The four mutineers were thoroughly cowed, sober, now, their coarse faces drawn with fear. Suddenly Seltzsky gasped. The pocket of his coat was bulging out as though a live thing were in it! He reached down, drew out a pocket knife ... and the knife showed an amazing inclination to move toward the front of the ship! Seltzsky had all he could do to hang onto it; invisible strings seemed to be trying to tug it from his hand! The others, too, were finding key-rings, metal buckles, drawing toward the front of the ship. A cloud of instruments from the navigator's desk flew forward and plastered themselves against the front wall of the cabin! Carlson's gun popped from its holster, crashed against the wall, stuck there! "It.... It's screwy!" Kindt whimpered. "It ain't human!" "Simple!" Haller laughed unhumorously. "Magnetism! Magnetism stronger than any ever imagined! It's got the ship in its grip!" He twisted his bound hands. "Let us loose, you fools! We're all in the same boat!" With an effort Seltzsky cut the two men's bonds. A moment later as he relaxed his grip, the knife clanged against the forward wall of the cabin. At that instant, Carlson, peering through the glassex port, gave a fierce, terrified cry. Ahead and below them, weird in the light of the flaring red rockets, was a rocky rubble-strewn plain! Only an instant's glimpse of it, Haller had, before the loud, grinding crash, throwing him heavily to the floor! * * * * * It was some minutes before the stunned Haller picked himself up. The _Lodestar_ was bumping about, tossing, like a ship at sea. A scraping, crashing sound filled her hull, and the roar of the exhausts sounded like continuous thunder. Barger got unsteadily to his feet and staggered to the controls. "It ... it's a planetoid of some sort!" he muttered. "The magnetism holds us down, but the force of the rockets is grinding us forward over the rocks! It'll rip open our plates!" He made a grab for the rocket-control, but the rolling, tossing motion of the _Lodestar_ balked him, throwing him against the wall. Suddenly Haller, peering through the port, gave a cry of wonder. The blinding glare of the forward rockets, driving them in reverse across the rubbled plain, prevented him from seeing anything nearby, while further off, the darkness hung like a pall. In the distance, however, a line of light had become suddenly visible ... pale, orange light, stretching across the close horizon! Brighter and brighter it grew, as the shuddering, bumping vessel ground over the little planetoid's strangely rough surface. "What ... what is it?" Seltzsky muttered. "It's like a great fire across half of this crazy world!" His face showed fear. Haller stared, then realization gripped him. They were on the unknown world's darkside, and the line of light indicated its sunside. His face cleared.