“We aren’t—invisible?”
Sitting in empty space as calmly as if he rested in a chair, the commander nodded soberly.
“Kay and I took the invisibility mechanism out of the captured ship,” he said.
“In my haste to remove it, I got it out of adjustment.
We had some difficulty in discovering the principle of it, so that we could repair it—our success is due to Kay.
“It seems to create a special sort of energy-field around objects electrically connected with it,” he explained.
“Light rays striking one side of the field are absorbed, and instantly reradiated from the other —as if they had gone straight through.”
“Then how can we see?” Bob Star asked. “If there’s no light inside?”
“That field, Kay says, has another effect.
It absorbs other vibra-tions—apparently from the infrared end of the spectrum—and reradiates them as visible light, here inside the field, for the convenience of the user.”
“That’s one danger,” the commander added softly.
“Though those slaves couldn’t see us, Kay believes that the Cometeers themselves are sensitive to the infrared.
If so, they will be able to see a shadow where we are—”
Another wave of illness swept away Bob Star’s attention.
During that fall—for to him it was a fall, through the giddy pit of some strange hell—time lost its meaning.
He settled into a passive, agonized endurance.
By turns, he opened and closed his eyes.
He watched the dizzy spinning of that remote green sun, amid the monstrous mechanisms that drove the comet.
He closed his eyes, and hung bathed in the silent eternal thunder of their power.
And his illness did not cease.
With one hand he clung to Giles Habibula, who was still sick, green-faced and groaning.
And he gripped the hand of Kay Nymi-dee.
She was silent and pale, but sometimes, when he could see her face, she smiled a little.
Time had seemed suspended.
But at last Bob Star realized that the cold green ball was drawing near, but somewhat to one side.
Jay Kalam was saying:
“Yes, we’re about to miss it.”
“Ah, so,” sighed Giles Habibula.
“And it’s my fault, Jay.
I was too slow, when we jumped.
Too weak with this mortal illness.
I dragged you all aside—”
Bob Star shut his eyes, sick with defeat.
“Flying on by,” he muttered hopelessly. “With no way to turn.”
He was amazed to hear Jay Kalam saying,
“But there is a way—at the cost of one of us.”
He whispered, “How?”
“One of us,” the commander answered, “must turn loose and kick away, so that the reaction will push us toward the globe.
We are flying like a ship in space—and one of us must be the rocket.”
“That would work!” Bob Star exclaimed eagerly.
Then dismay choked his voice to a whisper. “But he would have to let go the wire, and leave the field.
He would be visible again.
And the Cometeers—”
“Aye, Jay,” Hal Samdu was rumbling, “just tell me what to do.”
“No,” Bob Star protested quickly. “I’ll be the one—”
“Bob,” said the commander, quickly, “you must stay with us.”
He gave Hal Samdu brief directions.
And the giant crouched against the huddle of their drifting bodies, and then kicked powerfully away.
His sprawling body spun away through dim emptiness.
It seemed to flicker, oddly, as it passed the veil of invisibility.