I shifted another bow-plate. Then two in the stern. The stern-plates seemed to move more readily than the others. "Run all the stern-plates," Snap advised. I tried it. The lurching stopped. Miko called. "We're bow down. Falling!" But not falling free. The Moon-gravity pull upon us was more than half neutralized. "I'll go up, Snap, and try the engines. You don't mind staying down? Executing my signals?" "You idiot!" He gripped my shoulders. His eyes were gleaming, his face haggard, but his pale lips twitched with a smile. "Maybe it's good-by, Gregg. We'll fall--fighting." "Yes. Fighting. Coniston, you keep the pressure up." With the broken set-tubes it took nearly all the pressure to maintain the few plates I had shifted. One slipped back to neutral. Then the pumps gained on it, and it shifted again. I dashed up to the deck. Ah, the Moon was so close now! So horribly close! The deck shadows were still. Through the forward bow windows the Moon surface glared up at us. * * * * * I reached the turret. The _Planetara_ was steady. Pitched bow-down, half falling, half sliding like a rocket downward. The scarred surface of the Moon spread wide under us. These last horrible minutes were a blur. And there was always Anita's face. She left Miko. Faced with death, he sat clinging. Ignoring her, Moa, too, sat apart. Staring-- And Anita crept to me. "Gregg, dear one. The end...." I tried the electronic engines from the stern, setting them in the reverse. The streams of their light glowed from the stern, forward along our hull, and flared down from our bow toward the Lunar surface. But no atmosphere was here to give resistance. Perhaps the electronic streams checked our fall a little. The pumps gave us pressure, just in the last minutes, to slide a few of the hull-plates. But our bow stayed down. We slid, like a spent rocket falling. I recall the horror of that expanding Lunar surface. The maw of Archimedes yawning. A blob. Widening to a great pit. Then I saw it was to one side. Rushing upward. A phantasmagoria of uprushing crags. Black and gray. Spires tinged with Earth-light. "Gregg, dear one--good-by." Her gentle arms around me. The end of everything for us. I recall murmuring, "Not falling free, Anita. Some hull-plates are set." My dials showed another plate shifting, checking us a little further. Good old Snap. I calculated the next best plate to shift. I tried it. Slid it over. Good old Snap.... Then everything faded but the feeling of Anita's arms around me. "Gregg, dear one--" The end of everything for us.... There was an up-rush of gray-black rock. An impact.... CHAPTER XXII _The Hiss of Death_