"How extraordinary!” murmured Rhoda. "Anyhow, it’s just what I wanted.” And, leaning forward, she applied her lips to the floating sphere and sucked in a deep draft of the icy fluid.
"The latest thing in hygienic drinking-fountains,” she remarked, as she settled herself back in her armchair. "I really
don’t need this chair for repose, but without it I feel like a
picture without a frame,” she added.
"This is crazy-house, all right!” nodded Atterbury. "Gee, but we’ve got to be awful careful or we’ll break every bone in our bodies!”
"If we can only manage to sit still for an hour,” answered Bennie, "we shall have our tractor running again. Just now, I feel like a toy balloon!”
At this point, Burke elevated his legs and gave himself a
shove with his hands.
"So long!” he remarked, as he shot forward, and, floating horizontally through the door of the control-room, disappeared.
"Easy way to go to work!” chuckled Atterbury. "Lie on your back and kick yourself down-town. Watch me!”
He lifted himself with his forearms until he was poised like an athlete above a pair of parallel bars. Then, extending his arms in front of him, he gave a jerk with his legs and swam through the doorway after Burke. Rhoda and Bennie looked at each other in amusement.
"Have you thought what is going to happen when we begin to get within the sphere of Medusa’s attraction?” she inquired.
"You mean that, since that is the direction of our flight, gravitation will lift us up instead of down?”
"Exactly. We shall have to walk on the ceiling with our heads toward the floor”
"That won’t be very convenient, will it?” he replied. "You know, I never thought of that at all. All our fixtures will be in just the wrong places. This table, for instance, will be way down below us and upside down at that. No—I mean it will be upside down above us on the ceiling. No—what do I mean?”
"I don’t know,” she retorted. "If we are right side up, it will be upside down, but if we are wrong side up, it will be right side down, for if the up side becomes the down side then the wrong side will be the right side, and the up side and the down side—”
"Stop—stop- For heaven’s sake, stop!” shrieked Bennie. "You’re talking nonsense, anyway. We’re going to turn the Ring over before we slow down.”
It is problematical in what result the complexities of the situation would have involved them had not Bennie suddenly noticed that the spot of sunlight upon the ceiling had shifted slightly to one side. Calling Rhoda’s attention to this unexpected phenomenon, they returned to the deadlight, to find that the sun was no longer below them but considerably to one side, and, shielding their eyes with their hands, they were able to observe, where the vast black circle had been beneath the car, a shining crescent, light-bluish white in color and fifteen or twenty times the diameter of the moon. Neither Rhoda nor Bennie could repress a gasp of awe as they saw, for the first time, the enormous silvery arch of the earth pinned, as it were, against the utter blackness of space, with all its seas and continents plotted like a map.
"The crescent earth!" she breathed, in wonder.
"The crescent earth!" echoed Bennie. "How marvelous -like the new moon! I suppose we should call it ’the new earth' there is the whole Atlantic coast line from Cape Horn to Hudson Bay—Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, Greenland and the Arctic ice-cap! Look at the cloud-banks over the Atlantic Ocean and along the west coast of South America. Quick—get your camera and put in a telephoto lens!"
The camera was still hanging by its strap from Rhoda’s shoulder, and it took but a moment to exchange the lenses. Then she threw a puzzled glance at her comrade.
How shall I do it? I don’t understand," she hesitated.
You will have to take the picture through the deadlight," he answered,
"But how long an exposure shall I make?" she inquired.
"Oh—a tenth of a second," he suggested, "or a fifth, perhaps."
Rhoda was having a hard time to preserve her equilibrium and handle the camera.
"Oh dear," she complained; "I can’t keep still. This weighing nothing is very awkward—you slip around so."
With Bennie’s assistance, however, she managed to hold the lens firmly against the deadlight.
"Push it down hard and squeeze the bulb," he directed.
While Rhoda was engaged in making different exposures, Bennie floated up to the observation-stage to ascertain their direction. To his astonishment, he discovered that Medusa was no longer in the field.
"There’s something wrong!" he shouted to Burke. "We’re way off our course!"
"What’s happened?" yelled Atterbury, shooting, in his favorite posture, feet foremost, out of the condenser-room. "We’re running all cock-eyed! Look where the sun is—the earth!"
"They ought to be nearly in line," replied Burke, in a confused way. "There’s some new influence at work here."
But I've lost Medusa entirely!" Hooker called down to them* I can’t imagine what’s up. Of course, we left the earth with its
axial and orbital velocities as well as our own. I thought I’d worked it out all right, but I must have overlooked something. Anyhow, the first thing to do is to get back on our course. Atterbury, start up your engines half-speed; I’ll call to you when I want your whole force. Burke, you must slant the tractor over and turn the Ring until we are pointing toward Medusa. I don’t know just how she’ll act, but I think we can tip her almost any way we please. When we’re pointed in the right direction, we’ll straighten out the tractor and give her full-speed ahead. Are you ready?”
Atterbury darted back toward the condenser-room, and almost immediately the hum of the dynamo began again. With its resumption, their weight returned, but hardly enough to enable them to walk in comfort.
"Ah,” exclaimed Burke, "It sure feels good to be on foot again! I was getting darn tired of this spook business.”
Under Hooker’s directions, he moved the control-lever until Medusa swam again into the field of the telescope. Then, as the green star neared the center of the lens, Bennie ordered him to straighten the course and directed Atterbury to turn on full-speed. The noise of the machinery increased, and with it came a further increase in their weight. The whole force of the tractor was again pressing them on toward their distant goal. Bennie once more descended from the observation-cage and took his place beside Rhoda at the deadlight on the floor of the car.
Hypnotized by the wonder and beauty of the crescent earth beneath them, they hardly noticed that it was gradually shifting its place. Suddenly, it slipped entirely out of sight.
"Hang it!” shouted Bennie, in despair. "We’ve lost control of the Ring!”
Where, before, the earth had been, there now appeared the stupendous disk of the full moon.
At the same moment, Burke uttered an exclamation of fear. "W;e’re all out of kilter!” he cried. "I was looking down through the observation-window at the earth, and—all of a sudden it wasn’t there!”
"The Ring is evidently slowly turning over,” stammered Bennie. "If our tractor were not running, it wouldn’t matter, but our direction must now be changing from moment to moment. We may have been captured or pulled out of our course by the moon! It’s pretty near us, and you know how Jupiter changes the orbits of the comets that pass near it.”
At that moment, Atterbury appeared in the doorway.
"Shall I keep the engines running?” he asked. "Our uranium is getting low, I’m afraid. The gage indicates that over seventy per cent has been used.”