"We're falling, some. I could move us out into a self-sustaining orbit
by using more of the reaction mass. We have none to waste. Jensen's
death eleven years ago----" Spearman shook his gaunt but heavy head.
"Thirty pre-calculated accelerations--and the rest periods they
allowed us were insufficient, I think. You remember what wrecks we
were when it was finished; that's why I tried to allow more time in
deceleration." His brassy voice slowed, fetching out words with care:
"The last acceleration, as you know, was not pre-calculated. Jensen
was already dead (must have been heart) when his hand took us out of
automatic, made another acceleration that damn near flattened us----"
"Still here though." Sears Oliphant chuckled and patted his middle.
"We made it, didn't we, boy?" It sounded a little forced.
"In deceleration I had to allow for the big step Jensen never meant;
more of the mass was used to correct a deflection. Same allowance must
be made in returning, not to mention the biggest drain of all--getting
out of gravity here, a problem not present at the spaceport. Oh, it's
planned for--she's built to do it, even from a heavier planet than
this. But after she's done it the margin for return will be--narrower
than I care to think."
Dorothy, small and soft, leaned back in Paul's arms. Her even voice
was for everyone in the control room: "Nevertheless we'll go down."
Spearman gazed across at her without apparent comprehension. He went
on, deliberate, harassed: "Here's a thing I never told you. In that
accidental acceleration the ship did not respond normally: the
deflection happened then, and it may have been due to a defect in the
building of _Argo_, a fault in the tail jets. At the time, it was all
I could do to reach Jensen before I blacked out--I still don't know
how I ever managed it. Later I tried to think there could be no
defect. The forward jets took care of us nicely in deceleration. Until
we start braking, we can't know. Indicators _say_ everything's all
right down there. Instruments can lie. Lord, they've sweated out
atomic motors since before 1960, almost a century now--and we're still
kids playing with grown-up toys."
Sears smiled into plump hands. "So I must be sure to pack my
microscope in one of the lifeboats--hey?"
"You're for landing, then."
Sears nodded. Ann Bryan thrust thin ivory fingers into her loose black
hair. "_I_ couldn't take another eleven years." She attempted a smile.
"Tell me, somebody--tell me there'll be music on Lucifer--a way to
make new strings for my violin before I forget everything...."
Dorothy said, "Land." Gently, as one might say time for lunch. And she
added: "We'll find strings, Nan."
"Land, of course," said Christopher Wright, preoccupied; his long
finger tapped on the photograph; his lips went on moving silently,
carrying through some private meditation. "Land. Give protoplasm a
chance."
"Land," Paul Mason said. _Did anyone suppose the First Interstellar
would just turn around and go home? We're here, aren't we...?_
Through hours when spoken words were few, inner words riotous, Lucifer
turned an evening face. A morning descent might have been pleasanter
in human terms, but the calculator, churning its mathematical brew,
said the time was now.
Paul Mason squirmed into his pilot's seat. It was good, he thought,
that they could at least meet the challenge of the unexplored with
adequate bodies. Wright was dryly indestructible; Ed Spearman a gaunt
monolith; the plumpness of Sears Oliphant had nothing flabby. The
women were in the warm vigor of a youth that had never known illness.
As for his own body, Paul felt for it now a twinge of amused
admiration, as if he were seeing an animated statue by an artist
better than himself: slender, tough, nothing too much, built for
endurance and speed--it would serve. Spearman was already talking in
the earphones: "Close lock. Retract shield." Paul responded from
ingrained training. Beyond the window that would give him forward
vision in the (impossible) event he had to fly the lifeboat, the
heavens opened. Withdrawal of the shield into the belly of the mother
ship _Argo_ was a dream motion within a wider dream. Dorothy and
Wright were strapped in the two seats behind him: half of _Argo's_
human treasure was here. "Go over what you do if you have to drive
off. Over."
"Lever for release. No action till wing-lock indicator is green. No
jet unless to correct position. In atmosphere handle as glider, jet
only in emergency. Over." After all, Paul considered, he had had a
thousand hours of atmospheric flying, and two years' drill on these
boats. Ed could worry less and save wind. Beautiful mechanisms in
their own right, Model L-46, lying eleven years secret but alert in
the streamlined blisters, powered by charlesite to avoid the ponderous
shielding still necessary for atomic motors--and charlesite, perfected
only thirty years ago in 2026, was obedient stuff. In space, the boats
were small rocket ships; in atmosphere, gliders or low-speed jet
planes. While _Argo_ had been in the long ordeal of building, Paul had
been shot from gleaming tubes like this into the atmosphere of Earth,
the blind depth at the spaceport, the desolate thin air of Mars.
Spearman said, "Turning in five minutes."
In the port lifeboat Ann and Sears would be waiting, but that lock
would be open, for Ed must be in the control room. If they had to
abandon ship (ridiculous!) Ed's boat would be many moments behind.