"The fuel. I haven't got enough left to brake the ship, to turn it, and then land against Earth gravity." "No," Norma said. "No! That can't be right!" * * * * * Herb re-sorted the information available from the dials, seeking a method to defy the dictates of inertia. Once more he weighed the remaining fuel against that necessary to brake and turn the ship, and still there was none left over to counteract Earth's gravity and the long planetfall. He projected trajectories. "Maybe I can throw the ship in a long orbit," he said. "If I can kill the speed against the atmosphere...." "Can you do it?" Herb's hands eased fuel into the forward port jet and sparked it. "I'm tilting for the orbit." The gauge dropped alarmingly, and as momentum changed, the center of gravity shifted. The ship nosed up and fell sideways and slipped away to the right. Norma held her breath, afraid to interrupt even with encouragement. "It's an ellipse," Herb said. "It's a long fall now, but I'm afraid to make it shorter." He set the controls. "How long will it take?" Norma asked. "I'll have to make half a dozen bounces. The first one won't be for nearly six hours.... We won't be able to land until sunup." Norma bit her lip. "But that's...." "We won't have much time. We'll have to try to get to Bud ourselves." * * * * * When the time came, he turned to her. "I've got to hit the atmosphere now. We'll have to strap down." Numb with tension, she sat in one of the shock-chairs and buckled herself in. Then, in his chair before the panel, Herb adjusted the buckles and waited the few remaining minutes. "This will be the worst," he said. The ship hit the upper gases--gases, made by speed into an iron curtain; and as the air clawed at the strange shape of the ship, and as the interior cooling system whined into overdrive, he fought against wild, erratic movements, firing precious fuel to brake and stabilize.... And then they were free, and shooting away along a shortened and slower ellipse. Finally they were well into the atmosphere, but they were very high, too high to be more than a speck, so high that the sound spread too thinly to be heard on the surface. "I'll set down outside Washington," Herb said. "Somewhere outside, where we can get away from the ship before they get there to start asking questions." He released his blast, and the ship turned nose up. Gravity became heavier. The ship plummeted down. "Here's the last of the jets," Herb hissed, and he eased them in, slowing the fall, slowing it.... Down the ship came. The Earth expanded and a fantastically fast painter seemed to be sketching in the details of the landscape. The sun was cut off by the horizon. A few lights sparkled in slowly waking Washington. The jets sputtered, and the ship slipped; the jets caught, sputtered, and died.