"But you can form a few hypotheses?"
"Yes, two!"
"Let us have them."
"The velocity will be either sufficient to carry us past the dead point,
or it will not: sufficient, we shall keep on, just as we are now,
gravitating forever around the Moon--"
--"Hypothesis number two will have at least one point in its favor,"
interrupted as usual the incorrigible Ardan; "it can't be worse than
hypothesis number one!"
--"Insufficient," continued Barbican, laying down the law, "we shall
rest forever motionless on the dead point of the mutually neutralizing
attractions."
"A pleasant prospect!" observed Ardan: "from the worst possible to no
better! Isn't it, Barbican?"
"Nothing to say," was Barbican's only reply.
"Have you nothing to say either, Captain?" asked Ardan, beginning to be
a little vexed at the apparent apathy of his companions.
"Nothing whatever," replied M'Nicholl, giving point to his words by a
despairing shake of his head.
"You don't mean surely that we're going to sit here, like bumps on a
log, doing nothing until it will be too late to attempt anything?"
"Nothing whatever can be done," said Barbican gloomily. "It is vain to
struggle against the impossible.
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