Weird Tales/Volume 30/Issue 6/The Voyage of the Neutralia
The Voyage of the
Neutralia
By B. WALLIS
An exciting story of weird adventures and a strange voyage through space to
other planets—by the author of "The Abysmal Horror"
and other fascinating thrill-tales
The Story Thus Far
AYLMER CARSCADDEN, eminent American scientist, discovers and manufactures metal impervious to gravitation, and also under intense cold repelled by other substances. He is financed by Hugh Burgoyne. They construct a large shell, christened Neutralia, with which to explore beyond our planet's atmosphere. The two, with Jacob Flint, an old employee, set out for our satellite. After starting, two former employees, Kobloth and Whipps, discharged for spying, are found stowaways in the storeroom.
After some experiments in arresting the stupendous speed of the shell they arrive safely at the moon. Finding an atmosphere, though rarefied, capable of supporting life, they alight in the great crater of Copernicus. Moss and giant cacti are the sole vegetation; but gold and diamonds are found in large deposits.
While the scientist is inspecting these, Kobloth and Whipps suddenly attack Carscadden and Flint, stunning them with rocks. The treacherous pair instantly dash for the shell, hoping to make off with it and later return to exploit the vast wealth they have seen. Burgoyne, however, arrives on the scene and at point of his gun compels them to surrender.
Carscadden and Flint recovering, all return, and the prisoners are locked in the storeroom. Then the shell is headed for Mars. Traveling at a million miles an hour they arrive and alight. They find the surface is covered with a network of great cables. A curious carriage comes racing along a cable, and its occupant immediately attacks them with electrified wires. Other carriages arrive and join in the attack.
The story continues:
Startled by its strangeness, the voyagers halted involuntarily, and instantly saw that along all the cables, converging toward the spot beneath which lay the Neutralia, hundreds of the spider-Martians were racing. The air was rent with their weird shrill cries, and throbbed with the drone of their powerful propelling mechanisms. In a few seconds the nearest would be directly above them!
"Quick, into the globe!" snapped Carscadden. "Give me a lift up and I'll throw out another ladder. I can find one at once. See that Kobloth and Whipps are the last to ascend. Quick! here come their wires!"
Instantly Burgoyne had the scientist on his shoulders, and the globe being a little tilted toward them Carscadden easily swung himself into it. A second more and a rope ladder had fallen beside the big sentinel, who, revolver in hand, held off the two scoundrels who had tried to seize it.
"Stand back! You two go last—or stay as dead men!" he shouted angrily. "Up you go, Flint," he ordered in the same breath.
At once Flint scrambled up the swaying steps, and Burgoyne, still threatening the desperate pair of ruffians with his leveled revolver, was on the point of following his example, when from above came a cry:
"Look out, Hugh! Jump for it!"
But he was too late; for a bright thin wire had dropped from aloft, caught in the ladder's middle, and instantly had dragged it away from the globe, with Burgoyne hanging by one hand to its last step.
"Jump for the door, Hugh! Quick!" shouted Carscadden desperately.
"Sure!" muttered Burgoyne to himself. "But it's a cent to a million dollars I miss it." And as the end of the ladder dangling from the rapidly updrawn wire came abreast of the door, he twisted around with a supreme effort and made a flying
"A dense, poisonous fog rushed through the narrowing slit left by the closing door."
"What are we to do about the two down there? We can't leave them to that sort of death! Got any more rope, Aylmer?" cried Burgoyne, staring at the two wretches below, who, crouching close to the in-curving wall of the globe, were trying to evade a perfect rain of wires which were descending upon it.
"Help! For God's sake, help!" they screamed in a frenzy of terror, and there was very good reason for even such fears as theirs. For already, not far off, Kobloth had seen several of the bat-like creatures captured, and drawn up by the wires, and heard their shrieks of agony abruptly silenced as their captors presumably devoured them immediately. The ladder, of course, had been ripped away and aloft, as though it were no more than pack-thread.
"Look out for the rope!" warned Burgoyne, flinging an end of the line Carscadden had snatched from a handy cleat by the doorway. "Only one of you at a time—it won't bear more than that!"
Both men clutched the rope together and clung to it fiercely.
"Let go, one of you!" shouted the scientist angrily. The clawed and hooked wires were hovering near them, and frantic with terror neither of the unfortunate men would relinquish his grip.
"Let go! One must die—or both!" shouted Burgoyne, as a wire with a fiery red star at the end of it was cast by a Martian toward them. The crack of a revolver rang out behind him; Carscadden had fired at the car above. The shot took effect, apparently, for the fiery red star at once fell harmlessly to the red sand.
With a frenzied strength the Austrian snatched his companion's grip from the rope, and shouted, "Haul up! He shall die first," and as he shouted he sprang with astounding agility high up and caught the line far up its length. But Whipps, too, made a desperate leap—a leap to evade a fiery star that swung toward him.
He was too late; the point of light fell on his shoulder. With a wild cry of agony he fell back on the sand, his face and body contorted horribly, as one electrocuted. In a flash a clawing wire had seized him, and his rigid body was hauled aloft into the network of cables. In a moment Kobloth was dragged inside the globe, and the fear in his eyes was unforgettable.
Burgoyne had his hand on the door immediately, when the scientist stopped him.
"No! not yet. We must keep it open for a little," he warned him. "We have nearly exhausted our compressed air tanks, and must replenish them before the door is closed. I have already set the electric pumps going—it will not take more than an hour at the outside; but we dare not make a start with nearly empty tanks. Moreover we must try and hold on until daylight."
"Why?" asked his friend in surprize.
"Because before daylight we should be leaving Mars on the side opposite to the earth, and going still farther away from our planet."
"Well, we have our guns and plenty of shells, and may be able to stand the brutes off. But I don't fancy those fiery stars. Is it possible they could electrocute us through the steel walls?" he asked gravely.
"No, I don't think so. Just now we have the neutralium shell above us, and the outer steel wall is insulated from the inner lining; you remember I thought it advisable in case of electrical disturbances we might encounter. Of course what other offensive resources they have at their command we cannot tell. We can only keep our eyes open, and if we have to start, well, we must chance it," declared Carscadden philosophically. "As for the clawed wires, I have something here that will fix them if they menace us," he added quietly, as he stepped to a near-by chest and extracted from it a couple of short-handled and very large-headed instruments. "These things are carbons, insulated from the handles. When we switch on all the current at our command, the heat of the electric arc between them will be quite considerable. I think it will melt their wires without much difficulty."
"Fine! Here's your chance to experiment—a couple of the infernal things sticking to us just outside the doorway!" cried Burgoyne, as pleased as a boy at the possibility of a really effective offensive.
"Right! Here, get the wire between the carbon points, and I'll switch on the juice," cried the scientist, handing him an instrument.
A moment, and Burgoyne raised a hand in signal. The switch was moved, a flash of vivid light leapt between the points, and instantly the wire was fused and fell apart. At once the second wire was so treated with a like result. At this an excited shrill whistling broke out among the Martians in their cars above.
"That's got them guessing!" cried Burgoyne jubilantly. "Reckon they thought no one knew anything about electricity but themselves."
"Likely, but I'm afraid they've got other things up their sleeves to try out on us yet. However, in another thirty minutes we can close the door and leave them. But we must fight for that thirty minutes. Kobloth had better have his gun back; we can't worry about trifles in such a tight corner," said their captain coolly.
"Thank you, Mr. Carscadden; I'll do my best. I'm quite a fair shot," replied the Austrian gratefully.
"Better get busy," advised old Flint. "Those uglies are trying to throw a net all over us."
True enough, a perfect maze of clawed, disk-ended and star-tailed wires was enmeshing the great globe. Many fell on the neutralium cover, and failed to grip it, but numerous others attached themselves to the uncovered steel half. The four men at once commenced to rain bullets amid their foes, and the cries of rage and pain that answered the volleys told of the damage being wrought. Shortly half a dozen cars and their weird occupants had crashed to the sand; and many of the wires lay broken and tangled. All that came near the door were fused instantly by the carbons, and for a little it seemed as if the battle favored the voyagers. But at the globe's side, away from the door, many disks attached themselves and could not be come at by the defenders; and these began to draw the Neutralia along at a good pace. The strength of the wires and their grip must have been enormous, for the globe plowed a deep rut through the sand as though steam winches and giant cables had hold of it. Luckily the door faced the canal, so that they were drawn away from it.
"Another ten minutes," said the scientist anxiously. "Then, night or no night, we must go."
With redoubled fury the revolvers spat their deadly missiles among the besiegers, and car after car came crashing from the high cables. The execution caused even these fearless monsters to halt their proceedings. Suddenly the globe's movement stopped, the wires were drawn rapidly upward, and the ranks of the enemy parted and left a clear right of way between them. A resonant clang, like the sound of a huge gong, came from the western cliff, and a bright object, flashing along a cable at terrific speed, rushed between the two groups of now silent Martians, and came to a stop directly over the Neutralia.
"What now?" cried Burgoyne. "What devils' game is this?"
Even as he spoke, from this new arrival there was let down, by thick wires, a large cylindrical object. Swaying to and fro, as though being carefully adjusted, it finally came to rest exactly opposite and a few feet from the globe's open door. A speck of bluish flame glowed in the center of its only visible end.
"Look out! Close the door!" screamed the Austrian. "That looks like a bomb, with its fuse lit!"
THE scientist, being nearest, reached the closing-lever before his companions. But even while throwing his weight on it, his scientific instincts compelled him to peer forward to obtain one glimpse of this unknown offensive. That little part of a second's delay was his undoing.
Before the steel rod slid home there came a burst of vivid flame from the pointing cylinder, which seemed to shrivel up and vanish as a vast cloud of coal-black vapor poured from it. A dense, stinking, poisonous fog rushed through the narrowing slit left by the closing door, and Carscadden was for an instant immersed in its strangling folds. As the door thudded softly home, he fell to the floor, gasping and insensible.
Burgoyne, who was nearest him, reeled a step away, coughing and choking, but by a strong effort of will recovered sufficiently to drag the scientist farther back in the chamber. Kobloth and Flint too got a taste of the malignant stuff as it wafted about, but were not seriously affected.
"What's to be done?" cried Burgoyne. "Carscadden, I think, will soon recover—he is breathing quite normally again. But heaven knows we should get out of this instantly; and only Carscadden knows anything about this aerial navigation."
"Yes, we must not delay a minute. I understand the registers—we must chance our direction. You can work the wheel, and Flint attend to the captain," replied Kobloth, his technical and scientific training aiding his natural resolute hardihood.
At that moment a terrific crash, as of some heavy body falling on the cover above, filled the globe with a deafening clamor.
"That settles it!" shouted Burgoyne. "We chance it! Are you ready, Kobloth?"
"Go ahead!" cried the Austrian, already at the registers. "Himmel! over with the cover!" he ordered impatiently.
The great neutralium cover turned, the swinging platform rocked violently, and the fog-obscured windows of the lower half were hidden; while the uncovered upper lights exposed a cloudy sky, barred by a network of gigantic cables along which hundreds of the Martians moving were visible. A pause, as the cover pushed its way through the sand beneath the globe; a shock, as the globe rocked, then righted itself; then Mars was sinking rapidly away from them. Up through the cables, tearing a great gap in the network as though it were mosquito veiling, soared the Neutralia, passing with a roar and a thrill of heat through the Martian atmosphere. And so out into the cold and soundless night of space it shot, away from Mars, away from the sun, and away from our planet.
8. Ten Million Miles an Hour!
"Well, that's settled," observed Burgoyne philosophically as he locked the wheel. "We are out in space, sure enough, but where bound for I haven't the slightest notion. Still, anything is better than that devilish world we have left behind us."
"At present we are receding from Mars at more than fifty thousand miles an hour, and gaining pace every moment," said the Austrian, consulting the registers. "The cold of space is acting as a tonic to the Neutralia. Where we are heading for I cannot say. Some of these instruments, not to mention astronomical navigation, require an expert's handling. We can only hope that Mr. Carscadden will soon recover and be able to take charge again," he added fervently.
Since the awful fate of his companion, the Austrian had seemed a changed man. Possibly he realized that he had taken his life in his hands in the pursuit of his evil and vindictive purposes, and that now he stood alone, one man among three who had every reason to regard him with aversion and distrust. He realized, too, probably far more deeply than Burgoyne and Flint, the hopeless nature of their plight if their captain's stupor did not shortly leave him. The fate of all depended absolutely on the brain of the man who alone of all mankind had made the probing of space possible.
Each of the three men, Kobloth as earnestly solicitous as the others, did his best for the unconscious man, but it seemed as though all their efforts would be unavailing; his whole system must have been saturated with the poisonous draft he had quaffed. Hours passed, and still he remained unconscious; living, breathing, but otherwise inert as a log. Meanwhile the Neutralia sped silently on through trackless space, speeding out of the profound abyss where the greater planets swing in their vast and solitary orbits. Already the pointers recording in tens of thousands on the speed registers seemed but faint blurs of shadow on their dials. Already the globe was clear of the long, conical shadow cast by Mars, and the sun was but a small and fiery disk that shone steadily to the eastward in a jet-black sky; while the earth was now a mere speck of dim light hardly discernible.
Forty-eight hours went by in this manner; watching the changeless sky, the humming registers, and attending to the unconscious man. Forty-eight hours of the most intense anxiety; little wonder they slept but in short snatches, and their bloodshot sunken eyes betrayed that the strain was becoming unendurable. Then it happened, the sick man's eyes abruptly opened, and he was staring at his companions quite sanely and naturally.
"What's the matter, Hugh?" he muttered weakly. "I suppose that infernal fog stuff knocked me out. Have you shut the door? What are the Martians doing?" he queried more strongly, his eagerness of spirit fast overcoming his sickness.
"The Martians!" laughed Burgoyne as he bent affectionately and joyfully over his friend. "Don't worry about them. They must be a good many million miles astern by this time. But how do you feel—thirsty? hungry?" he queried anxiously.
"What, you have started?" cried Carscadden, sitting bolt-upright in his surprize. "Why, how long have I been insensible?"
"Just forty-eight hours, though it seems like years," replied his friend with a heavy sigh of relief. "Thank heaven you are better, and will soon be able to skipper the Neutralia again. All I know for certain is that we are somewhere out in space, and the pointers haven't been visible for ages."
"Forty-eight hours!" echoed Carscadden. "Here, give me a hand; I must see to this. Forty-eight hours, and going full steam ahead!" he repeated, as though dazed by the notion.
With a litle assistance, for he was not in any way injured, and the poison seemed to have worked its way completely out of his system, he walked across to his beloved registers, and bent over, studying them earnestly for several moments. When he looked up again, his eyes held a queer expression, an expression of mingled amazement, pride, and consternation.
"Why didn't you move the cover about, and check the speed?" he asked.
"Well, we were in the dark as to your calculations, and were afraid of either falling back to Mars, or into the sun. I reckoned we were safer out here, and Kobloth said there was enough air to last us a month," replied Burgoyne.
"Yes, perhaps you were safer—that cover requires delicate manipulation. But it's high time I woke up. Do you know where we are?" asked the scientist.
"Somewhere out in space. Beyond that I haven't a notion," replied Burgoyne as lightly as though he spoke of a car ride over some new country in his own home state.
"As a matter of fact, and to be more precise, we certainly are out in space. At a rough estimate, we are about ten or eleven hours' run from the planet Jupiter. When you left Mars it was night, and Jupiter being the nearest large planet, you were naturally attracted by it. See, that's Jupiter, over there. I should have thought Kobolth could have told you that," said Carscadden in surprize.
"He's been sleeping for several hours—and that queer star has grown much larger in my watch. I was getting a bit worried about it, to say the truth," declared Burgoyne apologetically.
"No wonder it's been growing larger rapidly. Do you know we are rushing to it at nearly ten million miles an hour? Over 150,000 miles a minute! And as the planet is a little to the eastward of Mars, we have traversed an arc of its orbit, of about six hundred million miles! Does that satisfy your ambitions?"
"That's breaking records!" cried Burgoyne with raised eyebrows. "Since we are so near to this planet Jupiter, why not have a look at it. A few hours more or less cannot make much difference to us, surely."
"Jupiter!" echoed Kobloth and Flint in the same breath. For the two sleepers had now awakened, and had hastened to their captain with many expressions of surprize and relief at his welcome recovery. "Jupiter! Yes, I thought that blazing orb was the huge planet, but I could not credit we had hurtled through space so quickly as all that. Yes, I should like to have a closer look at Jupiter. Does it make much difference to our safety if we hold on for a few hours longer?" and a light came into Kobloth's dark, strong eyes that was not entirely inspired by greed and selfish ambition; for at heart the Austrian was really a scientist, whose evil instincts had been so uncontrolled and dominant that they had wrecked what might have been a notable life.
"No, I don't think it can make much difference to us. I may frankly admit that our chances of hitting the earth again from this vast distance are quite a gamble. But seeing that we have evidence of the stupendous speed the Neutralia is capable of, the matter of time hardly needs to be considered, and the problem of return simply resolves itself into a matter of our ability to evade or turn to our advantage the various centers of attraction we shall encounter," replied the scientist thoughtfully.
And so after a little more discussion it was decided, and the great steel globe was permitted to continue its headlong rush through the black abyss toward the huge orb of Jupiter. That giant of our planetary family, whose diameter exceeds 85,000 miles, whose day is no more than live hours, and night no longer, whose four moons race round his great girth with a speed far in excess of our own placid luminary's sedate behavior, and whose year contains 4,332 of its brief days. Luckily there are no inhabitants to suffer the inconvenience of such things, for the huge orb is, like the sun, still in a gaseous condition, and its heat and light of its own making, though its texture is much more concentrated than the sun's tenuous immensity.
In less than two hours from his recovery Carscadden ordered his friend to reverse the cover, and Jupiter, now a large, glowing disk of fast-increasing brightness, went out of sight beneath them as they dropped with terrific but shortly abating speed toward it. Exactly eleven hours after he emerged from his stupor he gave the command to reverse the cover again.
9. Near to Destruction
As it swung back, letting light through the lower windows, the intrepid voyagers saw the giant planet below them, a huge whirling orb of glowing cloudiness, with vast, tormented eddies of super-heated gas spinning and leaping within it. Across this expanse of titanic activity a black speck moved quickly.
"The inner moon," explained their captain. "It revolves around the planet in forty-two hours. It is nearly four times as large as our own moon. We shall try and land on it."
Nearer and nearer sank the globe to the huge glowing orb, and distinctly visible were the curious belts of alternately liquefying and vaporizing elements. Steadily it was growing larger and soon it dominated the black sky like a vast crimson sun.
Suddenly a tremendous crash resounded on the globe's exterior, and in a moment it was subjected to a tremendous bombardment, as though batteries of heavy artillery were playing upon it. The globe vibrated and trembled with the incessant blows, and great scratches appeared on the outer surface of the windows. The temperature at once rose considerably, and the globe's occupants panted and perspired with every movement.
Carscadden hastily wrote on a piece of paper and passed it around, for it was impossible to hear a word in that deafening uproar.
"We are passing through a swarm of meteorites," he had written. "They are on their way to Jupiter. I think the Neutralia can safely stand it, unless we meet an unusually large fragment. However, we can only carry on and chance to the luck that has so far befriended us."
The supply of missiles seemed inexhaustible, and the bombardment continued for over an hour. But at last, abruptly as it had started, the crashing uproar ceased. Shortly after, on the vast glowing disk a faint scintillation broke out in one particular location. It was the cloud of myriads of meteorites rushing to their destruction, fused into vapor by the friction of their passage through the planet's gaseous envelope.
Now the black speck of the inner moon loomed larger, and it could be seen as a round dark object on the dull fiery mass of Jupiter. At the command of their captain the cover was tilted a little to shut out somewhat the direct pull of Jupiter.
The Neutralia, as though tired after its long voyage, sank down slowly toward the rapidly moving moon. All going well, their paths would soon intersect. Absorbed in watching this satellite, the watchers for a little overlooked the fact that Jupiter had other moons to reckon with. It was Kobloth who first reminded them of their oversight.
"Another moon!" he shouted excitedly, pointing to a side window. "It is coming direct for us—we shall be run down!"
With one hasty glance at the approaching menace, Carscadden leapt to the wheel. Every breath was held as the scientist swung the cover, and it never seemed to move so slowly; for each had seen that the Neutralia, dropping now but slowly, was almost directly in the path of this rushing peril. Obviously the satellite would overtake the globe unless it could be moved quickly aside from its present path. Was this to be the end?—to be shattered to fragments by a chance collision with this passing moon? Gradually, under their captain's expert handling, the Neutralia came to a standstill, and hung poised in space awaiting the fateful moment. Nearer and nearer rushed the satellite, bulking dark and enormous as it came for them.
"It may miss us," said Kobloth in a low voice, and his face was drawn and haggard.
"I have done all I can do," muttered Carscadden. "We are now isolated from all attraction save that of Jupiter, and we shall begin to fall toward it again directly the satellite has passed—if we live to see it," he whispered under his breath.
Nearer came the hurtling black globe, so near that the men, fearfully watching it, braced themselves for the final second of dissolution. Plunging them into darkness, it hid Jupiter from their view as it passed, and then—light! They lived! The moon had rushed past, though the clearance could not have been expressed in distance; it was a matter of split seconds only.
"That was worse than the Martian spiders!" exclaimed old Flint, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.
"I'm not stuck on another such stunt as that, myself!" agreed big Burgoyne with the deepest conviction.
The landing on the inner satellite was comparatively easy, and they grounded safely on its western edge, where both Jupiter and the distant sun were visible. But there was no landing on that little world for the disappointed voyagers, the test-tubes showing no trace of atmosphere.
"There is no air whatever on this little world—at least none that our tubes can detect. We shall have to remain inside while we do it," announced their captain.
"Do what?" asked Kobloth.
"Make the circuit round Jupiter. We shall have to travel rather slowly; for the cover will need some very fine adjustment to hold our position as we make the circuit," explained the scientist.
"And after that?" queried Burgoyne.
"After that we must try and return to our own planet. I say 'try' because it will be a very difficult task—in fact, a pure gamble. It is only right that you should all be aware of that fact," replied Carscadden gravely.
"You have navigated us safely so far, Aylmer, and I'll put my last cent on your making it. Now I think I'll take a snooze. I haven't had a real nap since you were bowled over. Is there anything to do, or see, that is more than usually interesting?" said Burgoyne.
"No. We shall remain on this satellite, and be carried round with it. It's not safe to approach any closer. If anything happens I will call you; my long sleep has left me quite fresh, so I shall take a number of photographs," replied the scientist, turning to his array of cameras.
Burgoyne and the Austrian were soon enfolded in their rugs. But Flint, always deeply interested in his master's work, watched and aided him with his cameras. From one of the windows they looked directly down on the heaving, gaseous surface of the monster planet; from another, the sun was visible, but appeared little more than a star of intense brilliancy amid a host of other lesser points of luminosity. As the satellite moved round its parent orb, Flint remarked in surprize that it always appeared in the same relative position to them.
"Should have thought it would have gone out of sight," said he, referring to the vast globe.
"But this moon is like our satellite," explained his master. "It always keeps the same hemisphere facing inward—it's a peculiarity moons have."
As the hours sped by they noted that though the huge planet shone with the dull light of its own fiery gases, yet it was markedly brighter where the sunlight fell upon it. It was new, crescent, half, and full, in turns.
Ten hours after their grounding Carscadden made a careful study of his registers and instruments, and afterward was busy for a little while with his pencil. Then he made the following announcement:
"Since we landed, Jupiter, as well as Mars and the earth, has moved and altered its relative position considerably. From here to our planet, in a direct line, is now nearly 700,000,000 miles. Our air supply, I find, will last the four of us just seventy-nine hours; that is using up the compressed stores and the reserve oxygen. That means that we shall have to travel at express speed, in spite of the risk; we have no margin of safety for possible emergencies at the end of our long journey. Your presence, Kobloth, is most inconvenient, not to say dangerous. Three would be able to exist in the Neutralia for over a hundred hours. If we can avoid the one danger that I fear, we need not use the ejector door for undesirable passengers." His voice was quite courteous, very grave, and yet hard as granite.
"And that one danger is?" asked Kobloth, whose face had grown gray and anxious.
"The danger of starting the Neutralia at a wrong angle. If we do not go absolutely straight to the earth we shall inevitably be drawn into the sun. And with so small a reserve of air we cannot afford to check our terrific pace in time to avert that fate," replied Carscadden quietly.
"When do we start?" inquired Burgoyne, who was impressed by their leader's quiet statement.
"In half an hour—if we can."
10. An Error of a Decimal
"What's to hinder us starting?" asked Flint, first voicing the surprize of the three listeners.
"Our path—I have just found that it will take us directly across the path of Jupiter's fourth satellite. In half an hour, when we must cross its path, it will be there, or very nearly so. At least it will be no more than .10513 of its diameter away from the point of intersection. I need not say that the margin is far too narrow for safety."
"Can we not wait, and give it time to pass by?" queried Kobloth.
"Yes, we shall have to. But that means missing our straight line earthward. But we shall have to move as soon as this satellite has passed the critical spot, and even then it will be a mere chance if we miss it," said Carscadden.
"Devil take a planet with four moons!" grumbled the stolid Burgoyne, who seemed by far the least moved of the three listeners.
More waiting in silent suspense; then, eye to telescope, their captain gave the signal. At once the great cover was turned, and the satellite on which it had rested sank from beneath their feet, and they saw passing above them the huge dark ball of the outermost of Jupiter's attendant satellites. Only for a moment was it visible, so rapid was the pace the Neutralia at once attained; then they were out in the darkness and emptiness of space, homeward bound—if all went well.
During the following hours there was nothing to mark their progress save the spinning pointers on the speed dials of the register—no sense of movement within or perception of motion without the globe. They were apparently hanging in the center of a vast sphere of jet-black darkness, a sphere dusted with points, and streams, and clusters of starry light; yet each man knew that he was being hurled through this terrible darkness at nearly 10,000,000 miles every sixty minutes, and each man feared that the end of this daring venture would be death.
At last sixty long hours had crawled by. Now the men were inclined to be dull and querulous; for as well as the nerve-racking suspense, the air was more than a little vitiated. For the tanks did not release a fraction more than the amount needful to sustain the vital spark of existence, and the carbon-consuming apparatus did not work altogether satisfactorily.
At the end of the sixtieth hour both Mars and the earth loomed large again, and the sun had regained much of its splendor. It was evident that they would pass Mars at a good distance to one side; and it was also evident that their course would take them a long distance from the longed-for earth, and the Neutralia would be governed entirely by the pull of the sun's vast mass.
Carscadden worked out his calculations anew, going a long way back in his formulas to make certain that no loophole of error had evaded him, and it was then that he discovered the little slip in a decimal point—a slip a careless schoolboy might have been guilty of, but quite unlooked for in one who regarded calculus as a mild form of recreation. The discovery hurt his pride far more than the fact of the terrible danger it had led them into. Such a trivial error was as a deadly sin to the scientific mind.
The others, when he told them, did not seem to appreciate the gravity of his confession.
"But a point? I don't see anything to worry about," said Burgoyne a little contemptuously.
"No?" sneered Carscadden with a most unusual bitterness. "I hardly thought you would. Nevertheless I think it has signed our death warrant. When I delayed our departure from Jupiter's inner satellite, it was to allow another of the four moons to pass clear of our course. The clearance I then stated was but .10513 of its diameter. That was an error; it should have been 1.0513. On that footing there would not have been the least danger, and we could have started at the exact second requisite to reach our planet safely. Now we shall most certainly miss it."
"Miss it?" echoed Burgoyne. "But cannot we stop the Neutralia, and make a fresh start?"
"You mean just cruise about until the right moment comes round again. Certainly we could, but for our air supply; long before that moment arrives the supply would have been exhausted. No, it is out of the running; nevertheless we must stop the Neutralia at once, as there is just a ghost of a chance that by very careful manipulation we might be able to edge into the gravitational field of the planet Venus—I mean into its effective range so far as we are concerned. But it is only a chance, and a mighty slim one," affirmed the scientist coolly. "However, let us try it. Turn the cover, Hugh," he commanded with decision.
Burgoyne leapt to the wheel with renewed cheerfulness; it was a relief to be doing something. His nature craved activity, and he became uneasy and irritable when denied such expression of his superabundant energy. But for the first time the wheel seemed very hard to start in motion. Surprized, he put out his full strength and strained at it. Still there was no movement.
"What the devil has come to it?" he exclaimed angrily. "Here, you fellows, give me a hand," he called to his companions hastily, as his face abruptly paled at the thought which had suddenly come to him.
That thought was also known to the three men who flew to his assistance. But no man voiced it. In silence they pulled, pushed, and strained until the perspiration streamed from them. But all in vain—the cover would not budge a single inch!
"Something has happened! We are doomed!" cried Kobloth.
"I am afraid that is the truth," said their captain grimly. "If we fail to move the cover, nothing short of the sun itself can stop us, and we are now isolated from every attraction save his. I ought to have foreseen and prepared for such a misfortune."
"How? What has happened?" asked Flint, incredulous that any misfortune should long defy his master.
"Well, it seems to me that very likely a small meteorite fragment has forced its way between the steel globe and its cover, and so made it jam. Unfortunately we have no means of finding out if this is the case, or combating it if we knew this was the trouble," said Carscadden rather wearily. "If there was any hope of saving ourselves," he continued, "we might prolong existence a little by removing Kobloth. But what is the use, when in a few hours our end is certain—unless we can move the cover? All we can do is to face with resolution the inevitable, as befits men."
"How will it be, this plunge into the sun?" asked Kobloth slowly.
"Instantaneous. At the rate we shall rush into the huge corona of flaming gases we shall be fused into incandescence quicker than a moth is consumed in a furnace," replied the scientist.
Even stolid Burgoyne looked startled. Fused into incandescent vapor in a fraction of a second! It might be merciful and absolutely painless, but it was a singularly unpleasant fate to contemplate.
Ten hours went by. Haggard-faced, breathing heavily in the vitiated air, the four men sat silent, moodily staring into vacancy, and each affecting a stoical indifference he was far from experiencing.
The slave of science, by force of habit their captain made occasional inspections of his dials and registers. A moment ago he had pointed to one of the windows and announced without emotion:
"We are now making 12,000,000 miles an hour. We have passed the earth's orbit already, missing our planet. See, it is there, like a huge crescent moon! In about another seven or eight hours we shall be in the sun—and the voyage will be ended!"
11. A Loss Effort! Venus
"How long will the air supply last?" asked Burgoyne after a little.
"Nearly eight hours, just enough to reach the sun," replied the scientist.
"And if the cover would move, what would you do?"
"Try and land on the planet Venus, Hugh. We should be passing its orbit, and not very far from the planet itself, in another hour," replied his friend.
"Well, here goes for one last effort; I'll either break that gearing or move the blasted thing," declared Burgoyne with a sudden wrath that overstrained nerves are prone to exhibit.
Without a word Kobloth leapt to his feet and joined him, and the two began tugging viciously at the obdurate wheel. The energy and despair inspired every ounce of muscle in the two attackers, and the gearing rattled and trembled under the tremendous strain they subjected it to. Suddenly Burgoyne gave a wild shout; the wheel had seemed to move the merest trifle.
Instantly Carscadden and Flint flung themselves also upon it. This way and that, the four desperate men fought with the gearing, and at once a faint harsh grinding sound was audible below them. It was the cosmic fragment being forced between the steel wall and the cover.
"An ounce more—she's coming!" shouted Burgoyne fiercely.
A loud, rasping, shattering noise, and the wheel spun round with a jerk that sent the men hurtling over one another; hands were bleeding and bodies bruised—but the cover was moving!
"She's free! We've done it!" cried the four men hysterically.
They were quickly on their feet again, and rushed to a window. The sun was now beneath them, and hidden from view, and in the sky overhead shone the earth, a brilliant star, and much nearer another as brilliant, the white disk of Venus. Now but half a million miles distant, it gleamed like a great full moon, a glaring circle of light cut out of a black background. Would they be able to reach it in time, and had it a breathable atmosphere? Each brain was concentrated on these two queries.
"We have barely seven hours' air left, and we must now endeavor to greatly reduce our speed, but our pace is so awful that I cannot be sure we can effect this in time to avail us. But we have this in our favor: the Neutralia, isolated from the sun's attraction, will begin to be repelled at once, so saturated with cold has the cover now become; and so near are we to Venus that its pull will be very strong. Between these two forces, both impelling us in the same direction, we may be able to manage. We can do no more now, just wait," declared the scientist impassively.
Minute by minute the time sped by, and still, though with ever lessening velocity, the Neutralia sped sunward. Despite the asbestos lining, the heat grew intense. Slowly the white disk of Venus receded. Two hours passed before the register pointers came to rest. For a moment the globe was hanging motionless. Then the pointers again moved; the Neutralia had commenced its retrograde movement back toward Venus, and away from the seething cauldron it had been heading for.
Relieved from the awful strain of their former peril, the voyagers talked and joked boisterously,
"Any points of interest about this dame Venus?" asked Burgoyne flippantly.
"Only this known with any certainty. Venus lies 24,000,000 miles nearer the sun than the earth, her day is forty minutes shorter than ours, and her year only 224 days long; while her diameter is nearly 400 miles less than the earth's. There is an atmosphere of some description, whether breathable or not we shall soon discover. And a few mountains have been noted, but little is known of the surface. Also she has no moons."
"No moons! Thank heaven for that!" cried Burgoyne fervently.
Little by little the reserves of air and oxygen sank steadily nearer to exhaustion. The Neutralia had not yet reached the atmosphere of Venus when their captain announced the end of the seventh hour. Already he spoke, and breathed, with much difficulty. "We are very near the journey's end; in ten minutes we shall be a mere few miles from the surface of Venus. Then either the air is breathable, or" and he left the sentence unfinished.
Now the planet loomed gigantic beneath them, blotting out everything save its vastness. A pleasant-hued world it was, shaded and lit by various markings as of land and water, wherever its surface could be glimpsed between heavy cloud masses. It was so near, but so was extinction; the last breath of oxygen had been released, and in a few moments their lungs would be gasping and strangling for lack of it. The three friends turned dull, fierce eyes on Kobloth; but for him the air supply would have been ample and to spare. From the start he had been their evil genius, and had forced himself upon them. It was but simple justice that he should be sacrificed for the common weal, and he had richly earned his fate. Burgoyne and Flint staggered toward him. Himself gasping and choking, the Austrian read his doom in their eyes, and shrank away from them.
At that moment a shrill shriek, that rose to a loud roaring, filled the Neutralia.
"Stop!" gasped Carscadden. "We are in the atmosphere. We land in a minute!"
The windows whitened and dulled, and ran with steam as the Neutralia fell headlong through the damp cloudy layers, shrieking and glowing with the last remnants of its great pace. Luckily the atmosphere of Venus was extensive and dense and aided in arresting their descent. The roar abated, the windows cleared, and a forest of waving tree-tops was visible beneath. Then with a terrific jar that threatened to loosen every bolt-nut, plate, and rivet, the Neutralia struck the ground, rocked violently a little, and then was at rest.
"The test-tube!" gasped the scientist hoarsely.
"The door—if we die for it!" choked Burgoyne as he swung madly on the lever, and before Carscadden could interfere, Kobloth had staggered to the lever also. The great door swung open, and a blast of damp, dense air, chilly by comparison with the fetid air within the globe, but pure as liquid life to the suffocating men, swept upon their faces. They breathed in gulping inhalations—they breathed and lived!