e house and test the radio," he
directed.

The door clanged shut and I hastened into the house. His voice came
plainly enough. I went back to the flier and waved him a final farewell,
which he acknowledged through a window; then I returned to the receiver.
A loud hum filled the air, and suddenly the projectile rose and flew out
through the open roof, gaining speed rapidly until it was a mere speck
in the sky. It vanished. I had no trouble in picking him up with the
telescope. In fact, I could see the Doctor through one of the windows.

"I have passed beyond the range of the atmosphere, Tom," came his voice
over the receiver, "and I find that everything is going exactly as it
should. I feel no discomfort, and my only regret is that I did not
install a transmitter in the house so that you could talk to me; but
there is no real necessity for it. I am going to make some observations
now, but I will call you again with a report of progress in
half-an-hour."

* * * * *

For the rest of the afternoon and all of that night I received his
messages regularly, but with the coming of daylight they began to fade.
By nine o'clock I could get only a word here and there. By noon I could
hear nothing. I went to sleep hoping that the night would bring better
reception, nor was I disappointed. About eight o'clock I received a
message, rather faintly, but none the less distinctly.

"I regret more than ever that I did not install a transmitter so that I
could learn from you whether you are receiving my messages," his voice
said faintly. "I have no idea of whether you can hear me or not, but I
will keep on repeating this message every hour while my battery holds
out. It is now thirty hours since I left the earth and I should be on
the moon, according to my calculations. But I am not, and never will be.
I am caught at the neutral point where the gravity of the earth and the
moon are exactly equal.

"I had relied on my momentum to carry me over this point. Once over it,
I expected to reverse my polarity and fall on the moon. My momentum did
not do so. If I keep my polarity as it was when left the earth, both the
earth and the moon repel me. If I reverse it, they both attract me, and
again I cannot move. If I had equipped my space flier with a rocket so
that I could move a few miles, or even a few feet, from the dead line, I
could proceed, but I did not do so, and I cannot move forward or back.
Apparently I