Part 34 (1/2)
interrupted as usual the incorrigible Ardan; ”it can't be worse than hypothesis number one!”
--”Insufficient,” continued Barbican, laying down the law, ”we shall rest forever motionless on the dead point of the mutually neutralizing attractions.”
”A pleasant prospect!” observed Ardan: ”from the worst possible to no better! Isn't it, Barbican?”
”Nothing to say,” was Barbican's only reply.
”Have you nothing to say either, Captain?” asked Ardan, beginning to be a little vexed at the apparent apathy of his companions.
”Nothing whatever,” replied M'Nicholl, giving point to his words by a despairing shake of his head.
”You don't mean surely that we're going to sit here, like b.u.mps on a log, doing nothing until it will be too late to attempt anything?”
”Nothing whatever can be done,” said Barbican gloomily. ”It is vain to struggle against the impossible.”
”Impossible! Where did you get that word? I thought the American schoolboys had cut it out of their dictionaries!”
”That must have been since my time,” said Barbican smiling grimly.
”It still sticks in a few old copies anyhow,” drawled M'Nicholl drily, as he carefully wiped his gla.s.ses.
”Well! it has no business _here_!” said Ardan. ”What! A pair of live Yankees and a Frenchman, of the nineteenth century too, recoil before an old fas.h.i.+oned word that hardly scared our grandfathers!”
”What can we do?”
”Correct the movement that's now running away with us!”
”Correct it?”
”Certainly, correct it! or modify it! or clap brakes on it! or take some advantage of it that will be in our favor! What matters the exact term so you comprehend me?”
”Easy talking!”
”As easy doing!”
”Doing what? Doing how?”
”The what, and the how, is your business, not mine! What kind of an artillery man is he who can't master his bullets? The gunner who cannot command his own gun should be rammed into it head foremost himself and blown from its mouth! A nice pair of savants _you_ are! There you sit as helpless as a couple of babies, after having inveigled me--”
”Inveigled!!” cried Barbican and M'Nicholl starting to their feet in an instant; ”WHAT!!!”
”Come, come!” went on Ardan, not giving his indignant friends time to utter a syllable; ”I don't want any recrimination! I'm not the one to complain! I'll even let up a little if you consider the expression too strong! I'll even withdraw it altogether, and a.s.sert that the trip delights me! that the Projectile is a thing after my own heart! that I was never in better spirits than at the present moment! I don't complain, I only appeal to your own good sense, and call upon you with all my voice to do everything possible, so that we may go _somewhere_, since it appears we can't get to the Moon!”
”But that's exactly what we want to do ourselves, friend Ardan,” said Barbican, endeavoring to give an example of calmness to the impatient M'Nicholl; ”the only trouble is that we have not the means to do it.”
”Can't we modify the Projectile's movement?”
”No.”
”Nor diminish its velocity?”