Each man had gone over the details of what he was to do. Each man had told himself that there was no end to this trip except death, yet each man hoped that in some way he could avoid the final disaster. If there were only some way a space ship could be landed without fuel! "It's no use," Captain Bonnet said. "Up to the end of the Twentieth Century, when all problems dealing with space navigation were worked out, excepting space flight itself, all of the experts agreed that there was no practical way of landing a space ship. It wasn't until the Twenty-first Century that the spiral landing orbit was discovered and it took another century to discover the Rippler force method of landing a ship intact." "At least the Rippler method's out," Lieutenant Riley said dryly. "We'd have to have fifty gallons of fuel to land a fourteen-valve lifeboat on its rocket jets." "Even the spiral landing orbit would require twenty-five gallons," Captain Bonnet pointed out. "Both methods are out. We've got about two gallons of rocket fuel in the tank and we'll need most of it in the cooling system to keep us from burning up until we can drop the message." Hours ticked swiftly away as the space ship moved closer to the earth. The craft had reached the middle of its course, where terrestrial and Venusian gravities neutralized, with speed to spare. From now on it would accelerate slowly under the pull of the earth's attraction and it could be expected to enter the earth's atmosphere at a speed greater than 200 miles a second. The entire trip from Venus to the earth would take about 72 hours. The job of decelerating from 200 miles a second to less than ten would be taken care of in the 1,000 miles of atmosphere lying above the earth. It could be accomplished with no more discomfort than a passenger in a car experiences in a sudden stop. But the last ten miles per second deceleration would mean the overcoming of the force of gravity itself. Captain Bonnet considered the danger of the moon interfering with the ship's flight to earth. He discovered, to his relief, that the moon was out of the way, on the opposite side of the earth. At least he would not have to use precious fuel to keep the craft from landing on the moon. He checked the cooling apparatus. It seemed in perfect working condition and should keep the two passengers from roasting alive until the ship crashed. At least this was a comfort. Lieutenant Riley, who had been sleeping, opened his eyes. "Say, Paul, I've an idea!" "Yeah? Spill it." "Why couldn't we keep the ship in an orbit outside the earth's atmosphere until it is sighted by telescope?"