There was a pause, a silence of a single instant, a pause in which all the universe about us seemed holding its breath, in which our rushing space-fliers were whirling up out of the great pit, in which the giant domed forts at the great pit's edge beneath us seemed held in an enchantment of stupefaction. And then as our massed space-fliers whirled thus upward over Triton's surface, as Marlin and Randall and Whitely stared downward, swaying, we saw the great metal-roofed world of Triton reeling beneath us as though from some colossal shock, saw it rushing outward from beneath us with colossal, unthinkable speed! Saw it rushing out with velocity inconceivable away from the sun, away from Neptune, away from the solar system, rushing out into the vast void of interstellar space, _hurled into the void with all the countless millions of the Neptunians upon it, hurled into the void out from the solar system never to return_! Hurled into the void, we four knew even as we watched it whirl away from beneath us, by the pressure of its own colossal sun-ray, that continued to emanate from it! For that giant ray which the Neptunians had directed toward the sun had pushed back upon Triton with pressure inconceivable, even as we had known, and it had been only the other ray radiating out toward Sagittarius' distant star that had braced Triton thus against the sun-ray's unthinkable outward pressure! And with our halting of that immense other ray, with our halting of that bracing ray, the moment that saw its connection of bracing force or pressure broken between Triton and that distant star saw Triton hurled out instantly by the pressure of its own giant sun-ray against the sun, that awful outward pressure breaking the moon-world loose instantly from the hold of great Neptune, its parent planet, from all the solar system, hurling it out from the solar system's edge into the boundless outer void forever! Marlin--Whitely--Randall--myself--as we reeled there at the window watching, as our space-fliers whirled up and outward from Triton even as it shot outward from beneath us, we saw its gleaming sphere swiftly diminishing as it hurtled out in the great void, saw that it was spinning as it shot outward from the impetus of that gigantic push, that the great sun-ray issuing from it was whirling with its spinning now! And then as its gleaming sphere shot out into the void away from us, away from great Neptune behind us, away from the solar system's edge, shooting out into the cold and sunless outer void and bearing upon it all the Neptunian hordes to death, Marlin flung out his hand toward its diminishing gleaming little sphere in the black void before us, was crying out to it as though to the Neptunian millions upon it as it shot out, never to return. "You of Neptune or we of Earth!" he cried. "One had to go to death--to doom! You fought for Neptune and your races as we fought for Earth and the solar system--but Earth and the solar system win!"