"Our velocity was more than proportionately increased. To demonstrate that mathematically would be intricate--would involve several very complicated formulas, which would not interest you now. . . We passed, distantly, a score or more of starry universes--to the sides, and above and below us--lying in every plane; and of every size and general extent. Some were small, a few thousand light-years like our own. Others immense; one which seemed 500,000 light-years at least in diameter. "We reached ultimately a maximum velocity of about 90,000 light-years an hour. We had previously gone 150,000 light-years from earth. We traveled some eighty additional hours, not all at the maximum--for possibly half that time we were steadily accelerating. And at a total of 4,750,000 light-years from the earth, a faint glow of seeming phosphorescence showed in the blackness beneath us. "There was a universe to one side, ahead of us. But this was a different light. A radiation from the Inner Surface itself. The Inner Surface of the hollow little atom within which all this Space and its infinitesimal whirling electrons is contained. They are immense suns, to us here on earth, but from the larger viewpoint they were mere electrons, whirling, flashing around in tiny orbits a thousand times a second. "The girl and her realm, as we had thought, are on this Inner Surface of what we may choose to call an atom. Themselves--this girl and her people--are infinitesimal. This atom of ours is merely some tiny particle of matter in that other world from which the giant and the gnomes had descended. A tiny particle of matter. Call it a grain of sand, lying with trillions of its fellows upon some great ocean beach--lying there in the light of stars shining in infinite Space above it. Lying there for a single starlit night which is all eternity for us. A single starlit night--an eternity! Infinity, of Space and Time? Why, even now I have seen no more than an infinitesimal fragment of them! . . . . "The giant and gnomes were doubtless normally of the same size--only momentarily did they happen to be different. . . . Wait, Frannie, please! I can't tell it to you any faster. . . . The Inner Surface became visible to our telescopes at about 4,900,000 light-years. A realm of land and water. Vegetation. Strange of aspect, yet normal too. It stretched beneath us in every direction--a huge concave surface. "We kept our size, but using the repellent force of this Inner Surface, I gradually cut down our velocity. Down more and more until that last light-year or so took us a week to traverse. The girl, Father, is approximately 5,000,000 light-years from here. We--our earth--may be near the center of the void. I don't know. Perhaps we are much nearer the girl's side. It isn't important . . . "The Inner Surface at last lay close beneath us. It took us an additional week of diminishing velocity to reach its atmosphere. I was cautious; I had the velocity under control always."