Time was lost with movement. I was a world which could exist a few years or hours or minutes, and then die, disintegrate. Poised in the infinity of Time and Space. Hung chained as a satellite to something.
I shook myself free from the confusion. How long it lasted I cannot say. I lay helpless, floating weightless in a weightless void. I could kick and flounder but could not change my position. I had left the air lock with a carefully planned forward dive. It had carried me, like a log floating in water, a hundred feet or so away from the Cube. My outward velocity had retarded.
Of all the myriad forces pulling at me, the attraction of the Cube was the greatest. Dr. Grenfell held D-face of the Cube with neutral gravity plates. The Cube's nearness checked me, held me. I sensed only the movement of my slow, outward dive; yet at that instant I was plunging forward with the Cub6 at half a million miles an hour I The Mercurian vehicle hung before me, seemingly unmoving, some ten miles away. I wondered if Rowena had seen me leapif she could guess it was 1.
Then the heavens were shifting, slowly oscillating with pendulum swing as I picked up a rolling motion. I became aware that I was lagging behind the Cube, the beginning of a small velocity of my ownthe making of an orbit.
Soon, with these forces, I would be a satellite of the Cube with the lesser attraction of. the Roc vehicle retarding me at each revolution.
Again my blurred thoughts clarified. The air lock door at D-face was closed. I could see Grenfell in the lock peering out at me. I raised my bloated arm with our agreed upon signal that I was all right.
He answered it, and vanished. Another countless interval of time went by. I knew that Grenfell was shifting the gravity plates in D-face so that their force would repulse me. It was presently apparent, l-'began moving away from the Cube. Moving free. Slowly at first. Then faster.
The Cube visually began dwindling. The Roc vehicle grew larger.
I fell free. The heavens shifted. Then the attraction of the silver ball caught me. I went around it in a great ellipse.
And with a slow axial rotation I was turning end over end, so that now the Earth was over me and then the Sun my days, which now were minutes or seconds of human time and my year, once around this enlarging globe.
I circled it several times in a narrowing spiral orbit, as steadily its bulk drew me closer. There were glimpses of the Cube, hovering watchful in the starry distance. I saw that my orbit was eccentric as I passed the side of the ball upon which Roc was using his power. Then I think he made all the ball neutral, for it drew me evenly inward each time I went around. I thought several times that at the small convex panes there were faces peering out at me.
The whole process took many minutes, or hours. I went at last with a curving rush at the ball. Struck its smooth gleaming, convex side. Rebounded, with the impulse of the air pressure in my bloated garments; struck again. It seemed like a falclass="underline" I landed with hands and knees under me, and felt that I now had a little weight: I lay sprawled, sticking outward like a fly upon the side of the sphere! With the contact, blessed normality returned. Detached no longer, free of the abnormality of an independent existence, I was once again the inhabitant of the world.
The sense of human time came back to me, with human movement. I sprawled on the sharply rounded metal surface.
I was on its side, but it seemed like its top, with the windows set wrongly and all the globe under me.
I lay for a moment. I seemed to weigh a few pounds. I began cautiously crawling away from the windows, and to my senses the ball was slowly passing beneath me, so that always I remained on top.
My mind was working clearly now. Would they let me in? It seemed probable. I had a tiny revolver. It was hidden m one boot, inaccessible now; I thought that perhaps when they captured me they might not find it. And there was a thin-bladed knife, of a size that made a fair weapon, fastened to my outer belt.
I clutched it now in my gloved hand. It might be that in the confusion of my arrival some chance would present itself. I knew that with my more than six-foot stature, I had many times the strength of any Mercurian.
I crawled past a window. A face ducked away. I moved sidewise over the small lower doorwayan entrance that could not be used in the vacuum of space. I could not get in that way.
The pressure port was farther around. I was over its smooth, opaque panel before I realized it. Sprawling, knife in hand.
The panel abruptly slid from beneath me. I dropped out of the starlight of the outer surface and fell in a heap against an inner wall; then I dropped to a metal floor.
The panel slid swiftly closed. I was in a soundless blackness.
v HATRED WITHIN Roc's VEHICLE, shortly after it left Earth's atmosphere, Tama, Rowena and Jimmy were sitting and talking with the giant Mercurian. He had told them his name was Dorrek and that he was an army leader on Mercury. And Rowena, a giantess compared to the women of Mercury, quite evidently attracted him. He told her so, in his gutteral, broken English.
"I like youbig womanbeautiful. My woman soon" Then Jimmy saw, lurking in the dimness of the narrow metal room, the short, flabby, gray Muta with folded gray wings. Her face was contorted with jealous rage. Without warning she gave a scream and with a glittering knife-blade in her hand, leaped upon Rowena.
Jimmy had no time to rise; he flung himself, sprawling forward from his sitting posture. But Tama was quicker. Her wings were spread behind her on the floor. She half turned, raised one of the crimson-feathered wings and with a sweeping blow, struck Muta as she leaned down. Rowena had thrown herself backward; the descending knife missed her.
The force of her blow and the thud of Tama's wing made the woman fall. Jimmy reached her, seized the knife and wrenched it from her hand. Dorrek was struggling to his feet, shouting with rage and surprise. He clutched the woman, lifted her up, and cuffed her in the face.
Out of the confusion Jimmy found himself apart and armed. He sprang erect. Then, for the first time, he was aware of the feeble gravity pull existing within this Mercurian vehicle. To the Mercurians it was normal. To Jimmy, it was not enough. He bounced into the air with his upward leap, and his head struck the vaulted ceiling. He fell back, fortunately on his feet, with the knife still clutched in his hand, and found Roc confronting him.
The small triangular room was in a turmoil. Jimmy had an instant flash of determination. He was armed. He would fight his way out of this.
But before he could translate his thoughts into action, other thoughts brought sanity. How could he fight his way out? Imprisoned with two girls in this silver ball hurtling through space! Jimmy's muscles relaxed. He raised the knife, held it out toward the astounded Roc, and smiled.
"Here's the knife. Roc. I took it away from that damned womanshe tried to kill Rowena." Roc took the knife, turned from Jimmy to the turmoil of the others. The woman stood sullen in the clutch of the angry Dorrek.
There was a confusion of argument in the Mercurian tongue.
Then Muta was ordered from the room. The giant Dorrek, triumphantly grinning, turned to Rowena.
"That Mutashe be punished soon by meDorrek." He struck his bulging chest with a show of manly strength.
"Brave fellow," muttered Jimmy.
Roc said abruptly, "The end of that. She will not try that again. You, Turk, come with me. Another room1 will give you something to eat. Are you hungry?"
"Yes. So are the girls, I think."
"They shall be well cared for, have no fear. The Earthship, that Flying Cube they call it"he pushed Jimmy toward the door"I suppose it will be after us?"