Paul cut in with hurried precision: "Ed--vibration, port wing, bad.
I'm going to make one more circle over the woods if I can and try for
the north end of this meadow."
A startled croak: "I'll jet off--give you room." Paul saw the squirt
of green flame. Ed's boat darted westward like a squeezed apple seed.
Paul dipped and leveled off as much as he dared. "We're--all right."
He lived with it a timeless time. Knowing it would happen. They were
circling over jungle, pointed into sunset. The jet would only make
matters worse--rip the heart out. Soon the meadow would come around
again....
But the moment was now. An end of the moaning vibration. A lurch.
Paul's hand leaped stupidly for the charlesite ignition and checked
itself.
Calm, but for the reeling of sunset. _I must tell Dorothy not to fight
the straps: L-46 is solid--is solid----_
Then the smash, the tearing and grinding. Somehow no death. Sky in the
window changed to a gloom of purple and green. No death. Elastic
branches? Metal whimpered and shrieked. _Is that us?_ They built them
solid....
There was settling into silence. The pressure on Paul's cheek, he
knew, was the wonderfully living pressure of Dorothy's hand, because
it moved, it pinched his ear, it groped for his mouth. A hiss. Through
the wrenched seams the old air of Earth yielded to the stronger weight
of Lucifer's. The starboard wing parted with a squeal like amusement,
letting the boat's body rest evenly on the ground, and Christopher
Wright said, "Amen."
2