* * * * *
We stood before an instrument board of dials and indicators, with wires
running upward to a score of gleaming cylindrical tanks overhead. A
table was beside us, with a switchboard less complicated in appearance
than I have seen in the navigating cages of many small liners.
There were chairs, a narrow leather couch across the room, and another
table littered with charts and star-maps. And above it was a shelf, with
one of the Grantline comptometers, the mathematical sensation of some
years back. It was almost a human mathematical brain.
Under its keys the most intricate problem of calculus was automatically
resolved, as surely as an ancient adding machine did simple arithmetic.
Dr. Weatherby began to show me the workings of the vehicle. “I need only
give you the fundamentals, Leonard. Mechanically my apparatus here is
fairly complicated. But those mere mechanics are not important or
interesting. I could not teach you now, in so short a time, how to
rectify anything which went mechanically wrong. I shall do the
navigating.
“Indeed, as you will see presently, there is very little navigating
involved. Mostly at the start—we must only be sure we collide with
nothing and disturb nothing. When once we are beyond these planets,
these crowding stars, there will be little to do.”
I shook my head. “The whole thing is incomprehensible, Dr. Weatherby.
That flight of your little model was almost gruesome.”
“Sit down, Leonard. I don’t want it to be gruesome. Strange, yes; there
is nothing stranger, God knows, than this into which, frankly, I
stumbled during my researches. I’ll try to make the fundamentals clear.
It will lose its uncanny aspect then. You will find it all as coldly
scientifically precise as your navigation of the Fortieth North
parallel.”
He lighted my cigarro. “This journey we are about to make,” he resumed,
“involves but two factors. The first is the Eltonian principle of the
neutralization of gravity. Sir Isaac Newton gave us fairly accurate
formulae for the computation of the force of gravity. Einstein revised
them slightly, and attempted to give an entirely different conception of
celestial mechanics.
“But no one—except by a rather vague theory of Einstein’s—has ever
told us what gravity really is. What is this force—what causes this
force—which makes every material body in the universe attract every
other body directly in proportion to the mass and inversely as the
square of the distance between them?
“Leonard, I think I can make it clear to you. There is passing between
every material body, one with another, a constant stream of minute
particles. A vortex of rotating particles loses some on one side, which
fly off at a tangent, so to speak, and perhaps gains some upon the other
side.
“Seventy-five years ago—about the time I was born, Leonard—they were
talking of ‘electrons’, ‘radiant energy’, ‘positive and negative
disembodied electricity.’ All different names for the same thing. The
same phenomenon.
“All substance is of a very transitory reality. Everything is in a
constant state of change. A substance builds up, or it breaks down. Or
both simultaneously; or sometimes one and then the other.”
“Electricity—” I began.
“Electricity,” he interrupted, “as they used to know it, is in reality
nothing but a concentrated stream of particles—electrons, intimes, call
them what you will—moving from one substance to join another. Lightning
is the same thing. Such a stream of articles, Leonard, is a tangible
manifestation of gravitational force. They had it right before them,
unrecognized. They called it, ‘magnetic force,’ which meant nothing.
“How do these streams create an attractive force? Conceive the earth and
the moon. Between them flow a myriad stream of infinitesimal particles.
Each particle in itself is a vortex—a whirlpool. The tendency of each
vortex is to combine with the one nearest to it.
“They do combine, collide, whirl together and split apart. The whole, as
a continuous, violently agitated stream, produces a continuous tendency
toward combination over all the distance from the earth to the moon. The
result—can’t you see it?—must be a _force_, an inherent tendency
pulling the earth and moon together.
“Enough of such abstract theory! A while ago, I charged that little
model of this building with an Elton ray. The model, and this building
itself, are built of an ore of electrite, the one hundred and fortieth
element, as they called it when it was isolated a few years ago.
“You saw the model of the building glow? Electrons and intimes were
whirling around it. The force communicated to the tiny projectile lying
inside. In popular language, ‘its gravity was destroyed.’ Technically it
was made to hold within itself its inherent gravitation and the
gravitation of everything else was cut off. It was, in the modern sense,
magnetized, in an abnormal condition of matter.”
I said, “There was a red ray from the little building. The projectile
seemed to follow it.”
“Exactly,” he exclaimed. “That was the Elton Beta ray. It is flung
straight out, whereas the Alpha ray is circular. The Beta is a stream of
particles moving at over four hundred thousand miles a second. More than
twice the speed of light!”
He chuckled. “When they discovered that, Leonard, the Einstein theories
held good no longer. The ray bombarded and passed through the electric
wall of the room, and the projectile went with it, drawn by it, sucked
along by the inherent force of the flying whirlpools. The projectile
with its infinitely greater mass than the mass of the flying particles
of the ray, picked up speed slowly. But its density was lessening.
“As it gained velocity, it lost density. Everything does that, Leonard.
I intensified the rapidity of the changes, as I told you. We shall take
it slower. Hours, for what you saw in minutes.”
He tossed away his cigarro and stood up over the instrument table. “When
we start, Leonard, here is exactly what will happen. Our gravity will be
cut off. Not wholly, I have only gone to extremes in describing the
theory.
“With a lessened attraction from the earth, the moon will draw us. And
passing it, some other planet will draw us onward. And later, the stars
themselves.”
He indicated his switches. “I can make the bow or the stern, or one side
or the other, attractive or repulsive to whatever body may be nearest.
And thus, in a measure, navigate. But that, Leonard, will be necessary
for a few hours only, until we are well out beyond the stars.”
He said it quite quietly. But I gasped. “Beyond the stars . . . in a few
hours?”
“Yes,” he said. “In our case, differing from my experiment with the
model, we carry the Elton Beta ray, the ‘red ray,’ with us. The gravity
principle we use only at the start, to avoid a possible collision. With
the red ray preceding us, we will follow it. Ultimately at four hundred
thousand miles a second.
“But the source of the ray, _being with us_, will give the ray constant
acceleration, which we in turn will attain. Thus an endless chain of
acceleration, you see? And by this I hope to reach the high speeds
necessary. We are going very far, Leonard.”
“That model,” I said, “grew larger. It spread—or did I fancy it?—over
all the sky.”
He smiled again. “I have not much left to tell you, Leonard. But what
there is—it is the simplest of all, yet the most astounding.”
Jim’s voice interrupted us. “We’ve finished, Dr. Weatherby. Everything
is aboard. It’s nearly dawn. How about starting?”
* * * * *
The dawn had not yet come when we started. Dr. Weatherby’s workmen were
none of them in evidence. He had sent them away a few days before. They
did not know his purpose with this vehicle; it was thought among them
that he was making some attempt to go to the moon. It was not a
startling adventure. It caused very little comment, for since Elton’s
discovery many such projects had been undertaken, though all had not
been successful.
Dr. Weatherby’s activities occasioned a few daily remarks from the
National Broadcasters of News, but little else.
There was, however, one of Dr. Weatherby’s assistants whom he trusted
with all his secrets: a young fellow called Mascar, a wordless, grave
individual, quiet, deferential of manner, but with a quick alertness
that bespoke unusual efficiency.
He had been on guard in the workshop since the workmen left. When Jim
and I arrived, Dr. Weatherby had sent Mascar home for his much needed
sleep. But he was back again, now before dawn, ready to stand at the
Elton switch and send us away.
Dr. Weatherby shook hands with him, as we all gathered by the huge
bull’s-eye lens which was swung back to give ingress to the vehicle.
“You know what you are to do, Mascar. When we are well outside, throw
off the Elton switch. Lock up the workshop and the house and go home.
Report to the International Bureau of News that if they care to, they
can announce that Dr. Weatherby’s vehicle has left the earth. You
understand? Tell them they can assume, if they wish, that it will land
safely on the moon.”
“I will do that,” said Mascar quietly. He shook hands with us all. And
his fingers lightly touched Dolores’ head. “Good-bye, Miss Dolores.”
“Good-bye, Mascar. Good-bye. You’ve been very good to Grandfather. I
thank you, Mascar. You wait at home. We will be back soon.”
“Yes,” he said. He turned away, and I could see he was striving to hide
his emotion.
He swung on his heel, crossed the room, and stood quiet, with a firm
hand upon the Elton switch.
Jim called impatiently, “Come on, everybody. Let’s get away.”
For one brief instant my gaze through the forward opened end of the
building caught a brief vista of the peaceful Hudson countryside. Hills,
and trees in the starlight, my own earth—my home.
The huge convex door of the vehicle swung ponderously closed upon us.
“Come to the instrument room,” said Dr. Weatherby.
We sat on the couch, huddled in a group. The bull’s-eye windows, made to
withstand any pressure, were nevertheless ground in such a way that
vision through them was crystal clear. The one beside me showed the
interior of the workshop with Mascar standing at the Elton switch.
He had already thrown it. I could not hear the hum. But I saw the
current’s effect upon Mascar. He was standing rigid, tense, and gripping
the switch as though clinging. And then, with his other hand, he seized
a discharging wire planted near at hand, so that the current left him
comparatively unaffected.
Still I could feel nothing. My mind was whirling. What was it I expected
to feel? I do not know. Dr. Weatherby had assured us we would undergo no
terrifying experience; he seemed to have no fear for the girls. But how
could he be sure?
The walls of the workshop now were luminous; Mascar’s motionless figure
was a black blob of shadow in the glowing, snapping interior of the
room. Sparks were crackling out there. But here in the vehicle there was
nothing save a heavy silence; and the air was cold, dank, tomblike.
* * * * *
Then I felt the current; a tingling; a tiny, infinitely rapid tingling
of the vehicle. It was not a vibration; the electric floor beneath my
feet was solidly motionless. A tingling seemed to pervade its every
atom.
Then I realized my body was tingling! A whir, a tiny throbbing. It
brought a sense of nausea and a giddiness. Involuntarily I stood up,
trembling, reeling. But Dr. Weatherby sharply drew me back.
Alice and Dolores were clinging to each other. Jim muttered something
incoherent. I met his smile, but it was a very weak, surprised,
apprehensive smile.
I tried to relax. The nausea was passing. My head steadied. But the
tingling grew more intense within me. It was a humming now. Not audible.
A humming I could feel, as though every minute cell of my body was
throbbing.
It was not unpleasant after a moment. A peculiar sense of lightness was
upon me. A sense of freedom. It grew to an exaltation. I was being set
free! Unfettered at last. The chains that had bound me to earth were
dropping away. But the mood upon me was more than an exaltation, an
intoxication: a madness! I was conscious that Alice was laughing wildly.
I heard Dr. Weatherby’s sharp command, “Don’t do that! Look there; see
the red ray?”