The acceleration needle dropped with agonizing slowness. Four gravities, three point seven. The altimeter said one hundred thousand feet, then ninety thousand, eighty, seventy-five. Three point five gravities. Three point three. Even three at last. Fifty thousand feet, forty-five, forty-two, forty thousand. Two point six gravities. Thirty-five thousand. Two. One point nine. Point eight, seven, six, five. Twenty-three thousand. One gravity. And the ship was hovering balanced by her gyros, at twenty-one thousand feet above boundless reaches of Venusian sea. Gingerly, Doug pressed the top of the panel, released the top button. There was a sickening drop as from somewhere deep inside the ship new sets of engines rumbled automatically to life as her nose came down, her belly-jets belching, breaking the drop on their cushion of power. And again the craft hovered, but now horizontally. Tayne's corpse tumbled grotesquely off the bulkhead to the deck, made Doug miss his footing, and he fell. But nothing happened. The panel, without pressure, had returned automatically to zero setting, and the belly-jets held steady. Swiftly then, cursing himself for his awkwardness, Doug tore at Tayne's cloak, the blood-soaked tunic beneath it. Somewhere he must have it--logically, he must have it. Something crackled. Doug smeared stinging sweat from his eyes as he bent closer, found the neatly-hidden pocket, thrust a hand inside. It was hard to keep the thin, bound packet of wide plastisheets steady. Clumsily, he flicked to blank pages of Tayne's unused record tablet. In those he had examined at his office the campaign maps had been in the back. And he found them there. _Estimated deployment, Phase One, First Hour._ No good ... two, perhaps three hours had elapsed. Gamble on Phase Three. Division Thirty, Second Regiment, First Battalion, 'A' Company. There. He stood up, locked a deep breath inside him, and placed his fingers on the inverted T of control buttons for a second time. North was the top of the viewscreen. What shown in it then must slide from the top down. His fingertip caressed the bottom-most button. And there was a gentle surge of acceleration, and the screen picture was moving diagonally. First button on the right.... * * * * * The picture swung slowly around. And then it was moving from top to bottom of the screen. He pushed the bottom button all the way in, and the velocity needles swung slowly up. A touch on the button above it, and the needle quivered five hundred ten. And then on the horizon there was suddenly a light blue blur, and he braced himself against the shock of forward acceleration as he pushed the button all the way in. Its limit was close to two thousand miles per hour, and he locked it there. Moments later he released it, eased pressure on it as the blue blur shaped itself into the coastline of the northern land mass. Gradually, he depressed the panel a full ninety degrees.