Herb thought first of the bomb site. The chill desert night would be
fresh upon it. Overhead, the pale moon would ride toward the terrible
Apocalypse of dawn--if Bud waited until then to make his phone call.
In a few hours (he thought) he could bring the spider ship down upon
the desert. The long dark night beyond would give him time....
He visualized the scene as he remembered it from TV: the single sentry
shack where an Army guard protected the alien handiwork.
"I'll talk to them when we land. I'll explain about Bud. They'll find
him and keep him away from the telephone. They'll tell long distance
operators not to place any calls until they can find him. All I need is
a few hours to convince someone that Bud, that Bud...."
Norma was in his arms, shaking hysterically. "He ... he did that to
_Frank_. Bud did that!"
"We've got to hurry," Herb said.
She shivered against him. Gently he disengaged himself.
"In an hour, now...." he said. His hand rested on the forward firing
stud.
Rested and withdrew.
"What's wrong?" Norma asked.
"The fuel. I haven't got enough left to brake the ship, to turn it, and
then land against Earth gravity."
"No," Norma said. "No! That can't be right!"
* * * * *
Herb re-sorted the information available from the dials, seeking a
method to defy the dictates of inertia. Once more he weighed the
remaining fuel against that necessary to brake and turn the ship, and
still there was none left over to counteract Earth's gravity and the
long planetfall. He projected trajectories.
"Maybe I can throw the ship in a long orbit," he said. "If I can kill
the speed against the atmosphere...."
"Can you do it?"
Herb's hands eased fuel into the forward port jet and sparked it. "I'm
tilting for the orbit."
The gauge dropped alarmingly, and as momentum changed, the center of
gravity shifted. The ship nosed up and fell sideways and slipped away
to the right.
Norma held her breath, afraid to interrupt even with encouragement.
"It's an ellipse," Herb said. "It's a long fall now, but I'm afraid to
make it shorter." He set the controls.
"How long will it take?" Norma asked.
"I'll have to make half a dozen bounces. The first one won't be for
nearly six hours.... We won't be able to land until sunup."
Norma bit her lip. "But that's...."
"We won't have much time. We'll have to try to get to Bud ourselves."
* * * * *
When the time came, he turned to her. "I've got to hit the atmosphere
now. We'll have to strap down."
Numb with tension, she sat in one of the shock-chairs and buckled
herself in. Then, in his chair before the panel, Herb adjusted the
buckles and waited the few remaining minutes. "This will be the worst,"
he said.
The ship hit the upper gases--gases, made by speed into an iron
curtain; and as the air clawed at the strange shape of the ship,
and as the interior cooling system whined into overdrive, he fought
against wild, erratic movements, firing precious fuel to brake and
stabilize.... And then they were free, and shooting away along a
shortened and slower ellipse.
Finally they were well into the atmosphere, but they were very high,
too high to be more than a speck, so high that the sound spread too
thinly to be heard on the surface.
"I'll set down outside Washington," Herb said. "Somewhere outside,
where we can get away from the ship before they get there to start
asking questions."
He released his blast, and the ship turned nose up. Gravity became
heavier. The ship plummeted down.
"Here's the last of the jets," Herb hissed, and he eased them in,
slowing the fall, slowing it....
Down the ship came.
The Earth expanded and a fantastically fast painter seemed to be
sketching in the details of the landscape.
The sun was cut off by the horizon. A few lights sparkled in slowly
waking Washington.
The jets sputtered, and the ship slipped; the jets caught, sputtered,
and died.
Herb slammed on the low lift controls. The aerodynamically designed
platform-like wings spun and hissed against the air. For a long moment,
Herb was afraid they would not brake the fall, but the lifts caught,
and the ship jerked, and Herb felt the buoyancy through the ship and
through his mind and through his body.