"I got one slight television swing a minute ago--then it faded. I think it's the _Planetara_." "_Planetara_!" The crowding group of men chorused. How could it be the _Planetara_? But it was. The call came in presently. Unmistakably the _Planetara_, turned back now from her course to Ferrok-Shahn. "How far away, Peter?" The duty man consulted the needles of his dial scale. "Close! Very weak infra-red. But close. Around thirty thousand miles, maybe. It's Snap Dean calling." The _Planetara_ here within thirty thousand miles! Excitement and pleasure swept the room. The _Planetara_ had for so long been awaited eagerly! The excitement communicated to Grantline. It was unlike him to be incautious; yet now with no thought save that some unforeseen and pleasing circumstance had brought the _Planetara_ ahead of time; incautious, Grantline certainly was! "Raise the barrage." "I'll go. My suit is here." A willing volunteer rushed out to the shed. "Can you send, Peter?" Grantline demanded. "Yes. With more power." "Use it." Johnny dictated the message of his location which we received. In his incautious excitement he ignored the secret code. An interval passed. No message had come from us--just Snap's routine signal in the weak infra-red, which we hoped Grantline would not get. The men crowding Grantline's instrument room waited in tense silence. Then Grantline tried the television again. Its current weakened the lights with the drain upon the distributors, and cooled the room with a sudden deadly chill as the Erentz insulating system slowed down. The duty man looked frightened. "You'll bulge out our walls, Commander. The internal pressure--" "We'll chance it." They picked up the image of the _Planetara_. It shone clear on the grid--the segment of star-field with a tiny cigar-shaped blob. Clear enough to be unmistakable. The _Planetara_! Here now, over the Moon, almost directly overhead, poised at what the altimeter scale showed to be a fraction under thirty thousand miles. The men gazed in awed silence. The _Planetara_ coming.... But the altimeter needle was motionless. The _Planetara_ was hanging poised. A sudden gasp went about the room. The men stood with whitening faces, gazing at the _Planetara's_ image. And at the altimeter's needle. It was moving now. The _Planetara_ was descending. But not with an orderly swoop. The grid showed the ship clearly. The bow tilted up, then dipped down. But then in a moment it swung up again. The ship turned partly over. Righted itself. Then swayed again, drunkenly. The watching men were stricken in horrified silence. The _Planetara's_ image momentarily, horribly, grew larger. Swaying. Then turning completely over, rotating slowly end over end. The _Planetara_, out of control, was falling! XXI