nything, my bones would certainly have been broken by the concussion.
My arm and shoulder did not recover from the stinging and deadening
sensation for some time. I noted the little peg I had pulled out hanging
by its spiral spring just above the hole it had filled. It would be
worth my life to remove the other nine in the same way.

Besides, how would I know when the time came to remove them? My eyes
fell upon the two large leaden balls suspended from short copper
chains. I had seen these before, but now I thought I understood them.
They would swing whichever way gravity attracted. They hung down toward
my compartment now, and if we ever passed the dead line, they would hang
forward toward Mars. But in the neutral point what would they do? When
the gravity of planets neutralized each other, the steel of the
projectile would repel these balls towards its centre, which would tend
to put them both in the same spot and thus bring them together.
Moreover, they would slightly attract each other. Yes, it was quite
certain that these had been devised as a Gravity Indicator, and they
would tell me when we were approaching a dead line, when we were in it,
and when it was safely passed. But all that would do me but little good
unless I could manage the currents.

I sat thinking this over a long time, when it suddenly occurred to me
that the doctor would recognise, even in his delirium, the importance of
action when these two balls came together. As soon as they had
approached each other, I must lift him up and show them to him. The
brain that had made them would know their meaning, and know how to act
even in illness! Perhaps I was like a drowning man clutching at a straw;
but from the moment I thought of this I believed firmly that the
solution of the whole problem would come in this manner. My hopes were
ready to hang on the slightest peg. It consoled me to remember some
instances where men temporarily insane had been brought to consciousness
by impending danger, or by the sight of what last weighed upon their
mind.

When I glanced at the balls next, I saw that their chains lacked an inch
of being parallel. They were already moving slowly inward toward each
other. I noted that the chains, which ran through the balls and were
connected with a small copper plate on the bottom of each, were just
long enough to allow the bottom edges to touch, if they were drawn as
far toward each other as possible.

The doctor's fever was at i