Chapter II

It was Brett who began their narrative; began it with the slow, careful, precise phrasing of the scientist anxious to avoid error of memory; to be exact of every fact and detail. On his lap he held a book of notes, and another book of the many dial recordings. He consulted it.

"Our recorded time of starting was four minutes past midnight. Sixteen days ago, wasn't it, Father? Sixteen!"

He gave a queer laugh but did not comment upon his thoughts. "I had determined to start slowly. Martt would have rushed us, but I thought that caution was best until we were quite sure of the workings of these mechanisms new to us.

"I did not record our passing above the earth's atmosphere. But the vehicle was inordinately hot from the friction of our passage. Perhaps I took it too fast--at all events we did not bother with refrigeration since in Space we would so soon need the heaters. We sat sweltering at the main instrument table with the dials before us.

"I think, Father, that I followed your instructions carefully. The dials were all set and operating. The size-dials stood motionless at unit 1. Our relative Time-dials were motionless at the original unit of earth Time; and the earth dial-chronometers ticked off the passing of your seconds and minutes. On the Space-dials--when first I chanced to notice them--we had gone some 900 miles. Our velocity then had picked up to 1,500 miles an hour and was swiftly accelerating. The Time was 1 a.m.

"It is slow getting through the atmosphere, but now we were fairly on our way. As you suggested, Father, I was heading just a point off Mars where I could hold Jupiter and Saturn almost in a line ahead of us. They were all there visible through our floor window--we had turned over and were falling toward them. I was using a fraction only of the earth's repulsion, and holding steady with the selective attraction of Mars and the star-field behind it."

"We saw your aural ray," Martt put in. He was earnestly intent upon Brett's narrative. "We saw it--I saw it--through the spectrometer. The swing of it was apparent even at that near distance. And we saw the Martian Mail coming in--they landed in Eurasia that night, I suppose. Say, they move in a hurry, don't they? And stop in a hurry when they get down close."

Brett went on: "We were still within the lower cone of the earth's shadow. But presently we emerged and came into the sunlight. The brilliant blackness of Space; and the cold by now had penetrated so that very soon we were glad enough to use the heaters.

"You know the details of a Martian voyage, Father. And you, Frank? This was no different except that having no necessity of stopping I reached a greater velocity than they generally obtain. A forty-hour trip, isn't it, Frank?"

"There's nearly always one of the minimum-distance trips at about that," I answered. "But you had some sixty million miles for yours. That's a lot longer than a minimum distance."

He nodded. "Yes. We came abreast of Mars--I suppose about a million miles away. Our Space-dials showed about sixty-two million miles traveled. We had been gone from you thirty-nine hours. Our average velocity had been something over a million and a half miles an hour, and with steadily increasing acceleration had reached then nearly three million an hour.

"That was as quick a trip as you anticipated, Father? But even so, we found it irksome. We alternated at the instrument board. Martt prepared most of the meals--beyond that and sleeping there was little to do. Except to watch for asteroids; but the mails have reported the region through there remarkably free of them this season. We saw none inside the Martian orbit closer than a million miles, which to such a low velocity as ours held no danger."

Dr. Gryce asked, "The air purifiers, Brett? You had no trouble?"

"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. . . ."