He felt very drowsy after the mental exertion of following Bennie’s explanations, and the air was indubitably a trifle close in there. Mrs. Tassifer also was having hard work to keep awake. Rhoda, beckoning to Professor Hooker, tiptoed into the control-room.
"Those two old dears will be sound asleep in three minutes," she whispered. "I want to talk to you. Where is the kitchen— galley, or whatever you call it?’’
Bennie led her through the condenser-room into a white-tiled apartment furnished with both gas and electric stoves. There were chairs there and a table, and Rhoda took possession of one and pointed to the other.
"Yes," she repeated; "I want to talk to you - seriously."
The ordinarily unobservant Bennie noticed that she was dressed in the same trim tan suit she had worn when he first met her, and that her cheeks were quite pink. She looked very nice there, in that white-tiled room - very nice indeed! This was the second time he had been struck by that salient fact. If all girls were like her! But most of them were, unfortunately, more like Miss Beebe. He sat down opposite her and lit his pipe. Somehow, he never felt the slightest awkwardness when in her company - always at his best! She had a brain like - well, even better than Seabury’s, for instance, and a figure— His eye followed the line of the tailor-made suit, and his heart pumped noticeably. Too much tobacco, he thought.
"Look here," she said, with determination: "Don’t start this fool adventure. There is still the possibility that the moon may turn the asteroid aside." He looked at her, astounded. "Oh, I mean it!" she insisted, wrinkling her brows. "This machine is all very well - in theory. It will go. But we ail know that it won’t come back!"
"Of course it will come back," he retorted, "unless it busts!"
"It’s a thou sand-to-one-shot!"
"Supposing it is - isn’t it up to me to go?" he replied simply. "It’s the only chance to save the earth from destruction. I’d be the worst sort of a coward if I didn't. You wouldn’t want me to show the white feather - now!"
He stopped short at the look in her eyes - such a queer look. Her cheeks had become quite pale.
"No,” she answered, in a low voice, but still with a question in it. "Then you are resolved to go?”
"Absolutely!” He gripped his pipe-stem hard between his teeth.
She looked down, and the red came back into her face, stealing gradually from the collar of her almost military jacket to her eyes.
"Then take me, too!” she said.
"You! I will not!” he answered brusquely.
"Please! Don’t you think you almost owe it to me? It was my idea—and I worked out your equations for you. I ought to have some of the fun.”
"Don’t be foolish,” he urged, although he hated to deny her anything. "You’ve got your life to live. You’re young and clever and—and pretty”—his own features had become unaccountably warm—"and—and—what’s the sense of it? Of course, it’s a very uncertain project—this space-navigation. I wouldn’t let you risk your life in this blooming car for—for anything! No—by thunder!” My life is my own—isn’t it?—if I want to sacrifice it to science, as you purpose doing with yours?”
"One of—us—is enough,” he announced with conviction. Somehow, the word "us” sounded curiously personal. She raised her eyes to his, and there were tears in them. The flush had spread over her whole face and to the very roots of her dark-yellow hair. He had never seen her so before. She had always been so capable, so crisp, so cool—and now she was so—young, and pathetic almost. He had a strange inclination to reach over and put his arm along the back of her chair. And then she gave him a funny, teary little smile.
"That’s—just—it. One of us—isn’t enough—for me!"
Something blurted Professor Hooker’s sight. There was a roaring in his ears like that of a thousand pine trees in a gale.
"How do you mean?” he heard himself asking, in a weirdly conventional tone, although he knew what she meant all the time, and the knowledge seemed to be swelling him up like a balloon, lndeed, he felt as if he was just coming out of a dose of laughing-gas—inflated and very much excited and irresponsible.
The next instant, he was kneeling on the tiles in front of her; those tailor-made arms were around his neck, and his face was pressed up against the tan jacket, and her hair was tickling his ears.
"You funny little man!” she was saying, in a trembly voice. "You funny, silly little man! I won’t let you go without me.” And Bennie answered—he could feel her heart beating through the tan military jacket:
"Silly little thing yourself! Do you think I’d let you take a chance like that now—dear?”
"You must!”
"I won’t!”
He raised his head and drew down her face to his.
"I simply—simply—w-won’t!”
"Rhoda! Where are you?”
Mrs. Tassifer’s acrid voice echoed through the Ring from the control-room. Bennie scrambled to his feet and hastily lit his
pipe.
"Yes, auntie!” she called back sweetly, with a whimsical glance at Bennie. "I'm in here looking at the electric stove—such a funny little thing!”
III
As the date set for the departure of the Flying Ring on its amazing venture drew near, a furious controversy arose in the newspapers as to the feasibility of Professor Hooker’s project. Leading scientists wrote technical letters demonstrating not only that the Ring could not possibly be controlled in space when beyond the earth’s attraction, but that it was manifestly absurd to suppose that it could even get away from the earth’s attraction at all. One distinguished pedagog was particularly insistent upon the point that the gravitational force of the earth was a sina qua non for steering the Ring in a given direction. He demonstrated conclusively—to himself, at any rate—that, once in the pure ether, the Ring would be like a rudderless ship, quite unmanageable and unable to meet and oppose any external influence. But another, equally celebrated, immediately countered on him with great effect by showing that, once in space, there would be no external influence to alter the direction of the flying machine. Going his opponent one better, he gave it as his own opinion that the Flying Ring would never even start—couldn’t get off the ground!
Bennie, Atterbury, and Burke read all these letters, articles, and editorials with considerable amusement, spending all their waking-hours in the Ring, overseeing the installation of the new apparatus and making plans to meet all possible emergencies. The longer they waited—and the collision between the earth and the asteroid was due to occur on April twenty-second—the less distance it would be necessary for the Ring to traverse to meet its enemy. They had, therefore, arranged to leave the earth on April twentieth.
But while all these preparations were being made, a great migration—like nothing in the history of mankind save possibly the western movement of the Huns and Ostrogoths—was taking place from Lower California and the Southwestern states, northward along the Pacific coast, across the deserts of Arizona and Nevada, and eastward across the Gulf of Mexico by tug, barge, and steamer, as hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, miners, cowboys, and their families sought to escape their impending doom. The migration, however, was not confined to the Southwest. A large proportion of the total population of the Northwestern states also streamed across the boundary into Canada and British Columbia. The rivers were choked with flotillas of boats; flat cars and coal-cars brought fabulous prices and took the place of Pullmans; while a millionaire who could commandeer, beg, borrow, steal, or purchase a cattle-van was regarded as fortunate indeed.