Tony, clinging to his straps, thought of the father who had brought the children; and Tony hoped, irrationally, that he had fled far away. But what difference whether he was annihilated alone now—or in the wreck of all the world a little later?
He could see the fiery trail of the second Ark rising skyward on its apex of scintillating vapor. Already it was miles away.
Below, on the earth, fires broke out—a blaze that denoted a forest burning. In the place where the ship had been, the two gigantic blocks of concrete must have crumbled and collapsed. The power-house, left untended, continued to hum, supplying lights for no living thing. Far away to the south and west, the President of the United States, surrounded by his Cabinet, looked up from the new toil engendered by the recommencing earthquakes, and saw, separated by an immeasurable distance, two comets moving away from the earth. The President looked reverently at the phenomenon; then he said: “My friends, the greatest living American has but now left his home-land.”
In the passenger-chamber the unendurable noise rose in a steady crescendo until all those who lay there felt that their vital organs would be rent asunder by the fury of that sound. They were pressed with increasing force upon the deck. Nauseated, terrified, overwhelmed, their senses foundered, and many of them lapsed into unconsciousness.
Tony, who was still able to think, despite the awful acceleration of the ship, realized presently that the din was diminishing. From his rather scanty knowledge of physics he tried to deduce what was happening. Either the Ark had reached air so thin that it did not carry sound-waves, or else the Ark was traveling so fast that its sound could not catch up with it. The speed of that diminution seemed to increase. The chamber became quieter and quieter. Tony reflected, in spite of the fearful torment he was undergoing, that eventually the only sound which would afflict it would come from the breeches of the tubes in the control-rooms, and the rooms themselves would insulate that. Presently he realized that the ringing in his ears was louder than the noise made by the passage of the ship. Eve had relaxed the grip on his hand, but at that moment he felt a pressure.
It was impossible to turn his head. He said, “Hello,” in an ordinary voice, and found he had been so deafened that it was inaudible. He tried to lift his hand, but the acceleration of the ship was so great that it required more effort than he was able yet to exert. Then he heard Eve’s voice and he realized that she was talking very loudly: “Are you all right, Tony? Speak to me.”
He shouted back: “I’m all right. How are the children?” He could see them lying stupefied, with eyes wide open.
“It’s horrible, isn’t it?” Eve cried.
“Yes, but the worst is over. We’ll be accelerating for some time, though.”
Energy returned to him. He struggled with the bonds that held his head, and presently spoke again to Eve. She was deathly pale. He looked at the other passengers. Many of them were still unconscious, most of them only partly aware of what was happening. He tried to lift his head from the floor, but the upward pressure still overpowered him. He lay supine. Then the lights in the cabin went out and the screen was illuminated. Across one side was a glimpse of the trail which they were leaving, a bright hurtling yellow stream, but it was not that which held his attention. In the center of the screen was part of a curved disk. Tony realized that he was staring up at half of the northern hemisphere of the Earth. The disk did not yet have the lumin
ous quality that the moon used to possess. It was in a sort of hazy darkness which grew light on its eastern edge.
Tony thought he could make out the outline of Alaska on the west coast of the United States, and he saw pinpoints of light which at first he thought of as signs of human habitation, but which he presently realized must have represented vast brilliant areas. He identified them with the renewal of volcanic activity. The screen flashed. Another view appeared. Constellations of stars, such stars as he had never seen, blazing furiously in the velvet blackness of the outer sky. He realized that he was looking at the view to be had from the side of the ship. The light went out again, and a third of the four periscopes recorded its field. Again stars, but in their center and hanging away from them, as if in miraculous suspension, was a small round bright-red body which Tony recognized as Mars.
Once again Eve pressed his hand, and Tony returned the pressure.
In the control-room, Hendron still sat in the sling with his hand on the rheostat.
His eyes traveled to a meter which showed their distance from the Earth. Then they moved on to a chronometer; then for an instant, as if in concession to his human curiosity, they darted to Duquesne. Duquesne had loosened himself from his sling and was lying on the floor, unable to rise. His expression in the dim light was extremely ludicrous. He struggled feebly, like a beetle that has been turned on its back, and Hendron smiled at him and pointed to the chronometer, but Duquesne did not seem to understand his meaning.
The control-room was filled with the throb that was contained in the breeches, but Hendron could do nothing to alleviate it. He had already determined the time necessary for acceleration—one hundred and twelve minutes—and he could not shorten it. In the end, Duquesne managed to pull himself to a sitting position underneath the glass screen where he was perfectly content to sit and contemplate the heavens as they appeared in reflection from outer space.
Tony felt that he had been lying on the floor for an eternity. His strength had come back, and he realized that it would be possible to sit up, even to move about, but they had been instructed to remain on the floor until the speed of their ascent was stabilized. Minutes dragged. It was becoming possible to converse in the chamber, but few people cared to say anything. Many of them were still violently ill. Others were glad to lie motionless, and watch the screen as Duquesne was doing several decks below.
At three minutes of five, Hendron slowly moved back the handle of the rheostat, and almost abruptly conditions in the ship changed. The volume of sound radiating from the engine-room decreased. Hendron unbuckled his bonds and stepped from them. Duquesne stood up. He walked unsteadily across the floor to take the hand of Hendron.
“Magnificent! Stunning! Beautiful! Perfect! How fast do we now travel?” He was compelled to shout to make himself heard.
Hendron pointed at a meter; its indicator hovered between the figures 3,000 and 3,500.
“Miles?” the Frenchman asked.
Hendron nodded.
“Per hour?”
Hendron nodded again.
The Frenchman made his mouth into the shape required for a whistle, although no note could be heard.
Hendron operated the switch controlling the choice of periscopes. In the midst of the glass screen, the Earth now appeared as a round globe, its diameter in both directions clearly apparent. More than half of it lay in shadow, but the illuminated half was like a great relief map. The whole of the United States, part of Europe and the north polar regions, were revealed to their gaze. In wonder they regarded the world that had been their home. They could see clearly the colossal changes which had been wrought upon it. The great inland sea that occupied the Mississippi Valley sparkled in the morning sun. The myriad volcanoes which had sprung into being along the Western cordillera were for the most part hidden under a pall of smoke and clouds.
Duquesne pointed solemnly to that part of Europe that was visible. Hendron, looking at the screen for the first time, was shocked to see the disappearance of the Lowland Plain.
The Frenchman moved closer to him and shouted in his ear. “We abandoned the ship outside of Paris when we realized it was not on high enough ground. We started a new one in the Alps. I told those pigs: ‘Gentlemen, it will melt. It is but wax, I know it.’ They replied: ‘If it melts, we shall perish.’ I responded: ‘If you perish, it shall be without me.’” Suddenly the Frenchman popped out his watch. “Sapristi! The world has turned so that these fools are to leave now.” He moved his lips while he made a rapid calculation. “We shall observe, is it not so? In an hour my idiot friends will burn themselves to death. I shall laugh. I shall roar. I shall shout. It will be one grand joke. Yes, you will give me a focus upon France in this remarkable instrument of yours an hour from now, will you not?”
Hendron nodded. He signaled a command to his crew, who had been standing unbuckled from their slings, at attention. They now seated themselves.
Hendron shouted at the Frenchman: “Come on up with me. I’ll introduce you to the passengers. I’m anxious to know about them.”