surrounded by darkness , fighting this unplaceable sleepiness , gobber pushed his small frame into heavy motion and dashed to the top of the gearwheel and stepped off the slick driveshaft and jumped directly to one horizontal drivewheel after another , the discs extending in every direction without walls or ceiling , his short body turning on flat turntables , and he repeatedly faced his only means of egress in the symphony of clockwork , which was a wall of vertical wormgears , spinning by what force he did not know .