the telescope, thanks to the new "re-reflecting" principle, being but a score or so of inches in length. There was also a small but efficient spectroscope similarly mounted, a micrometric apparatus for accurate measurements of celestial objects, and a shielded bolometer for ascertaining the radiated heat of any celestial body.
These four metal chairs, suspended there in front of the long control-panel and with the big hexagonal window before and above them, were mounted all upon special shock-absorbing tubes of pneumatic design which would enable us to withstand the pressure of our flier's acceleration upon starting, and the pressure also of its deceleration upon slowing and stopping. Seated in them, we would be able to look forth over the space-flier's controls into the void before us, and since gravitation would be lacking in the flier, once out in space, metal straps across them would hold us in them. Here and there among the mechanisms that lined the ball-like flier's interior, too, were hand-grips by which we could float without harm among the mechanisms and equipment, while the metal bunks attached at one point to the flier's interior were provided with metal straps to hold us in them during sleep.
Ranged among the mechanisms, that lined the flier's interior, were the cabinets that held our stores and special equipment. Among these were ample stores of food in thermos-cans, kept hot thus and obviating all necessity of cooking, the tanks of compressed water, and the extra liquid-oxygen tanks. Also attached to hooks on the walls were the four space-walkers that had been constructed for us to enable us to venture outside of the flier into airless space, if necessary. These space-walkers were cylindrical metal structures seven feet or more in height and three in diameter, tapering at the top to a smooth dome in which were small vision-windows. Each held a small generator of force-vibrations, and an equally small air-renovator. There were two hollow metal jointed arms that extended from the upper part, and on entering the cylinder and closing its base-door one thrust his own arms inside those hollow metal ones. They ended in great pincer-claws that could be actuated by one's own hands inside, while the space-walker itself was moved through the void by its generated force-vibrations being shot out from a small ray-opening in the cylinder's bottom.
Standing inside the hollow, ball-like polyhedron of the flier, therefore, its mechanisms and equipment extended all about and above and beneath one, attached rigidly in every case to the flier's inner surface. That equipment, those mechanisms, indeed, had taxed all the powers of the great World Government laboratories to provide in the short time that was ours, but by a miracle of effort it had been done. And now, as we four gazed up toward the great gleaming faceted thing, resting beside us there in its framework of metal girders, we knew that there remained only the last of the four great generators to be completed, and that in two days more, as Randall had said, that too would be completed and installed and the space-flier would be ready for its final tests and for the start of our great trip. Looking up at the great thing towering there beside us in the waning afternoon sunlight, I was struck with a sudden realization of the stupendousness of the task that we had set ourselves; of the thing that lay before us.
"To go out in that from Earth to Neptune—to Neptune!—it seems impossible," I said.
Marlin nodded, his hand on my shoulder. "It seems strange enough," he assented, "but to Neptune in three more days we're going, Hunt. For no other chance is there to save Earth from the doom marching upon it."
"Butcanwe save it?" I exclaimed. "Can we four really hope to contend against beings who, whatever their nature, have power enough to reach across the solar system and speed our spinning sun on to its doom and ours?"
Marlin looked gravely at me, and at Whitely and Randall beside me. "A chance there is—must be," he said solemnly, "even though little time now remains to us. And with that chance—with Earth's chance—in our hands, we must strike out to the last with all our power for Earth!"
Those words of Marlin, I think, steadied us all in the whirling rush of activities that was ours during the next, the last, three days. For in those three days, as the last generator approached completion and was completed and installed, we four were ceaselessly busy with the last preparations for our start. Whitely, who had designed and was to have complete charge of the space-flier's great generators, was busy inspecting and testing those generators. Randall and I were familiarizing ourselves with the flier's controls, for we two were to alternate in controlling its flight through the void. Marlin, who would not only command our little party but would have charge of the astronomical equipment in it, and would chart our course out through the trackless gulf, was occupied beside numberless other tasks in plotting, with the assistance of some of the world's foremost astronomers, that course that we must follow now. So that as there came upon us the last day of June 16th, that day upon whose night we were to start our momentous journey, it found us working still upon our last preparations.
By the time that day and night had come, too, it found the excited expectation of the world keyed up to an agonized point. For days, indeed, great crowds had swirled about the base of the huge World Government building, on whose roof we worked, and, as the last hours approached, it seemed that all the world's thoughts, indeed, were concentrated upon that roof, upon the great gleaming space-flier on it. For all knew that upon that flier and upon the mission which we four were attempting in it depended the one chance of escape for Earth. For steadily, remorselessly, the sun was spinning still ever faster, the great pushing force-ray from Neptune still stabbing across the solar system to spin the sun on and on with greater and greater rotatory speed, until it divided and doomed Earth and its sister-planets. So that those last days, those last hours, seemed to all the world as to ourselves to pass with nerve-tearing slowness.
There came at last, however, the night of the 16th, the night of our start, with the space-flier complete and ready in its framework at last. The last work of Marlin and Whitely had been to check over the construction-plans of the flier, which were to be left behind so that a great fleet of space-fliers, as the World President had said, could be constructed. Were we to return from Neptune with knowledge of the position and nature of the great doom-ray's source there, that fleet of space-fliers would be ready to sally out and attempt to bring an end to the great ray. But that knowledge, if we gained it, we must bring back ourselves, since there was no method of communication from our space-flier to Earth, the well-known "Heaviside layer" surrounding Earth being impenetrable to all radio and communication vibrations and making such communication impossible. With this last preparation completed, however, we four stood ready upon the night of the 16th for the start of our great venture.
It was an hour after midnight that we were to start, and it was not until some minutes past midnight that Marlin and Whitely and Randall and I left our quarters in the World Government building and ascended to its roof. As we emerged upon that roof we stopped involuntarily. For the great roof itself and all the surrounding colossal city of New York were lit now with brilliant white suspended lights, and beneath them upon the roof and in the streets far beneath were masses upon masses of waiting men and women. Those upon the roof were the twelve hundred members of the great World Congress, assembled there to see our start out into the void on our desperate venture. At their center was a clear, roped-off space on the roof in which there towered the framework that held our great space-flier, gleaming in the brilliance of the lights about it, and just inside that clear space stood the World President, a half-dozen officials beside him.
As we paused there for that moment, Marlin's face grave and intent with purpose, Whitely coolly looking about him, and Randall and I endeavoring to conceal the excitement that pounded at our hearts, the whole scene was imprinted indelibly upon my brain. The crowds and brilliant lights about and beneath us, the great space-flier's faceted bulk looming into the darkness, the colossal buildings of the great world-capital that stretched away in the darkness in all directions, a great mass of shining lights among which swirled a packed sea of humanity gazing up toward our flier—these formed a mighty panorama about us, but in that moment we turned our gaze up from them, up toward the great constellations of summer stars that gleamed in the black skies overhead. Away in the southern skies, not high above the horizon, burned the equatorial constellations, Scorpio and Sagittarius and Capricorn, with the calm white light-globule of Jupiter moving in Scorpio and the bright red dot of Mars and yellow spark of Saturn in Capricorn. But it was toward Sagittarius that we were gazing, for among that constellation's stars there shone also Neptune, invisible to our unaided eyes but almost seen by us, it seemed, in that tense moment.
Then we four were moving across the roof toward the looming framework that upheld the space-flier, pausing inside its clear space to face the World President. It was a moment of cosmic drama, that moment in which Earth and the silent peoples of Earth, that had gathered in millions there to watch us, were sending forth four of themselves into the trackless void for the first time, sending them forth with Earth's one chance for life in their hands. The World President, facing us, did not speak, though; did not break the thick silence that seemed to lie over all the mighty city. He reached forth, gripped our hands with his own, grasped them tightly, silently, his steady eyes upon ours, and then stepped back. And then Marlin leading, we were clambering up the framework to the flier's screw-door, passing silently inside and then screwing that great door hermetically shut behind us. That done, we passed across the little vestibule-chamber and through the second screw-door, closing it likewise behind us.
Then, clambering up to the four suspended chairs in front of the control-panels, we took our places in them; Marlin in the right chair, his telescope and astronomical equipment before him, I in the next one, with the six controls of the space-flier's movements before me, Randall in the third chair, the recording dials and minor controls of the flier before him, and Whitely in the fourth or left chair, the dials and switches of the generators before him. Seated there, the constellation of Sagittarius and the other southern stars were full before us in our big window, for our space-flier was so supported in its framework that by turning on its great force-ray from the lower ray-opening we would be shot out by the terrific repulsive force straight toward Sagittarius, toward Neptune, slanting out tangent-wise from Earth's surface. And now Marlin was peering through the short, strange-looking tube of the telescope, was touching its focusing wheels lightly, peering again, and then turning to me.
"Neptune," he said quietly. "We'll start when it reaches the center of this telescope's field of view—when the flier is pointed directly toward it."
"But we can maneuver the flier in any direction in space, could head out from Earth and then toward Neptune," Randall commented, as I applied my own eye to the telescope, and Marlin nodded.
"We can, but by starting straight toward Neptune we'll use less of our generators' power."
While he spoke I was gazing through the telescope, and though I had gazed upon Neptune many times before it was never with such feelings as gripped me now. Like a little pale-green spot of calm light it was, floating there in the darkness of the great void, its single moon not visible to me even through the powerful telescope. Then as I straightened from the telescope's eye-piece Marlin had taken it again, gazing intently into it now, to call out to me the moment when the planet reached the center of its field of view, when our space-flier would be headed straight toward it. For it was then, as Marlin had said, that we planned to hurtle out toward the planet with all the power of our great force-rays, not only reacting but pushing against Earth as light pushes. But since we must necessarily change our course once in space, to allow for Neptune's own movement among other things, we would use less power by making our first start straight toward it.
Now, as we sat tensely there, I had turned, nodded to Whitely, and he had thrown open the switches before him that controlled the great generators, their throbbing suddenly sounding behind us as they went into operation, generating the force-vibrations that in a moment would be released backward from our flier as mighty force-rays. As Whitely moved the switches, the throb of the generators died to a thin hum, then rose to a tremendous drone, and then slowly sank to a smooth throbbing beat at which he rested the switches. And now Marlin, beside me, was calling out to us the divisions of the specially-designed telescope's field, as Neptune passed across them to the zero mark at which we would hurtle outward.
"—45—40—35—30—"
As his steady voice sounded periodically beside me I sat as though a poised statue, my hand upon that lever among the six lever-switches before me that would send the power of our throbbing generators stabbing out with colossal force from the flier's ray-opening behind us, that would send that flier hurtling outward. "—25—20—15—." As the calm voice of Marlin broke the silence beside me I felt my heart racing with excitement, saw that Randall, and even Whitely, beside me, had hunched tensely forward as the moment approached. I glanced out a moment through the flier's windows, seeing in a blurred impression the breathless, watching crowds, the brilliant lights. "—10—5—zero!" And as that last word sounded I threw open in one swift motion the lever-switch in my grasp!
The next instant there was a colossal roaring about us, we seemed pressed down in our chairs with titanic, crushing force, and saw crowds and lights and great buildings vanishing from about our flier with lightning-like swiftness as a great pale ray of light, of colossal force, stabbed down and backward from the flier's ray-opening behind us! In a split-second all about us was blackness and then the great roaring sound about us had ceased, marking our passage out past the limits of Earth's atmosphere! Now through the windows before and about us, as we clung there, we saw the heavens around us brilliant with the fierce light of undimmed hosts of stars, while as our great flier reeled on at mounting speed into the great gulf, we saw behind and beneath us a great gray cloudy ball that was each moment contracting in size. Earth was receding and diminishing behind us as we flashed out through the void toward distant Neptune, to save that Earth from doom!