IV. The Law of Falling (pgs B66 – B69)
Chapitre 4 La loi de chute
Capítulo 4 A lei de queda.
The captain of the ship Karnak explains to Beelzebub the law of falling.
In the year 185 by objective time calculation, Saint Venoma, in the course of his observations of cosmic laws, made a discovery which afterward became famous, and which he was the first to call the “law of falling.”
Saint Venoma formulated this cosmic law as follows: Everything existing in the world “falls to the bottom.” The “bottom” for any part of the Universe is its nearest “stability,” and this stability is the point toward which all the lines of force from all directions converge.
Saint Venoma stated further that when an object, wherever it may be, is dropped into space, it tends to fall on one or another sun or planet, depending on which sun or planet this part of space belongs to—that sun or planet being for the given region the stability, or bottom.
Starting from this, Saint Venoma, continuing his research, reasoned as follows: If this is so, could not this cosmic property be utilized for the locomotion we need between the spaces in the Universe?
And from then on he worked along that line. And as soon as a suitable vessel had been completed under his direction, he went on to practical trials.
And so, when the results of these experiments had been approved and blessed by the Commission of Inspection, under the presidency of the Archangel Adossia, the construction of a big ship on these principles was begun.
The ship was soon ready and commissioned for service. And this type of ship gradually displaced all the systems that had existed before.
It cannot be gainsaid that the ships constructed on this principle were ideal in atmosphereless spaces; yet when they approached some sun or planet it became real torture for the beings directing them, as much complicated maneuvering was necessary because of this same law of falling.
But in spite of these drawbacks, the system of Saint Venoma, as I have already said, gradually replaced al the previous ones. The ships of this system of Saint Venoma had been in existence for twenty-three years when it was first rumored that the Great Angel Hariton had invented a new type of ship for intersystem and interplanetary communication.