"
He lost no time in making the only reply which was appropriate under the
circumstances; and then he said, drawing her close to him:
"Nor I, as _you_ know, darling. This is our world, a world travelling
among worlds, and since I have been able to bring the most delightful of
the daughters of Terra with me, I, at any rate, am perfectly happy. Now,
I think it's getting on to supper time, so if your Ladyship will go to
your household duties, I'll have a look at my engines and make
everything snug for the voyage."
The first thing he did when he left the conning-tower was to
hermetically close every external opening in the ship. Then he went and
carefully inspected the apparatus for purifying the air and supplying it
with fresh oxygen from the tanks in which it was stored in liquid form.
Lastly he descended into the lower hold and turned on the energy of
repulsion to its fullest extent, at the same time stopping the engines
which had been working the propellers.
It was now no longer necessary or even possible to steer the _Astronef_.
She was directed solely by the repulsive force which would carry her
with ever-increasing swiftness, as the attraction of the earth
diminished, towards that neutral point at which the attraction of the
earth is exactly balanced by the moon. Her momentum would carry her past
this point, and then the "R.
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