"I don't know the gravity," Borden told him. "But it does take time to
fall four hundred miles. We have some velocity, too. It's under orbital
speed but it'll help. I'm going to figure something out."
He swung in the control-chair and hit keys on the computer. The size of
the white spot. It had all turned silvery, then all of it had flamed.
Why? The amount of power in the heat-ray--a rough guess. Nobody could
have figures on what a ship's tanks would yield on short-circuit, but
the field had had to neutralize some hundreds of megawatts of pure heat.
The amount of overlap--the size of the heat-ray itself--was another
guess and a wild one. And why had all of the white spot spat flame?
Every bit of it? Three hundred miles by an average of sixty.... Even at
low power--
The computer clicked.
"Sun-power," Borden said grimly, after a moment. "That figures out just
about right. Not more than a kilowatt to the square yard, but eighteen
thousand square miles has plenty of square yards! We've been on the
receiving end of a sun-mirror heat-ray, and if it had been accurately
figured we'd have fried." Then he said, "But a sun-mirror doesn't work
at night!"
He punched keys again. Presently he looked at his wrist-chronometer. He
waited.
"We're falling!" Sattell cried shrilly. "Do something!"
"Forty seconds more," said Borden. "I'm gambling your life, Sattell,
but I'm gambling Ellen's and mine too, not to mention Jerry's. Calm
down."
His eyes turned to the meter that showed the feed-back-field drain.
It was drawing precisely the amount of power needed to cancel out
the sunlight falling on it, as well as the starlight, and the light
reflected from the day side of the world below them. That drain was
less than it had been. They were crossing the planet's terminator--the
line dividing the light side from the dark side--as they plunged toward
the sandy deserts.
* * * * *
The drain dropped abruptly. They had moved into the planet's shadow.
Into night.
Instantly, Borden flicked off the feed-back field. His eyes darted to
the nearest object radar dial. They were still sixty miles high, but
falling at a tremendous speed. Borden's hands moved quickly over the
controls. Lift. Full atmosphere drive on a new course.
"We won't crash," he said evenly, "unless we're shot at with something
that works in the dark. But that sun-mirror business is odd. There's
only a certain size of sun-mirror that's economical. When they get too
big there are better weapons for the money. That one was big! So maybe
it's the best weapon this planet has. In which case we'll be nearest
safety at one of the ice-caps. Sun-mirrors will be handicapped in polar
regions!"
"They--tried to kill us!" Sattell panted suddenly. "They don't like
strangers! They fired on us without warning! We can't land on this
planet! We've got to go on!"
"If you want to know," Borden told him, "we haven't any fuel to go on
with. And we happen to be short of food. And did you remember--"
The ship's drive cut off. It had been burnt out and repaired by hand,
with inevitable drawbacks. Since the repair, it had run steadily for as
long as three days at a time. But also it had stopped four times in one
hour, and it had needed tinkering with three times in one day.
It ought to be overhauled. For now it had cut off, and they were forty
miles high. If it came on again they would live; if it didn't, they
wouldn't.
After six spine-chilling seconds the drive came on again. Ten minutes
later it went off for two seconds. Half an hour later it made that
ominous hiccoughing which presaged immediate and final failure. But it
didn't fail.
It was not pleasant to be so close to a planet they could not afford
to leave, with a drive that threatened to give up the ghost at any
instant, and with something on the planet which had used a sun-mirror
beam to try to volatilize the _Danaë_ without parley. Apparently the
four in the small ship had the choice of dying on this planet or not
too far away in space.
They needed food, and they needed fuel. Above all, if the planet was
inhabited, they needed friendship, and they weren't likely to get it.
They were only ten miles high when signs of dawn appeared ahead. Of
course, if they happened to be moving with the planet's rotation,
they'd be moving into sunset from the night. They didn't know. Not yet.
But there were gray clouds ahead, to the right and below.
A little later they were five miles high and the clouds were still
below. There was twilight ahead. At two miles altitude the drive
hesitated for a moment, and caught again after all four in the
control room had stopped breathing.
Red sunlight appeared before the ship in a spreading, sprawling thin
line. At five thousand feet the ship had slowed to a bare crawl--a few
hundred miles an hour.
And the dawn came up like thunder.