Part 6 (1/2)

”He knew a little, you know--in an irregular sort of way.”

”Precisely what I am told,” said Cavor.

I a.s.sisted him to screw in the gla.s.s cover of the manhole, and then he pressed a stud to close the corresponding blind in the outer case. The little oblong of twilight vanished. We were in darkness. For a time neither of us spoke. Although our case would not be impervious to sound, everything was very still. I perceived there was nothing to grip when the shock of our start should come, and I realised that I should be uncomfortable for want of a chair.

”Why have we no chairs?” I asked.

”I've settled all that,” said Cavor. ”We won't need them.”

”Why not?”

”You will see,” he said, in the tone of a man who refuses to talk.

I became silent. Suddenly it had come to me clear and vivid that I was a fool to be inside that sphere. Even now, I asked myself, is to too late to withdraw? The world outside the sphere, I knew, would be cold and inhospitable enough for me--for weeks I had been living on subsidies from Cavor--but after all, would it be as cold as the infinite zero, as inhospitable as empty s.p.a.ce? If it had not been for the appearance of cowardice, I believe that even then I should have made him let me out. But I hesitated on that score, and hesitated, and grew fretful and angry, and the time pa.s.sed.

There came a little jerk, a noise like champagne being uncorked in another room, and a faint whistling sound. For just one instant I had a sense of enormous tension, a transient conviction that my feet were pressing downward with a force of countless tons. It lasted for an infinitesimal time.

But it stirred me to action. ”Cavor!” I said into the darkness, ”my nerve's in rags. I don't think--”

I stopped. He made no answer.

”Confound it!” I cried; ”I'm a fool! What business have I here? I'm not coming, Cavor. The thing's too risky. I'm getting out.”

”You can't,” he said.

”Can't! We'll soon see about that!”

He made no answer for ten seconds. ”It's too late for us to quarrel now, Bedford,” he said. ”That little jerk was the start. Already we are flying as swiftly as a bullet up into the gulf of s.p.a.ce.”

”I--” I said, and then it didn't seem to matter what happened. For a time I was, as it were, stunned; I had nothing to say. It was just as if I had never heard of this idea of leaving the world before. Then I perceived an unaccountable change in my bodily sensations. It was a feeling of lightness, of unreality. Coupled with that was a queer sensation in the head, an apoplectic effect almost, and a thumping of blood vessels at the ears. Neither of these feelings diminished as time went on, but at last I got so used to them that I experienced no inconvenience.

I heard a click, and a little glow lamp came into being.

I saw Cavor's face, as white as I felt my own to be. We regarded one another in silence. The transparent blackness of the gla.s.s behind him made him seem as though he floated in a void.

”Well, we're committed,” I said at last.

”Yes,” he said, ”we're committed.”

”Don't move,” he exclaimed, at some suggestion of a gesture. ”Let your muscles keep quite lax--as if you were in bed. We are in a little universe of our own. Look at those things!”

He pointed to the loose cases and bundles that had been lying on the blankets in the bottom of the sphere. I was astonished to see that they were floating now nearly a foot from the spherical wall. Then I saw from his shadow that Cavor was no longer leaning against the gla.s.s. I thrust out my hand behind me, and found that I too was suspended in s.p.a.ce, clear of the gla.s.s.

I did not cry out nor gesticulate, but fear came upon me. It was like being held and lifted by something--you know not what. The mere touch of my hand against the gla.s.s moved me rapidly. I understood what had happened, but that did not prevent my being afraid. We were cut off from all exterior gravitation, only the attraction of objects within our sphere had effect. Consequently everything that was not fixed to the gla.s.s was falling--slowly because of the slightness of our ma.s.ses--towards the centre of gravity of our little world, which seemed to be somewhere about the middle of the sphere, but rather nearer to myself than Cavor, on account of my greater weight.

”We must turn round,” said Cavor, ”and float back to back, with the things between us.”

It was the strangest sensation conceivable, floating thus loosely in s.p.a.ce, at first indeed horribly strange, and when the horror pa.s.sed, not disagreeable at all, exceeding restful; indeed, the nearest thing in earthly experience to it that I know is lying on a very thick, soft feather bed. But the quality of utter detachment and independence! I had not reckoned on things like this. I had expected a violent jerk at starting, a giddy sense of speed. Instead I felt--as if I were disembodied. It was not like the beginning of a journey; it was like the beginning of a dream.