Nearer and yet nearer. And now they were almost upon the cosmic juggernaut. At the rate at which they were traveling, if something were not done _now_--immediately!--it would be but a matter of instants before-- Gary was not surprised to hear a cry rip from the group of awed watchers. Only a certain pride had prevented _him_ from being the one to cry aloud. But it was little Dr. Anjers, cherubic face gray, who broke forth. "O'Day, turn away! It's a failure! We're going to crash! Look out--!" But in that moment came a sudden, shuddering twist. Not hard, not damaging, not shocking, but a sensation as though the _Liberty_ had plowed headlong into a mass of sponge rubber. The nose of the ship flew up, the dreadful vision in the viewpane swung suddenly out of sight--and a moment later the rock which had threatened certain death to all aboard lay far behind! Dr. Kang smiled. "You see, my friends?" O'Day said wonderingly, "It--it shunted us! Bounced us up and around it, away from it, as if we were a rubber ball!" "Exactly," said the Martian. "Our ship is encased in a sphere of electrical force through which no matter can penetrate. A yielding barrier which absorbs the shock of collision. The Bog holds no more perils for us, my friends. You may if you wish, lock your controls and pursue a set course to our destination." "Well," said Flick Muldoon. "Well, I'll be damned!" * * * * * The Bog lay a trifle more than 120,000,000 miles from Mars. Great Jupiter swung in its gigantic orbit a full 225,000,000 farther beyond. Thus a journey of more than three Earth weeks' duration lay before the space questers. Merchantmen were wont to speak of this as a dreary, tedious journey, but those aboard the _Liberty_ did not find it so. They had much with which to occupy their every waking hour. For one thing, as the final stage of their adventure beckoned closer, it seemed to definitely decide a problem up to now left dangling. That of determining into exactly which quadrant of space should they direct their flight when--and if--they were successful in gaining from the Jovian council the fourth of their needful loans. "Proxima Centauri," said Dr. Boris Anjers. "That is, of course, the goal toward which we must set our course." Gary said dubiously, "I'm not so sure. The studies of Millikin, and the later research of Marquart and Thompson Blaine would seem to indicate that cosmic rays emanate not from _that_ sector of space, but rather from the neighborhood of Sirius."[5] [Footnote 5: Early investigators were unable to discern any one particular sector of space from which the mysterious cosmic rays seemed to emanate. The painstaking research of Larson T. Marquart (2034-92 A.D.) and Thompson Blaine (2041-99) subsequently determined, however, the point of heaviest emanation as being from that sector of space in which is found the Dog Star, Sirius (Canis Major).--_Ed._]