Her gentle arms about 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. 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. XXII I opened my eyes to a dark blur of confusion. My shoulder hurt--a pain shooting through it. Something lay like a weight on me. I could not seem to move my left arm. Then I moved it and it hurt. I was lying twisted. I sat up. And with a rush, memory came. The crash was over. I was not dead. Anita-- She was lying beside me. There was a little light here in the silent blur--a soft mellow Earthlight filtering in the window. The weight on me was Anita. She lay sprawled, her head and shoulders half way across my lap. Not dead! Thank God, not dead! She moved. Her arms went around me, and I lifted her. The Earthlight glowed on her pale face. "It's past, Anita! We've struck, and we're still alive." I held her as though all of life's turgid dangers were powerless to touch us. But in the silence my floating senses were brought back to reality by a faint sound forcing itself upon me. A little hiss. The faintest murmuring breath like a hiss. Escaping air! I cast off Anita's clinging arms. "Anita, this is madness!" For minutes we must have been lying there in the heaven of our embrace. But air was escaping! The _Planetara's_ dome was broken and our precious air was hissing out. Full reality came to me. I was not seriously injured. I found I could move freely. I could stand. A twisted shoulder, a limp left arm, but they were better in a moment. And Anita did not seem to be hurt. Blood was upon her. But not her own. Beside Anita, stretched face down on the turret grid, was the giant figure of Miko. The blood lay in a small pool against his face. A widening pool. Moa was here. I thought her body twitched; then was still. This soundless wreckage! In the dim glow of the wrecked turret with its two motionless, broken human figures, it seemed as though Anita and I were ghouls prowling. I saw that the turret had fallen over to the _Planetara's_ deck. It lay dashed against the dome side. The deck was aslant. A litter of wreckage! A broken human figure showed--one of the crew who, at the last, must have come running up. The forward observation tower was down on the chart room roof: in its metal tangle I thought I could see the legs of the tower lookout. So this was the end of the brigands' adventure. The _Planetara's_ last voyage! How small and futile are humans' struggles. Miko's daring enterprise--so villainous--brought all in a few moments to this silent tragedy. The _Planetara_ had fallen thirty thousand miles. But why? What had happened to Hahn? And where was Coniston, down in this broken hull?