In an ordinary group, such an announcement might have brought
hysterical outbursts from the women and at least some kind of clamor
from the men. Eli's motley guests were either slower of comprehension
or else hardened to vicissitudes. McGruder turned a rather ghastly
color, murmured "Jees!" and sat down heavily on a packing box. No one
else evinced more than bewilderment.
"So what?" queried Sally Camino. "Where are we going and how do we get
back? Whose bright idea was this anyway?"
"Nobody's," Marlin informed her. "Eli left the forcefield in operation
and accidentally pushed the starting lever last night. Since nothing
happened, it never occurred to him to swing it back. The explanation
seems to be that when enough power had accumulated, the anti-gravity
polarization occurred, and we parted company with Mother Earth."
Link greeted this with a snicker.
"I was just thinkin'," he explained when the others focused puzzled
eyes upon him, "what a su'prise that sheriff an' his dep'ties is gonna
have when they find the old mud-ball gone this mornin'. Maybe some of
'em was on guard when it whooshed up into the sky afore their eyes."
No one laughed.
"No use kidding ourselves," Marlin commented. "We're in a tough
predicament. We don't know where the sphere is headed; there's
nothing but that hopelessly inadequate periscope to guide it by, and
personally, I don't see the ghost of a chance of our landing anywhere.
We're just a mote of dust in the void of space."
"It's just like Pearlie said, ain't it dearie?" cackled Maw Barstow
unexpectedly. "We are all goin' on a long journey. Pearlie never makes
a mistake."
"Oh, I don't know!" retorted DuChane, slyly. "I could cite an instance.
Or maybe it's just faulty arithmetic. There were to be four and four,
not three and five--at least 'that's the way I heard it.'"
"And that's all you know, smarty," chuckled Maw.
Sally winked at the older woman, while Marlin controlled his features
with an effort.
"Ask her when we're gonna land--and where at?" suggested Link, peering
hopefully.
"Pearlie will tell us everything in her own good time," retorted Maw,
grandly. "Won't you darlin'? Don't you want to tell us where we're
goin'?"
The girl smiled sweetly, and uttered the first words Marlin had heard
from her lips.
"There are so many stones."
McGruder laughed hoarsely. Maw checked him with a ferocious look. "Go
on, dearie," she urged. "Tell us more?"
The girl stared upward, as if visioning something in the distance. Her
words slurred together; she seemed only half aware of speaking them.
"The world is a stone. There are many stones. So many lonely stones."
Marlin again experienced the uncanny sense of chills spiraling up his
back--for no reason that he could comprehend. He looked uncertainly
from one face to another. All were staring at the Sybil of the strange
voyage.
Maw spoke with vague conviction. "That means something, and don't you
mistake it. We'll have to figger it out. Pearlie don't always talk in
plain words fer just ever'body to understand."
From behind the huge bank of coils, Elias Thornboldt emerged. He
glowered in annoyance.
"Go away!" he ordered. "None of you are permitted in this room." He
looked them over with sudden awareness and spoke bitterly. "What a crew
for the pioneer flight into space! Instead of a distinguished gathering
of world-famous scientists and statesmen, what do I have? Criminals!
Go! Out of my sight!"
As they straggled out, DuChane observed with a show of resentment: "We
might remind him that if it wasn't for a device rigged up by some of
his despised crew, he wouldn't even know his contraption was off the
ground."
Burning questions raced through Marlin's mind, but he frankly
doubted the scientist's ability to answer them. A genius in his line
Thornboldt might be; nevertheless, he was singularly impractical in
other directions. One of Marlin's questions related to the persistence
of almost normal gravity within the sphere. The explanation, DuChane
suggested, must lie in the repulsion plates. While one surface
exercised this force, the opposite surface compensated for it by
exercising attraction. Though he tentatively accepted this theory for
want of a better, Marlin was dissatisfied with it.
Another question related to the direction of their flight. Were they
speeding toward or away from the sun? Was there danger of crashing into
some planet, moon, or meteoric body, and if so could they avoid such
a fate? Observations through the periscope might presently solve the
question of direction. Possibly Eli had instruments which would help.
* * * * *
The days that followed settled down to a dull, monotonous routine.
There was nothing--almost literally nothing--to do but eat, sleep, and
chafe at the helplessness of their position.
Lacking any measurement of time in the uniform semi-gloom of the
sphere, they established an arbitrary day of twenty-four hours. They
slept and ate in accustomed routine and kept track of the days of the
week.
The initial feeling that something must be done--and done
immediately--toward getting out of the predicament, gradually gave
way to a sense of hopeless resignation. When they goaded Eli with the
necessity for action, he flew into violent rages. They realized at
length that he was as much at a loss as any of the party.
How could they guide their course, when the limited observations
possible through the periscope scarcely told them whether they were
traveling toward the sun or away from it? They might, indeed, be
hanging inert in space. Marlin contended that they were moving away
from the sun.
"It's a cinch we started in that direction, since our ascent took place
at night, when the sun was on the opposite side of the earth."
"If that's correct," growled DuChane, "it means that instead of
roasting to death, we're doomed to perish of cold, when this hunk of
dough gets so far away that there aren't any more of the sun's rays for
it to absorb."
"We'll be dead of starvation long before that," Marlin added moodily.
The store of provisions seemed enormous at first glance. Now, faced by
stern questions of survival, they calculated that it would actually
last them not more than five months, and a careful rationing was
instituted.
The water tanks would supply them for a period somewhat longer.
Bathing and washing were restricted but not altogether denied, for the
equipment included an efficient settling tank as well as an electric
incinerator and an air-purifying system that was a credit to Eli's
foresight.
"Evidently we'll starve to death before we have a chance to perish of
thirst," was DuChane's comforting observation. "Unless the goo of our
outside shell proves to be edible. It seems to have about every other
property we could ask. Storage battery, heat absorber and distributor,
healing agent, and waste converter."
He referred to their discovery that the waste products discharged
through locks were seemingly absorbed by the clay-like outer coating.
"I believe it digests the stuff. Remember how the pit absorbed those
birds and small animals that became imbedded in it?" reminded DuChane.
"I sometimes feel as if--"
"As if what?" demanded Marlin, looking at him curiously.
"Nothing. I couldn't put it into words if I tried."