Through Planetary Perils
"Mars ahead and to the left--we ought to pass it in three more hours!"
At my words Marlin nodded. "We won't be bothered much by the pull of
Mars," he said.
We sat again in our chairs before the control-panel, Whitely to my
left, gazing through the big window before us. Ahead and above and all
around us there stretched a great panorama, stunning in its brilliance,
the vast panorama of the starry heavens as seen from the airless
interplanetary void. Blazing in their true brilliant colors on all
sides of us, the hosts of stars were like jewels of light set in the
black firmament. And as our flier throbbed on through the great gulf of
empty space at terrific speed, its acceleration still pressing us down
somewhat in our chairs, we could see now amid the flaming stars dead
ahead the far green spot of light that was Neptune, our goal, visible
now to our unaided eyes in the clearness of empty space. Nearer toward
us and to the right Jupiter was like a brilliant little disk of white
light, now, the four white points of its greater moons visible about
it. To the left, too, yellow Saturn shone much brighter, while nearer
toward us on the left, almost beside us, hung the dull-red little
shield, white-capped at its poles, that was Mars.
Behind us, by this time, Earth had dwindled to a steady spot of bluish
light that was like a tiny moon, the smaller spot that was Earth's moon
gleaming near it. Hardly visible as Earth was in the blinding glare
of the great sun that beat upon us from behind, its great corona and
mighty prominences appalling in their splendor, yet it was visible
enough to show how far from it out into the void our flier had already
flashed. For forty-eight hours indeed, our great space-flier had rushed
outward at a speed that had already reached over a million miles
an hour, and that was steadily mounting still beneath the terrific
reaction of our great force-ray, that great pale ray only visible at
its ray-opening source, that was stabbing back with colossal power and
by the reaction of that push sending us hurtling on at greater and
greater speed. Out and out we had flashed, Randall and I relieving each
other every four hours at the controls, and already now had almost
reached the orbit of Mars, more than fifty million miles outward. Now,
as Marlin and Whitely and I gazed out toward it, the red disk of Mars
itself was but several million miles from us, to the left and ahead.
Gazing toward it, we could see clearly the great ice caps of the
poles of Mars, brilliant white upon its dull red sphere, and could
see clearly also the long straight markings upon it, a network
of inter-connecting lines, that for long had been the subject of
discussion and disputation among Earth's astronomers. It was with
fascinated eyes that we gazed toward the red planet as we drew nearer
to it, and now Randall had joined us, moving with great efforts against
the acceleration-pressure inside the flier. Marlin, though, had turned
the telescope by that time toward the crimson planet, was gazing
intently toward it. Minutes he gazed before he straightened, shaking
his head.
"There can be no doubt that those canals--those lines--are the work of
intelligent creatures," he said. "I saw great geometrical forms that
seemed structures of some sort, but our space-flier is moving at such
tremendous speed that it's all but impossible to get a clear focus on
the planet in the telescope."
We stared toward the red disk and its dark markings. "If we could but
stop there--who knows what wonders Mars may hold, what science----,"
Whitely mused.
Marlin nodded thoughtfully. "Neptune's our goal, and we can't stop for
Mars now, whatever may be there. But if we succeed in our great task,
if Earth is saved from this doom that Neptune's beings are loosing on
the solar system, we'll come yet to Mars--and to all the others."
"In the meantime," I told them, "Mars is pulling our flier out of its
course more and more. I thought our speed would take us by it, but it
seems we'll have to use another ray."
For even as we had gazed toward the red planet, I had noted from the
dials before Randall that the gravitational pull of Mars upon our
space-flier from the left was becoming more and more powerful as we
approached it to pass it, and that it was pulling us slowly toward it
out of our course toward Neptune. Our deviation to the left was not
great as yet, but even the slightest deviation we could not permit,
since not only must we head as straight toward Neptune as possible
to save time, but it was necessary that we avoid also the colossal
force-ray which was stabbing from Neptune across the solar system
toward the sun's edge, which was turning that sun ever faster. That
great force-ray, invisible to us, but lying away to our left, we knew;
would mean death for us if we blundered into it, would drive our flier
with titanic force and speed straight into the sun!
So that now, as our space-flier moved nearer and nearer toward the
distant red shield of Mars, pulled farther and farther out of its
path toward Neptune, I swiftly manipulated the ray-direction dials
on the control-panel, then grasped and threw open another of the six
ray-opening switches. At once there leaped from our racing flier's
side, from one of its ray-openings there, a second great force-ray like
that which stabbed from the flier's rear toward Earth. This second ray,
though, vaguely visible like the first at its source, but fading into
invisibility in space, shot out toward the red sphere of Mars, away
to our left. And in a moment more, as that light-swift ray reached
Mars and pressed against the red planet with all its force, our flier
was being pushed away from it, was being pushed back to the right,
back into its original line of flight! Thus we hurtled on, the great
rear ray of the flier pushing back with terrific force and sending
us hurtling on through space, while the side-ray, striking Mars with
lesser force, was sufficient to keep us out of the red planet's grip as
we flashed onward.
Within a few hours more Mars was behind us, its red sphere fading
rapidly into a crimson spot of light to the left and behind. The
planet's two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, we had not yet seen despite
our nearness to it, but it was with something of regret that we saw
the crimson world and all the strange mysteries that we felt existed
upon it, dropping behind us. Neptune alone, as Marlin had said, was our
goal, and on toward its calm green light-dot we were rushing. I turned
off our side-ray, therefore, which was no longer needed to counteract
Mars's pull, and we gave all our attention to the panorama ahead. Save
for Neptune's distant green dot, the only planets now visible amid the
brilliant hosts of stars before us were Jupiter and Saturn. Saturn was
shining ever more brightly to the left, its strange ring-formation
already becoming visible to our eyes. But it was Jupiter that now
dominated all the scene before us, his mighty sphere, its oblateness
plainly visible, moving in majestic white splendor at the center of his
four great moons.
It was not the planets ahead that held my attention now, though, as our
throbbing flier raced onward, Mars and its orbit dropping behind. "The
asteroids!" I exclaimed. "We're almost into their region now--will be
among them soon!"
"And they're one of the greatest perils we'll encounter," Marlin said.
"Hold ready to the controls, Hunt, for if we crash into one it means
our end--the end of Earth's chance!"
* * * * *
I did not need his admonition, though, to make me tense my hands
upon the control-switches, gazing intently forward. I knew we were
now passing into one of the most dangerous regions of all the solar
system--that great belt of whirling asteroids that lies between the
orbits of Mars and Jupiter. More than a thousand in number, ranging
from the great sphere of Ceres, 480 miles in diameter, down to the
smallest asteroids of a few miles diameter only, they whirled there
around the sun between the four inner and four outer planets, their
orbits a maze of interwoven circles and ellipses. The greater part of
them were so small, indeed, that at the tremendous speed with which
our space-flier was flashing on they could be seen only in the moment
that we rushed upon them. And yet in that moment we must whirl aside
from any before us, since otherwise, pulled closer by the asteroid's
own gravitational power, we would infallibly crash into it and meet our
doom.
Steadily, therefore, we watched now, as hour followed hour, as our
flier rushed on with speed still slowly mounting, traveling finally
at more than two million miles an hour. The throb of its four great
generators was as steady as ever, and the pressure of its decreasing
acceleration still weighed upon us, but already we had become
accustomed to that pressure. So now while I gazed forth with Marlin
ahead, Randall was at one of the right windows and Whitely at one of
the left, keeping a similar watch. And it was Randall, a few hours
later, who sighted the first of the asteroids. He uttered a swift
exclamation, pointing to the right and ahead, and as we looked there we
saw a small bright point in the blackness of space, a point that with
the swiftness of lightning was expanding into a great, dull-gleaming
sphere, rushing toward us and drawing our space-flier toward itself!
A moment we saw it rushing thus toward us, a great sphere of barren,
jagged rock, airless and waterless, turning slowly in space; and then
it was looming gigantic just beside us!
In that moment, though, my hand had jerked open one of the six levers
before me, and instantaneously had shot from our flier's side a great
force-ray toward that looming asteroid beside us. The next instant the
asteroid's giant rock sphere seemed to flash away from us and disappear
with immense speed, but in reality it was our flier that had been
pushed away from the asteroid with colossal force by the force-ray I
had shot toward it! Instantly I snapped off that ray, the space-flier
flashing on in its straight course as formerly. And as I did so Marlin
turned for a moment from his watch at the window toward me, gestured to
the right toward the asteroid from which we had so narrowly escaped.
In the moment we had seen it, I had estimated that one to be a hundred
miles or more in diameter.
"That would be Vesta," he said, "one of the largest. It's the only one
of that size in this part of their region now."
"Large or small, I want to see no more of them that close," I said.
"Especially when----"
"Hunt!--look--to the left!"
It was Whitely who had cried out to me, and as I whirled to gaze in the
direction in which he pointed, I noticed another swift-expanding sphere
of rock, another gleaming asteroid rushing obliquely toward us! Not as
great in size as the first one, but it was approaching us with terrific
speed, and even as I jerked open one of the switches before me, sent
a force-ray stabbing from the flier toward the rushing asteroid, it
seemed that that asteroid was touching us, its great rocky surface
shutting out all the firmament as it towered there beside us! My ray,
though, had been shot forth just in time, had whirled us aside from
the onrushing monster's path at the last moment, and as we reeled on,
it too had vanished behind us. But now I had glimpsed two larger ones
ahead and to the left, and was jerking the flier away from them also.
Still we were racing onward, our great space-flier hurtling on and
on through that asteroid-filled region, escaping those great rushing
spheres of death, sometimes by the narrowest of margins. Hour upon
hour, keeping our sleepless watch at the flier's windows, we flashed
on, its colossal speed still mounting as more and more of our
generators' power was turned into the great rear force-ray that pressed
back towards Earth and that shot us outward. By that time Earth had
become but a bright white star behind us, the sun's size and brilliance
decreased by a third or more already. But it was not backward we were
gazing; it was ahead. We were striving with all our powers to avoid the
asteroids that hurtled about us. We saw, once or twice, families or
groups of those asteroids moving together, sometimes dozens together,
and strove to give these a wide berth. On we raced, veering now to
this side and now to that, with Jupiter looming ever greater ahead and
to the right as we approached the end of the asteroidal belt. But it
was as we approached its end, at last, that our greatest peril came
suddenly upon us. For I had shot the space-flier sidewise with terrific
speed to avoid an onrushing small asteroid, and the next moment when it
slowed its sidewise rush, found that I had unwittingly shot it into the
very heart of a great family of full two-score of the little planets!
All about us in that moment it seemed were asteroids, gleaming spheres
at the very center of whose swarm our flier flashed, and into which
by some miracle our sidewise rush had projected us, unharmed! I heard
the hoarse cries of Marlin and Randall beside me, in that moment, the
shout of Whitely, and knew that only another miracle could ever take
us out of that swarm unharmed. Already, in that split-second, three
of them were looming great to our right, another one ahead and to the
left, and to escape one was to crash upon another. There was no time
for thought, no time for aught save a lightning-like decision, and in
that fractional instant I had made that decision, and as our flier
hurtled through the great swarm of asteroids, had shot out its great
force-rays to right and left and above and beneath us, driving out in
all directions from our flier as it flashed through the great swarm!
There was an instant in which the space-flier seemed to be jerking
and flashing in wild aimless flight amid that swarm, as its striking
force-rays pushed it now to one side and now to another, away from
the asteroids about us. Were two of those rays to strike asteroids in
opposite directions, balancing each other, the space-flier, instead of
being pushed aside, would be crumpled to instant annihilation between
the push of the two great rays, I knew, and we expected nothing but
annihilation in that mad moment as we shot on. But after reeling to
right and left with dizzy speed for a crazy instant, the asteroids
of the swarm had vanished suddenly from about us as we shot out of
that swarm! We had escaped, had escaped a death that for the moment
had seemed certain to all of us, and that I had managed to evade by
instinct and luck rather than by reason.
[Illustration: _There was an instant in which the space-flier seemed to
be jerking and flashing in wild aimless flight amid that swarm, as its
striking force-rays pushed it now to one side and now to another, away
from the asteroids about us._]
"Close enough--that!" I exclaimed as we raced forward through the void
on our straight course once more. "If we meet many more swarms like
that, our chances of getting to Neptune are small!"
Marlin shook his head. "We seemed gone that time," he admitted. "But
I think we're almost out of the asteroidal region now--we should be
crossing Jupiter's orbit in another twenty-four hours."
"The space-flier's doing four million miles an hour now," I said,
glancing over at the space-speed dial. "We're beginning to feel
Jupiter's pull a little already."
We were, indeed, already deviating a little to the right from our
straight course in answer to the gravitational pull of the tremendous
mass of Jupiter, looming ever greater now ahead and to the right. We
were to pass it by some fifteen million miles, more than twice the
distance at which we had passed Mars, but the colossal planet, larger
than all the other planets of the sun together, was already attracting
us strongly despite our terrific speed and momentum. For the time
being, though, we gave it but scant attention, concentrating our
attention, as we did, upon the watch for farther asteroids, since we
had not yet emerged from their great belt between the orbits of Mars
and Jupiter. Sleepy and weary as we were from our hours upon the watch,
we dared not relax from that watch, and so Whitely and Marlin and
Randall still kept up their constant survey of the surrounding void,
while I held the flashing space-flier's controls, turning more and more
of our generators' power into the great force-ray that was hurtling
us on. We had not dared to use the generators' power too swiftly
upon our start, lest the too great acceleration kill us, despite our
shock-absorbing apparatus. But steadily our speed, already colossal,
was mounting, and we were racing on through the gulf toward the distant
green spot of light that was Neptune.
* * * * *
On and on in those hours we shot, until it seemed to me, seated there
at the controls, that always we had flashed thus through endless
realms of tenantless space. For now but a few asteroids were sighted
by our watching eyes, and the eventlessness and strange tension of our
rush onward through space made it seem like a strange flight in some
unending dream. On and on, with Marlin and Randall and Whitely watching
ceaselessly about me, on with the throbbing of our generators beating
in my ears in unhalting rhythm. Behind us Earth's bright white star
was steadily growing smaller, but still our great force-ray, stabbing
ceaselessly back from our flier with colossal power, was sending us
racing on faster and faster with its huge reacting force. But our start
from Earth, days, hours, before, the great mission upon which we were
speeding outward to Neptune, these things I had forgotten, almost, as
the dream-like quality of our onward flight gripped me.
But as we raced still onward, as Jupiter's mighty sphere loomed greater
and greater to the right ahead of us, my bemused faculties were shaken
into wakefulness by the necessities of our situation. By that time we
had passed out of the dangerous asteroidal region, and with their watch
no longer necessary Whitely and Randall, after preparing for us all a
quick hot meal from the thermos-cans in which all our food supplies
were packed, had taken to their bunks for some much-needed sleep.
Marlin sat beside me as we rushed on, his astronomical preoccupation
holding him to a contemplation of the great planet, despite his own
weariness. And weary enough he was, and I too, since for almost
forty-eight hours we had been flashing through the perils of the
asteroidal belt. It was now the beginning of the fifth day since our
start from Earth, and already for a hundred hours we had been flashing
at tremendous and mounting speed through the airless void. Like Marlin,
though, I forgot my weariness in the spectacle of giant Jupiter, to the
right and ahead.
For it was a spectacle of magnificence, indeed. Swinging like a giant
disk of soft white light in the blackness of space to our right,
Jupiter spun amid its four greater moons, the smaller moons being of
diameter too small to be seen with unaided eyes even thus close. But of
the giant sphere of Jupiter, of that great sphere's surface, nothing
was to be seen. For all the mighty planet's surface was covered by the
colossal masses of great clouds that enclosed it, floating in its dense
atmosphere and encircling it in great belts, the mighty cloud-belts
that for long have been to astronomers the most characteristic feature
of Jupiter's surface. So that, though Marlin with the aid of the
telescope, sought to gain a glance through some opening in the clouds
at the great planet's surface, he failed in the attempt.
In a moment, however, he concentrated his attention upon the one
visible feature upon the mighty world's surface, the great red spot
that we could plainly see now as a pink area beneath the shrouding
clouds, in the planet's southern hemisphere. At sight of it, Marlin had
prepared and trained his spectroscope upon it, but after observations
of a few moments he raised his head, perplexed. He glanced about him
for a moment, then seized the bolometer, which by virtue of its new
"shielded" principle was able to record accurately the amount of heat
radiating from any one point of a planet or star, as well as from the
whole planet or star. But upon checking its reading for a moment,
after turning it toward the pink area of the great red spot, Marlin
straightened from it also, shaking his head.
"It's strange, Hunt," he said, turning toward me. "It's always been
believed that the great red spot is a part of Jupiter's surface still
molten and flaming, but the spectroscope and bolometer show that it
can't be."
"Strange enough," I admitted, gazing myself toward that glowing pink
area on the mighty planet. "If we could but stop and explore the
planet--but we must keep on toward Neptune."
"We must keep on," Marlin repeated, "but some day it may be, if we can
save the solar system from the doom that hangs over it now, we'll come
back here to Jupiter, will see for ourselves its surface."
By this time the great planet was almost directly to our right, its
giant cloudy white sphere seeming to fill all space, despite the fact
that it was more than fifteen million miles from us, and its four big,
greater moons revolving about it. Hours before I had shot a force-ray
toward the great planet from our flier's side, to counteract its
growing pull upon us, but now as we came level with it, were passing
it, that pull upon us was so enormous that it was only with a force-ray
of immense power that I was managing to keep the space-flier from being
drawn inward. Passing thus close, Jupiter's stupendous cloud-belted
sphere was an awe-inspiring sight, whirling at immense speed also,
since the great planet, more than a thousand times greater than Earth,
rotates upon its axis at hardly more than a third of Earth's rotatory
period or day, its day being less than ten hours. And passing it thus,
too, the great red spot upon its lower half was an even greater enigma,
for that gigantic pink oval was, we knew, fully thirty thousand miles
in length, greater by far than all our Earth.
It was with awe that Marlin and I, and Whitely and Randall who had
awakened now to relieve us, stared toward the gigantic monarch of the
sun's planets as it dropped slowly behind on our right. A side-ray of
colossal power it had taken, indeed, to hold us out from the great
world's pull, and only slowly could we decrease that ray's power as we
moved farther out from it. But now at well over four million miles an
hour, we were flashing out beyond Jupiter's orbit, and ahead there was
gleaming brighter to the left the yellow spot of light that was Saturn,
the last planet that we must yet pass before reaching Neptune, since
Uranus was in conjunction in regard to Neptune, being far on the other
side of the solar system from us. And as Randall now took my place at
the controls, I pointed toward the little yellow-glowing, ring-circled
disk of Saturn ahead and to the left.
"Keep the flier heading straight toward Neptune, Randall," I told him.
"We're going to pass Saturn uncomfortably close as it is, and we don't
want to take any chances with it."
Randall nodded, his gaze shifting from the steady green spark of
Neptune far ahead to the growing yellow disk of Saturn. "I'll try to
keep her straight," he said, grinning, "though I'm beginning to wish
that, if there's to be trouble, it had come back on Mars or Jupiter."
I smiled a little as I swung back from the control-panel along the
flier's inside wall. I went from handhold to handhold with the pressure
of its acceleration still upon me, until I had thrown myself into my
metal bunk to fall almost instantly asleep, and to dream nightmare
dreams of rushing on through endless space toward a goal that ever
receded from us. And in the hours that followed, in the next three days
that our space-flier shot on and on with Saturn growing ever greater
ahead, the nightmare quality of my experience persisted. It seemed
impossible, at times, that we four were in reality doing that which men
had never done before; that we were flinging ourselves out into the
great void, out through the solar system toward the planet that was
its last outpost. We were watching and eating and sleeping, indeed,
like men in a dream, so strange and utterly unreal seemed to us this
unending rush through unending space.
* * * * *
But though we slept, and ate, and watched at the control-panel like
men in a dream, there were times in those hours when realization of
our position, of our great mission, came sharply home to us. Those
were the times that Marlin trained his instruments upon the sun, which
had by then dwindled to a tiny blazing disk behind us. And with those
instruments Marlin found that the sun was still spinning ever faster
and faster, its rotatory period decreasing still by the same amount
each day, its day of division and doom steadily approaching. And with
his own recorders Whitely found that the colossal force-ray from
Neptune still was stabbing toward the sun, still turning it faster and
faster toward its doom and that of its universe. That great force-ray,
we found, was stabbing toward the sun on a line between our flier's
course and Saturn, but was on a somewhat higher level, so that in
reality the great ray did not lie between our flier and Saturn but
above both.
The consciousness we had of that great ray's existence and the
knowledge we had of the doom it was loosing upon the peoples of our
world served to prevent the dream-like lassitude of our conditions from
overpowering us, and we were further awakened by the swift expansion of
Saturn, ahead, as our flier neared it. For by then the great faceted
ball of our flier was hurtling on through the void at five million
miles an hour, slowly approaching the limits of its speed as our mighty
rear force-ray drove us forward with tremendous power. And at that
speed, in the next three days, Saturn loomed larger and larger ahead,
until we saw at last that upon the fourth day's beginning we would
pass the mighty planet. And at that our interest rose to excitement,
because we would pass closer by Saturn than any of the planets in our
straight flight out to Neptune, passing it indeed by no more than a
million miles. So that as the last hours of those three days passed,
we observed the big, yellow-glowing disk of Saturn ahead with intense
interest.
And a strange sight indeed was great Saturn as it loomed greater before
us and to the left, for strangest of all the sun's planets to the eye
is this one. Greatest of all the planets save for mighty Jupiter,
its huge sphere seemed even greater than Jupiter by reason of the
colossal rings that encircled it, and by its nine greater moons that
revolved about it. A solar system in itself seemed Saturn, indeed,
its huge rings tilted somewhat, those great rings themselves tens of
thousands of miles in width and thousands of miles from the planet they
encircled. We could see, as we drew nearer toward the great planet,
that those rings were in fact what had long been known by Earth's
astronomers--gigantic flat swarms of meteorites and meteoric material
revolving about the great planet at immense speed. Of the surface of
Saturn, though, no more could be seen than of that of Jupiter, since
like Jupiter the great planet was wreathed in colossal cloud-belts.
Marlin shook his head as he gazed toward the great ring-girdled planet,
almost filling the heavens beside us. "It is well for us that Saturn
is not our goal," he said. "Those titanic meteoric masses that are the
rings--to blunder into them would mean instant annihilation."
Whitely nodded. "As it is," he said, "there must be many meteors in
this region about Saturn--many that have broken loose from the rings or
are flying toward those rings."
"Let's hope that you're wrong on that, at least," I told him. "We'll
soon be passing within a million miles of those rings, and I want to
meet no meteorites--not after our experience with the asteroids."
By then, indeed, we had drawn almost level with Saturn, its huge sphere
and colossal rings almost directly to the left, the edge of those
rings, but a half-hundred miles or less in thickness, being a scant
million miles or more from our racing space-flier. The great maze of
the planet's nine greater moons seemed crowded now upon its other side
from us, Titan, largest of those moons shining brilliantly as a small
white disk near the huge yellow bulk of Saturn and its colossal rings.
Before then indeed, I had been forced to shoot out from the flier's
side a force-ray toward Saturn, to counteract the great planet's pull
upon us, but though it loomed beside us now almost as immense as great
Jupiter itself, its recorded pull upon us was many times less. This was
due, I knew, to the comparatively small mass of Saturn, since though of
immense size and possessing a vast atmosphere, it is known to be the
least dense of all the planets, being of less than 0.7 the density of
water.
Even so, however, it was requiring a force-ray of great power to
hold our rushing flier out from the huge planet. Though lesser than
Jupiter's, its pull upon us was great, nevertheless. And now that we
were passing the huge world so closely, it seemed to us with its vast
rings and great family of whirling moons to be of universe-size itself,
so mighty did it loom beside us. The great rings, of small thickness
compared to their huge width and circle, were edge-on to us now, a
million miles to the left, and we could see that they were in reality
but vast swarms of countless meteors, great and small, whirling at
great speed about Saturn and forming by their division three rings,
the innermost a darker one. Yet despite their strange appearance and
colossal size, it was not the great rings that held our interest so
much in that moment as the cloud-hidden surface of Saturn itself. For
even as in passing Mars and Jupiter, we were gripped with desire to
veer in toward the planet and explore the strange wonders that might
exist upon it, or upon its greater moons. But none suggested that
thought now. All four of us knew that only the growing green spot of
light, that was distant Neptune ahead, must be our goal.
* * * * *
As the flier raced on, almost passing the huge planet now, Randall
uttered a swift exclamation, pointing ahead and to the left a little.
At the same moment, though, I had seen the thing that had caught his
eye--a small dark point growing with lightning swiftness as it rushed
toward us; a great dark meteor, perhaps five hundred feet in diameter,
rushing toward our flier, whirling far out from Saturn's rings in the
same direction as those rings! Instantly, upon seeing it, I had turned
more power into the ray that held us out from Saturn, and as we were
pushed sidewise in the next moment by that increased power, the big
meteor had flashed past us far to the left! And a moment later, I
had caught sight of two similar meteors, one smaller than the other,
rushing toward us in the same direction from ahead. But these I had
seen soon enough to avoid collision.
It was evident that, as Whitely had suggested, we were encountering
some of the stray meteors that might be expected to whirl here far out
from the meteor-swarms of the great rings. And as we watched tensely
now for more meteors, it was with something of awe that we gazed toward
the huge rings, that we knew to be rushing swarms of countless similar
meteors. It was well, as Marlin had said, that we were not called upon
to penetrate through or around those great rings, since in their awful
whirling swarms of meteors no craft would be able to live even for a
moment. But our space-flier was passing the midmost point of those
rings; already huge Saturn was beginning to drop a little behind us;
and we breathed more freely. And, ironically enough, it was at that
very moment of our relief that catastrophe came upon us. There was a
wild shout from Marlin, and simultaneously I saw a huge round dark mass
looming dead ahead and whirling toward us. Just as I snapped open the
control-levers, that great dark meteor's mass had struck our onrushing
flier with a tremendous stunning shock!
For an instant, as the flier reeled and spun there crazily in the gulf
of space, it seemed the end to me, but in a moment more I realized that
the great faceted walls had not been penetrated, for the air in the
flier was unchanged. Had those walls been pierced, the result would
have been the instant freezing to death of all of us. But that death
had not as yet come upon us, and as I struggled forward in my chair I
saw that the space-flier was still whirling crazily around from the
shock and that the throbbing of its great generators had ceased. Beside
me Marlin and Whitely and Randall were coming back to realization of
their surroundings after that colossal shock, Whitely bearing a nasty
cut upon his temple. And as Marlin sprang to the flier's side-window,
gazed obliquely from it, he uttered an exclamation.
"That meteor just grazed us!" he exclaimed. "If you hadn't jerked the
controls over at the last moment, Hunt, it would have hit us head-on!
As it is, it smashed through the flier's outer wall, but didn't pierce
the inner wall!"
"But the generators!" cried Whitely, who had been fumbling at their
switches. "They've stopped! When the meteor crashed through the outer
wall it must have broken some of our generator-connections between the
two walls!"
"And the flier's falling!" I cried in turn. "It's falling toward Saturn
now, with its force-rays dead--_we're falling into the great rings_!"
For as I glanced outward I had seen that was what was happening. The
halting of the generators by the breaking of their connections between
the flier's double walls had halted also the force-rays that had been
pushing us out toward Neptune and that had been holding us out from
Saturn's pull. With the halting of those rays the pull of the mighty
planet had at once gripped our space-flier and now we were moving at
swiftly-accelerating speed toward that planet's mighty bulk, toward the
great rings but a million miles to our left! Were falling helplessly,
faster and faster each moment, toward those mighty rings, toward their
vast swarms of whirling meteors in which our space-flier and all within
it could meet only an annihilating death!