Eli shook his beard impatiently. "What did you expect? First it is necessary to build up a magnetic potential. Then, with this lever, I release the current through the repulsion plates." He caressed the device but refrained from demonstrating. "Naturally, I will make the first tests with utmost caution. The lever acts as a rheostat, by which the power is applied in any degree required, governing the acceleration. If I should move it to the extreme limit we would be hurled away from the earth with such violence as to crush every bone." "How about steering?" queried Marlin. "Wouldn't you be condemned to travel in a straight line from any object which the plates happened to be facing at the start?" "Do you take me for a numskull? Naturally the plates are segmented. They can be turned like a--like a--" "Like the sections of a Venetian blind," interposed DuChane. "I get you. And--er--when do you start?" Eli frowned. "I shall not delay long. All essentials are in place--the storage batteries, fully charged to furnish current for at least seven months, the dynamos, the conversion coils. First comes the trial flight. It will be brief--but sufficient to astonish the world. Then, when I have enjoyed the sight of Lamberton and those imbecile financiers groveling in the dust, I shall finish the sphere--without their assistance--and go--who knows where? To the moon, the planets--" His grandiloquent vision was interrupted by another of the periodic lurches, which caused them all to grasp for support. Overhead, the girders groaned as they accommodated themselves to a new stress. Somewhere, a heavy object fell. DuChane suddenly doubled up with mirth. "Look!" he chortled. "Oh, this is good!" Marlin followed the direction of his pointing finger. Involuntarily, he smiled. "By rights," he commented grimly, "our bones ought to be crushed to powder. Well, that settles that." * * * * * Thornboldt stared blankly at the rheostat lever. His body, flung against it by the upheaval of the sphere, had pushed it to the extreme limit which he had warned would produce dire results. "It means nothing!" he protested hollowly. "One faulty connection could make the whole thing a failure. Besides, how can you expect a lifting power that was intended for a hollow sphere to lift hundreds of tons of mud? Leave me alone. How can I work with such imbecile interruptions?" They withdrew, leaving him staring with frowning contemplation at the ineffective starting lever. "The old coot had me wondering at that," Marlin confided, as he and DuChane set about their task of installing the periscope. "I'm glad to have it settled." They worked steadily into the night, pausing only to take part in a meal concocted from the ship's stores.