"It was the same principle, indeed, as that of our cylindrical space-fliers. Those cylinders, generating inside themselves a powerful force-ray, shot that force-ray down against the planet upon which they were. But that force-ray striking with great pressure from the comparatively tiny cylinder to the great planet, did not move the planet, of course, with its push. It moved instead the cylinder itself, hurtling it upward from the planet because its mass was so infinitely smaller than the planet's. And it would be the same way with Triton and the sun. For Triton, sending forth the great force-ray generated upon it, toward the turning sun's edge, pressing against the sun's huge mass with colossal power, would not move the sun, would not turn it noticeably faster as we planned, but would move Triton itself out from the solar system into the void of space. Almost instantly, by that terrific push, Triton would be hurled out into the awful gulf of space, and thus by that terrific push outward would be torn loose from the attraction of the sun and its planets forever, and would by its own inertia shoot out through the interstellar void for all time! And that meant, of course, death for all the massed Neptunian races upon Triton, since in the sunless, awful void of space outside our universe, our solar system, they would at once perish! "This seemed, indeed, the difficulty, which was to make our great plan impossible. But with only that obstacle standing between us and success, we did not despair, but sought to overcome it. And at last we found a remedy for this difficulty, found a means by which it might be overcome. Triton would be pushed out into the gulf of space away from the solar system forever, when its great force-ray struck the sun's edge. But what, it was asked, if Triton were braced against the push outward of that great ray, were braced by a great force-ray of equal colossal power shooting out from it in an opposite direction against some great mass, tending in that way to push Triton _inward_ toward the sun even as the great ray striking the sun would tend to push it _outward_? The result would be, obviously, that Triton would be pushed on either side by the two opposing great force-rays with equal power, and being so pushed between them it would not move either inward or outward. And thus being immovable, being braced against the pressure of the ray shot toward the sun by the pressure of the ray shot out into the void against as great a mass, Triton's ray striking the sun's edge would, as we desired, turn that sun faster and faster, spin its huge mass faster without affecting Triton itself! For, the two great rays being so exactly balanced in power, Triton would not be affected in the least in its own positions or motions.