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.
