"No. Or very little, except just at first with the chlorate of
potassium. I was telling you about passing Mars. We saw it rising
slowly past us--saw it through a side window. A huge crescent, the
sunlight on half its disk, but even the unlighted portion was plainly
outlined. Above us was the thin crescent earth, with the sun behind it.
The tongues of flame in the sun's envelope were plainer than I had ever
seen them. We were falling away from the earth and sun, into the inky
blackness of Space with its blazing white stars.
"During all this first portion of the trip we were eager to get more
quickly advanced. Beyond Neptune's orbit, with the Solar System once
behind us, we would feel like explorers, even though Nogar--he holds
the record, doesn't he?--went once 27,000 million miles out."
Dr. Gryce put in: "His record was 27,600 million miles from our sun.
At nearly five million miles an hour, which was his maximum velocity
obtainable, that trip for the full return passage consumed--I think the
total time was 461 days."
Brett went on, "That was the record. But even to go a single light-year
at that velocity would have taken Nogar around 84 years--just going out
a little light-year of distance, to say nothing of getting back! And we
had so many thousands of light-years to travel even to get beyond the
stars. It seemed stupendous--impossible."
"Naturally," said Dr. Gryce. "Impossible, of course, had you held to
that size." They were directing their explanations at me. I nodded.
"But you didn't stay that size?" I suggested.
"No, of course not," said Brett. "But for a time, we did--I was
cautious from Mars to Jupiter, Father. Nogar plunged right through the
asteroid region there--plunged through at nearly his five million
miles an hour velocity. I held down to three million. We kept a close
watch, though Martt had a somewhat terrifying experience. Tell them,
Martt."
Martt flushed a trifle. "It wasn't my fault--at least I didn't think
so. At a velocity like that the space there between the orbits of
Mars and Jupiter is horribly crowded. Brett was asleep. I sat by the
instrument table staring down into the floor window at the black
firmament into which we were dropping. You people take a voyage like
this as a matter of course--but it was my first time off earth, and the
beauty of it--of the heavens--well, I tell you it impressed me. The
black firmament--those blazing constellations beneath us--the full moon
of Jupiter every moment growing larger like a white round lamp down
there.
"Well, anyway, perhaps, I was lost in thoughts of it--when leaping
up out of the blackness came a great round silver disk. A hundred
times the size of our full moon. Then a thousand. It was below me,
but off to one side. It swept past, so close I could see its barren,
rocky surface--a range of desolate gray mountains; and I could see,
too, its rotation, like a ball tossed into the air slowly rotating.
Before I could think to do anything--even to make a move--the asteroid
went past, out of my field as I looked through the floor window. For
a moment I saw it rising past a side window and then it was above
us--gone completely beyond my sight in a moment or two. I want to tell
you I was frightened--I called Brett down at once."
Brett laughed. "I found him white, shaking like a tower-trembler.
If a collision had really threatened, he could have thrown the main
Time-switch. Thrown us suddenly into the asteroid's past or future--I
had told him that--but when the danger came, he never thought of it."
"I never did," Martt confessed.
"How close did the asteroid pass?" I asked. "I saw one once, on a
Martian trip----"
"I suppose we passed it at a distance of some three thousand miles,"
Brett answered. "But at three million miles an hour we were traveling
that distance in three or four seconds. It was a narrow escape. The
asteroid's attraction had drawn us aside from our course--but I soon
rectified that."
"I meant to explain about attraction a moment ago, Frank," Dr. Gryce
interrupted. "The attraction of the vehicle on our planets is why
Brett could not yet increase his size. Jupiter and Saturn were pulling
the vehicle onward, and in direct proportion to the mass, of course,
the vehicle was pulling at them. An infinitesimal pull--but had Brett
increased its size materially--while still close to our planets--the
vehicle would have been a seriously disturbing element. I did not want
that. Indeed, with any great size-increase, the vehicle moving out
there would have thrown our whole system into chaos."
Brett said, "I was careful to obey you, Father. We were safely
beyond Saturn--and Uranus and Neptune were on the other side of the
sun--before I even touched the size-switch. From the orbit of Mars to
that of Jupiter there are some 334 million miles between the points
we crossed. We were about 112 hours making the voyage. I kept us well
away--some ten million miles. But the planet was a beautiful sight,
assuming every phase from full to crescent as we passed. You have never
been so close, Father? Nor you, Frank?"
"Nor I," spoke up Frannie. She said it in a whimsical fashion of
pathos, as though to make us all realize that she had been neglected.
Brett laughed affectionately. "No, nor you, little sister. Well, it's
a beautiful sight. You can see it similarly in the telescope, but
somehow, at the same visual distance the naked eye shows it indefinably
different. A beautiful silver disk with the broad dark bands upon it
and the red spot glowing like a lantern in its lower hemisphere.
"Our velocity was slackened for a time as we passed Jupiter, since
I had to lose its great attractive force and turn a neutral side to
it. But once by it, with it blazing as a gigantic thin crescent above
us, I used a full power of its repulsion. We gained velocity rapidly.
With the region of minor planets passed I had no fear of using all the
velocity we could obtain. I think Nogar was unskilful in the handling
of his vehicle; at all events, before we reached the neighborhood of
Saturn, we had attained a velocity of seven and a half million miles an
hour. It was the greatest velocity we reached."
"But," I exclaimed, "but Brett, at seven and one-half million miles
an hour, in your whole life-time--whether you changed your Time-rate
or not, you would have to live those hours--in a whole life-time at
that velocity you wouldn't get one-quarter of the distance even to the
nearest star!"
"No," he agreed. "But I began using the size-change after we passed
Saturn----"
I interrupted again. "I've been wondering about that--I don't quite
see----"
"I'll make it clear to you, Frank, in a moment," Dr. Gryce put in. "Go
on, Brett."
"We were well past Saturn before I changed our size at all. Our average
velocity along there was six million miles an hour--it was a run of
about seventy-five hours. We would have been--even at our maximum of
seven and one-half million miles an hour--more than another 240 hours
getting past Neptune's orbit. It was too tedious. We determined, since
Uranus and Neptune were in other parts of their orbits--far on the
other side of our sun--I decided that once we were well beyond Saturn,
I would start our increase of size. We were seventy million miles
beyond Saturn, with nothing of importance ahead of us but the distant
stars, when I determined to start the change. The space there was
comparatively deserted--a few asteroids--sometimes we could go nearly
an hour without even sighting one.
"With Martt beside me--we were both a little timid about it,
naturally--I threw over the switch and started our growth."
He paused for the length of a breath. "It was extraordinary--all our
experience of the voyage from that moment was extraordinary. I hardly
know how to begin telling you. . . ."