He hit the control panel with both hands; flipped the warm-up switch and the low-drive at the same time. It would be a ragged take-off, with the ship rising as the driving generators warmed up instead of taking off with a hot drive. He waited with one hand on the high drive switch, waited and waited and waited. Another shot pinged against the hull, one glanced from the view-dome but it was at such an angle that it merely nicked the ultra-hard glass but did not crack it. It sang off high into the air. Stacey and Morrow came into the control room, panting, and half-carrying Nora between them. "What are we waiting for?" snapped Stacey. "Getting up steam." "What is this, a Stanley Steamer?" "Just takes as long," grunted Paul. Then the low drive took hold. The ship lifted uncertainly, awkwardly, quaveringly, and slowly. Not the quick rush-upwards of the well-prepared ship. But as the seconds passed the ship steadied, the controls got less mushy, and the drive became more certain. A light flashed in through the port, their erstwhile jailers had aimed a spotlight on the ship, and with the light there came the pattering of gunshot. A flat bark came from below and Paul braced himself for the impact that did not come. A miss! Then he snapped the high drive and the floor leaped upward under them. Chair cushions flattened, and then filled out again as the hydraulic compensators went to work. Behind them the planet diminished in size visibly, and then, at once, the viewport just became black and featureless outside. Paul leaned back in the pilot's chair. "Wow!" he yelped. "Made it!" said Stacey. Paul got up and went over to Nora. "I wasn't running away from you," he said plaintively. "It takes time to get the door open--" "I forgive you," said Nora with a smile. * * * * * Back below them, Westlake said: "You're sure you missed?" "I'm a master gunner," said the other. "It takes a good gunner to miss a ship that big when it is that close. I missed all right." Westlake smiled. "We sure made that look good. But God what a job of timing! I thought we were going to have to blow out a tire to keep from catching them!" CHAPTER 15 Once in space and safely away--Paul gloated that the former captors were without spacecraft now--he stopped the flight of the ship and spent a couple of hours making some course-calculations. The return to Latham's Triplets was jerky because he was uncertain of the distance and so they made it in five approximations, ending up finally with only a few hours to go for landing. Paul's first interest was his laboratory set-up. There had been plenty of time for the three-way hookup to be established, and for all he knew the boys he had set to checking it might have completed the connection, proved in the Z-wave, and gone home to Neoterra with the glad news in their hands.