by Garret Smith
Of course the momentum of our tremendous speed could not be checked instantly. So, despite our instinctive dread, nothing perceptible happened at that moment, save the cessation of the sound of the motor.
Now the queen turned to us and held the hammer before her.
“I’ll keep this in reach, and use it if necessary,” she declared. “So let there be no treachery.” As she spoke, she tossed it toward a corner of the cabin.
Then something did happen, the beginning of a most astounding series of incidents.
IT had riot seemed to me that the queen employed any force in tossing aside the hammer. As far as I thought of the trivial matter at all, I had expected so heavy an object to drop almost at her feet.
Imagine our surprise, then, to see it shoot out in a straight line parallel, to the floor and crash into the farther wall of the cabin some ten paces away.
Then our surprise turned to blank amazement when the heavy metal, instead of dropping to the floor, rebounded from the wall and started back across the cabin still parallel to the floor, but now moving quite slowly as though merely floating.
The queen had been watching our faces, and had not noted the beginning of this miracle. But suddenly she saw the hammer float by her face, barely missing the tip of her nose. It was naturally startling. She screamed and jumped. Then, climax of amazement, with that slight impulse she rose clear of the floor as though she had the mere weight of a bit of waterfowl’s down.
While we stared, stupefied with amazement, in which for once Hunter fully shared, she rose gently to the ceiling and lodged there, on her face a look of the most utter astonishment I have ever seen on the face of a human being.
For a moment she seemed stunned by the shock. Then she recovered her breath and began screaming with terror and thrashing about frantically with arms and legs.
At these outcries, two others of the watch who were a little way down the deck, had, as they said afterward, started to run toward us. With the first step they shot forward into the air. Our first intimation of their predicament was when we heard their shouts of astonishment and saw them come sailing toward us on a level with our heads, kicking vigorously in an effort to regain their footing.
I had been so absorbed in this amazing spectacle that I had not noted before anything peculiar in my own position or that of my other companions. But now, as one of our brethren sailed by uncomfortably near my head, I instinctively attempted to dodge back.
My own feet were not touching the floor! I had likewise in some mysterious way lost my weight and I saw at a glance that the rest were in a like predicament.
Before we had time to collect our wits and do any clear thinking, the deck began to move sidewise under us, slowly, almost imperceptibly, then with gathering speed. Finally, with an abrupt lunge, the ship rolled completely over and lay bottom side up with the blinding rays of the burning planet that a moment before had shone dimly, through the blackened bottom windows, now blazing unchecked through the broad roof-lights, filling the deck-shed with a fiercer glare than ever.
My last glimpse, before these battering rays compelled me to close my eyes, revealed my companions and myself still floating upright in the air, but with our feet now pointing at the roof.
The shrieks of the queen had redoubled. Even in my own distress of mind I was able to glean some satisfaction from this evidence that the hitherto dominant and imperturbable woman had at last met a situation that completely unnerved her.
So for a little time we hung suspended in thin air, half blinded, completely helpless, waiting with chilled hearts for the next blow of a freakish fate.
But presently I felt the top of my head touch something. Shading my eyes carefully with one hand from the glare at my feet, I looked up and found that my head rested on the inverted deck. Even as I discovered this, my mind underwent a strange reversal of the sense of direction. A moment before, I had seemed to be still in an upright position.
Now, without at all altering that position, I suddenly acquired the sensation of standing on my head. The deck once more seemed properly down to me and the roof up. Now the blazing world of Venus was over us, and the world we sought below us. I began to feel the pull of weight toward the deck, and a slight congesting of blood in my head. My body swayed toward the deck, and presently it was stretched full length along it.
I made out my companions in like position, and, near by, the queen.
That lady a moment later ceased her clamor, arose gingerly to her feet, and felt her way into the ship’s cabin. That act of hers completed our sense of reversed direction, and one after another we followed her example.
Cautiously we tried our legs, and finding that we could stand, and that the pull of weight was actually toward the inverted deck, we groped our way to the cabin for shelter from the dazzling light.
But, though the direction of gravity had thus unquestionably reversed itself, its pull was still very slight. We had the sensation of being as light as feathers. With each step we had a tendency to bound upward half a pace.
At the moment, Hunter was as much at a loss as the rest of us to account for the amazing phenomena. It was not until later that he found a theory as to their cause which did not fall far short of the truth, as explained to us some time afterward by an earth astronomer.
As even the laymen among my earth readers may already have guessed, we had just passed through the neutral point where the attraction of gravitation of Venus was exactly balanced by the gravitation of the other heavenly body toward which we had been driving. At that moment, therefore, our bodies ceased to have any weight. The tremendous momentum of our upward rush from Venus under the impulse of our lifting-stone had driven us past this dead center. At that instant the queen had shut off the lifting motor and left us within the pull of the other planet.
Hence, naturally, the hull of our ship being its heaviest part, the vessel had rolled over, and what had a few moments before been “up” to us, now became “down” so, as the pull of the new planet became stronger, we had gradually settled back to our inverted deck.
Of all this, however, we were ignorant at the time, and general confusion reigned in our company. Hunter presently recovered his self-possession, and directed the draping of the cabin windows with our sleeping-pad coverings, to shut out the blinding glare. This done, with Weaver and the mechanics, he gave the ship’s machinery a thorough examination to see if it had been damaged in any way by our strange capsizing, and also if any freakish misadjustment, due to the queen’s meddling, could have caused the inexplicable trouble.
I, having no part in this technical investigation, turned to wondering what had become of this female meddler. She had not been seen since she had found her feet and fled into the cabin.
Fearing that she might be up to other mischief, I set out in search for her. I found her in her own suite, lying face down on the floor, her head buried in a blanket, weeping convulsively, and trembling violently from head to foot.
MY HATRED for the woman was for the moment lost in pity. Several times I spoke to her before she gave me any heed, and then she scrambled to a sitting posture and shrank away in fear.
I resolved to take matters in my own hands and push the advantage of her unnerved condition to drive home permanently the impression her late experience had made upon her.
I am as much a devotee of truthfulness as the next man, but I was convinced that here was an occasion when subtle prevarication for the accomplishment of good was amply justified.
So I gave her to understand that the miracle that had just thwarted her purpose to take command of the ship, and which had so terrified her, was entirely the working of Hunter, simply another of a long series of his exploits, beginning with his use of the anesthetic spray, that by now should prove to her that he was all too clever and powerful for her to get the best of. I warned her against any further rebellion, lest he at last lose all patience and do her real harm. Then I told her of the burning of Venus and that he had foreseen it and saved her,
despite the wrongs she had done.
I had even the presumption to assure her that through all he had continued to love her, and might yet make her his mate, if she would remain hereafter gentle and obedient.
Then I referred to the Lady of the South. She already knew that her rival was on board. I told her how foolish she was to fear that woman’s rivalry, inasmuch as the ancient customs of Venus forbade Hunter to marry her who was not of his clan. I assured her that if the lady came to harm through her, Hunter would hate her forever, and added that the best way to hold his heart surely was to show friendship for the lady.
The queen said little in reply, and that in broken sentences. What she did say, and her humble manner of saying it satisfied me, however, that she was utterly broken in spirit, and that we would have no further trouble with her. I saw, too, that she had been made genuinely ill by her experience. I left her, promising to send someone to look after her needs.
Returning toward the motor-cabin, I met the Lady of the South just leaving her suite. She had retired immediately after assisting Hunter at the last observations, and had slept through the whole disturbance.
Acting on the inspiration of the moment, I told her of the queen’s experience and conversion and present illness. I told her the sick woman needed the attendance of another of her own sex. I assured her that she could take no surer means of finally winning Hunter’s heart than to look after the welfare of his stricken cousin.
Somewhat to my surprise, and greatly to my satisfaction, though not without my misgivings as to the outcome, she assented to my suggestion and started at once for the queen’s suite. What took place at that meeting I never knew, but it proved the beginning of a strange alliance, and what for a long time thereafter appeared on the surface to be a genuine friendship.
On returning to the motor-cabin I found our company faced with a new perplexity. The improvised drapings had been removed from the cabin windows, and the men were about to venture forth on the decks again. The fiery light from above was no longer beating through the roof glass with its former intensity. Instead, the glass had become clouded over till it had the opaqueness that, our black paint had given the floor windows, and the light now came through dully in a degree that our sorely tried eyesight could easily endure.
What could be the nature of this new miracle we could not even guess, but were disposed to accept it at its face value and be grateful for its benefits.
This mystery was also deciphered for me afterward by my astronomical friend. It seems that so-called empty space has in it vast clouds of fine, meteoric dust drifting about till the attraction of some great planet draws it down. With the repelling force of our lifting-stone shut down, this dust had settled on our deck roof till a thin coating of it had clouded the lights.
But our present concern was to take advantage of the use of our eyesight that this gave us, and determine, if possible, what course out ship now pursued. Hunter was greatly concerned lest we were dropping back toward Venus, now that our motor was stopped, but the facts that our direction of gravity had been reversed, and that the dimension of the fiery sphere, as revealed dimly through the clouded glass, seemed no greater than before, militated against this fear.
He therefore sought to get another glimpse of the planet toward which he had originally set his course. Scraping a little of the paint from the floor glass, he took a brief observation and then shouted his relief:
“The queen’s meddling saved us in spite of ourselves. She stopped the motor just in time, and we have swung into the attraction of the world we sought. It is directly under us, now, and we are dropping toward it so fast that it now seems nearly double the size it did when I last saw it.
If our motor had been allowed to run on at full speed, as it was, we would have been driven away from it, and by now be lost in infinite space. At last we are on our right course, and are nearing our goal!”
WE GATHERED eagerly around the various floor windows, a strangely light-hearted company, fairly intoxicated by this sudden reaction from bewilderment, terror, and despair, to a climax of hope, now amounting, we thought, to practical certainty. Those off watch had been roused from sleep to share in the spectacle.
It seemed incredible that the faintly glowing sphere directly below us could be identical with that little point of light we had seen once shining over our heads seemingly an infinite distance away!
What marvelous prescience our leader had displayed in seeing all this in his mind’s eye, when to our lesser imaginations that point of light meant nothing but a puzzling illumination! How shameful now seemed our puny doubts and terrors in the face of his sublime faith!
Had we not beheld with our own eyes, as we thought, our old world of Venus burst into fiery destruction, the flames of which we could still see by turning our eyes upward, we might well have believed that we were again being deluded by an error, as when on the surface of Venus during our other voyage, we had burst from the Land of Darkness to believe we were confronting a new Land of Light.
As we found then that we had merely returned to our own familiar land, it seemed now almost as though we must discover soon that we had described a great circle in space and were bearing down on our old home planet. But the persistent rays of that great globe of fire above prevented such illusion taking any real hold on our minds.
And yet the world now below looked, m size and form, the very counterpart of Venus as she had lain below us just before she had burst into flame.
But as we continued to sweep on down, and the new world gradually filled a greater space in our nether heavens, we began to note faint differences. Venus had shone with a faint, whitish glow, uniform in color throughout its surface, though brighter toward the side from which the flames first burst.
This new world had a faint, greenish hue, shading to a suggestion of blue in some areas and to darkish gray in others, save in one semicircular patch near its circumference where it showed nearly pure white.
Venus also had a somewhat hazy outline. This world was more clear-cut, its lines more definite.
Presently Hunter decided that it would be judicious to check our sheer fall a little at this point. He reminded us that a body falling unchecked steadily multiplies its speed. There would therefore be danger, if our fall continued too long unhindered; that we would be unable to check our speed in time to avoid destruction when we struck the surface of the planet.
He turned, therefore, back to the motor-cabin and started the lifting-motor at low speed; then, making repeated observations of our apparent rate of fall, he adjusted the motor’s rate so that we still continued our descent, but at a much reduced rate.
This regulation of our speed had just been completed to Hunter’s satisfaction, when an exclamation from one of the party turned all heads toward the entrance to the main cabin.
To much greater astonishment of the others than to myself, the queen came forth with faltering, uncertain footsteps, arid beside her, guiding and supporting her with one arm, her face all tender solicitude, came the Lady of the South.
There had been no opportunity for me to tell Hunter of the diplomatic duplicity I had employed in bringing these sworn enemies together, and you may be sure none was more amazed than he at this unexpected sight.
I hurried over to him, and in a hasty whisper related briefly what had happened.
He was so relieved and delighted at this solution of a problem that had weighed heavily on his mind during the whole voyage that he greeted them jointly with a measure of affectionate cordiality that would have left nothing to be desired by either love-sick maiden had it been directed to her solely.
But though I studied both faces carefully, I saw no trace of jealousy or resentment in either.
“Come, ladies,” Hunter exclaimed, leading them toward one of the floor windows, “we have a happy surprise in store for you. Look down!”
But though the queen suffered herself to be led to the window, she did not look down as invited, but continued to stare blankly
ahead of her. Nor did the Lady of the South seem concerned with the spectacle below us, but instead turned a pitying look first to the queen and then to Hunter.
“The poor girl cannot see a thing,” explained the Lady. “She was stricken totally blind by that terrible glare.”
We understood at once. The eyes of this woman, who had spent her entire life until recently in the darkness of the Land of the Night, had completely succumbed to the shock which had so nearly destroyed our more toughened vision.
This plight of the unfortunate girl affected me with conflicting emotions which I dare say were shared by others. There was a measure of retributive justice in the smiting of this wild-tempered and malicious creature with blindness as the result of her own wrong-headed act. On the other hand, there was something peculiarly pathetic in seeing such a young and beautiful creature made helpless.
Further than that, she had been the agent, involuntarily, to be sure, by which we were now approaching this promised land. It was her chance comment about the “light above” back at our first meeting in the Land of Night, that had set Hunter to seek a new world in that direction. And only lately it had been her wilful throwing off of the power of our motor that had made it possible for us to be safely arriving now.
And yet this fair, unruly instrument of the Great Over Spirit, who had all unwittingly proved our good angel, was not to be permitted to see the new world to which she had led us!
I HAD a fleeting feeling of guilt in the matter also. I had taken great pains to impress it on her mind during my lecture to her in her stateroom that the all-powerful Hunter had deliberately inflicted punishment on her for her rebellious conduct. I had, of course, not known then that blindness was a part of this punishment. I now had a sudden fear that she might hold Hunter responsible, and in the end seek some form of barbaric revenge.
But Hunter’s manner toward her now went far toward offsetting this feeling, if, indeed, in her crushed and bewildered state of mind, it had ever been hers. He gently led her to a seat in the motor-cabin, expressing the greatest, sorrow for her affliction, and assuring her that it would pass in time. He told her that we had all in some degree been stricken in the same way, but were all safely recovering. She clung to him, weeping, for some time, and seemed to get much comfort from his words.