He made a sudden movement as though to catch himself. Forgetting the magnification of motion in frictionless space and his own weightlessness, he was shot quickly to the end of his safety line like a cracked whip. His body jerked at the taut end and then sped swiftly back in reaction toward the ship, head foremost. A collision could crack his helmet, exposing his body to decompression, causing him to swell like a balloon and finally explode. In the grip of numbing fear, only at the last moment did he have the presence of mind to flip his body in a half-cartwheel and bring his boots up in front of him for protection. His feet bumped against the rocket’s side, and the motion sent him hurtling back out to the end of the safety line again. This back-and-forth action occurred several times before he could stop completely. “I’ve got to be careful,” he panted to himself, as he thought of how close his space career had come to being ended scarcely before it had begun. General Forsythe cut in with great concern, wondering what had happened. When Marsh had explained and the general seemed satisfied that Marsh had recovered himself, he had Marsh go on with his description. His senseless fear having gone now, Marsh looked down calmly, entranced as the features of the United States passed below his gaze. He named the cities he could identify, also the mountain ranges, lakes, and rivers, explaining just how they looked from 350 miles up. In only a fraction of an hour’s time, the rocket had traversed the entire country and was approaching the twinkling phosphorescence of the Atlantic. Marsh asked if “Tom” and “Dick” had landed safely. “‘Tom’ landed near Roswell, New Mexico,” General Forsythe told him, “and the ’chute of the second section has been reported seen north of Dallas. I think you’d better start back now, Marshall. It’ll take us many months to analyze all the information we’ve gotten. We can’t contact you very well on the other side of the world either, and thirdly, I don’t want you exposed to the sun’s rays outside the atmosphere in the Eastern Hemisphere any longer than can be helped.” Marsh tugged carefully on his safety line and floated slowly back toward the ship. He entered the air lock. Then, inside, he raised the angle of his contour chair to upright position, facing the console of the ship’s manual controls for the glide Earthward. He plugged in his telemeter helmet cable and buckled one of the straps across his waist. Since he was still moving at many thousands of miles an hour, it would be suicide to plunge straight downward. He and the glider would be turned into a meteoric torch. Rather, he would have to spend considerable time soaring in and out of the atmosphere in braking ellipses until he reached much lower speed. Then the Earth’s gravitational pull would do the rest.