Page Content (OCR)
SON OF THE SUN then attain speeds higher than the speed of the beam in which they lie. It can best be imagined by thinking of a surfboard riding the waves, or a canoe going with the stream. If either of these also used propelling force, they would both go faster —the one faster than the waves, the other faster than the stream—even twice as fast. But the ether has properties of its own, and thus far we see it yielding to none of our theories. “The barrier of the speed of light is caused by the tension of the ether. It cannot be broken through as easily as the sound barrier in air. “You see, Adam, the sound barrier in air is easily broken through, and speeds beyond that proceed smoothly. However, the sound barrier in water is more difficult to break through, and travel in that water faster than sound travels in it would be considerably difficult. In the case of the ether, this difficulty, which is the barrier of the speed of light, is apparently unsolvable. Nevertheless, our superiors keep at the investigation as if it were to be successful tomorrow morning. The imagination can see twice the speed of light, nay, thrice, and even a thousand times. But we have not yet attained speed equal to that of light in our material progress.” She became silent. Adam could easily cope with the facts she had just outlined, for he had previously formulated these concepts on earth. Vega had become in his eyes so charming, so deep, so soul-capturing, that he felt he was being drawn into her very bloodstream. He felt that their souls were so intermeshed that one was now but a continuation of the other. Vega stood out like a warm center amid the splendor and beauty of the ship’s interior. What he did not know was that she was the first phase of his accelerated education, sponsored by a higher civilization. What he had missed of the mating bliss of soul and mind in his thirty-eight years, these supreme someones from an ascended world were now pressing into his whole being like a transfusion of life itself. He did not yet understand such things as why she laughed so hilariously when he had asked why they could not see the 58