The Angry Planet by John Keir Cross Read Free Book Online

tongue seemed to be
waving freely in my mouth like a little fluttering flag and my lips were loose
and flaccid and quite uncontrollable. In a few seconds this attack lessened and
I was able to say something, although it was with the utmost difficulty at
first that I was able to articulate.
    “Mac,” I cried, “this is incredible! This odd sort of
throbbing—I’ve never experienced a sensation like this before.”
    “It’ll pass in a moment,” he called back. “You’ll soon
adjust yourself. It’s the heart—it’s been used to pumping blood all over you—a
considerable weight in blood: and now all of a sudden your blood doesn’t weigh
anything at all. Your poor old heart is just a little bit bewildered, that’s
all!”
    He chuckled. He was in the highest spirits—it was
obvious that the Albatross’s performance was exceeding all his
expectations. He stood with his feet firmly dug into a pair of the floor-straps,
examining the scores of dials on the control panel.
    “I’d hate to tell you the speed we’re traveling at,
Steve,” he cried. “Faster than any human beings have ever traveled before! In a
few hours we’ll be able to see the earth as a globe, man! Think of it—as a globe! ”
    I grinned at him. I caught the infection of his
enthusiasm. I raised my hand to wave at him cheerily, and then suddenly had to
burst out laughing. I had meant to raise it to my forehead in a sort of mock
salute—instead, without my being able to control it at all, it shot right up
above my head as far as it would go—and hung there, like something that was no
part of me at all, wavering slightly in the air. I hauled it down. For a moment
or two I stood there, practicing muscular control. I found that in a very short
time I could adjust my muscular exertions, so that I could move my completely
weightless fingers, arms, hands, and so on, in a reasonably normal way. By now
my head had cleared, and the throbbing of my heart had stopped—I felt fine:
elated, a little light-headed, as if I had just had a glass of champagne.
    “Another few seconds and I shut off the motors,” said
the Doctor. “We have almost all the speed we need now, and we’re well clear of
the atmosphere. I say, Steve, could you go over and fetch me a pair of those
boots from the locker?”
    I was just moving across the cabin when, all of a
sudden, and to our intense surprise, we heard the sound of hammering coming
from behind the door of one of our small store closets at the back of the
cabin. And, incredibly, there came to our ears very thin and muffled voices.
    “Uncle Steve,” they called, “Uncle Steve! Let us out,
let us out!”
    I stared at Mac and he stared at me. Even as I moved
clumsily across the cabin to the door in my magnetic boots, a horrible
suspicion was forming in my mind.
    I had almost reached the door when it suddenly wafted
open (it was weightless, like everything else, and its movement can best be
described as like the movement in a slow motion film). And I had the strangest
surprise of my life.
    Out of the open doorway floated—literally floated!—the
three children I had made such elaborate plans to dispose of to my cousin in
Glasgow! They were white and shaken—that much I could see as they drifted past
me. Their eyes had a dazed look. They moved their arms and legs in a stupid,
drunken sort of way. And all the time they floated and bounced about the cabin
like little balloons. For a moment one of them would rest on the floor or against
one of the walls—then, at a slight involuntary muscular movement, they would
shoot off at an angle and bump gently on the ceiling. They were yelling and
calling me to catch them and hold them. It was a grotesque, an idiotic sight!
    “Good Lord!” I yelled. “Mike—Jacky—Paul!—what in the
name of all that’s wonderful are you doing here?”
    “We didn’t mean it,” shouted Mike from the ceiling. “We
only came in to explore. We’d no idea you were going to—ouch!”
    This