"Something?" Wright hurried over, gray eyes wide and sparkling. "I'd quit hoping." Ann joined him, quick-motioned in her slimness, too taut. Wright slipped an elderly arm around her. "Parallel lines, in jungle? Ah.... Now, why none in the open ground?" Spearman suggested: "We could take more shots. But...." Paul Mason broke the darkening silence. "But what, Ed?" "We're falling, some. I could move us out into a self-sustaining orbit by using more of the reaction mass. We have none to waste. Jensen's death eleven years ago----" Spearman shook his gaunt but heavy head. "Thirty pre-calculated accelerations--and the rest periods they allowed us were insufficient, I think. You remember what wrecks we were when it was finished; that's why I tried to allow more time in deceleration." His brassy voice slowed, fetching out words with care: "The last acceleration, as you know, was not pre-calculated. Jensen was already dead (must have been heart) when his hand took us out of automatic, made another acceleration that damn near flattened us----" "Still here though." Sears Oliphant chuckled and patted his middle. "We made it, didn't we, boy?" It sounded a little forced. "In deceleration I had to allow for the big step Jensen never meant; more of the mass was used to correct a deflection. Same allowance must be made in returning, not to mention the biggest drain of all--getting out of gravity here, a problem not present at the spaceport. Oh, it's planned for--she's built to do it, even from a heavier planet than this. But after she's done it the margin for return will be--narrower than I care to think." Dorothy, small and soft, leaned back in Paul's arms. Her even voice was for everyone in the control room: "Nevertheless we'll go down." Spearman gazed across at her without apparent comprehension. He went on, deliberate, harassed: "Here's a thing I never told you. In that accidental acceleration the ship did not respond normally: the deflection happened then, and it may have been due to a defect in the building of _Argo_, a fault in the tail jets. At the time, it was all I could do to reach Jensen before I blacked out--I still don't know how I ever managed it. Later I tried to think there could be no defect. The forward jets took care of us nicely in deceleration. Until we start braking, we can't know. Indicators _say_ everything's all right down there. Instruments can lie. Lord, they've sweated out atomic motors since before 1960, almost a century now--and we're still kids playing with grown-up toys." Sears smiled into plump hands. "So I must be sure to pack my microscope in one of the lifeboats--hey?" "You're for landing, then." Sears nodded. Ann Bryan thrust thin ivory fingers into her loose black hair. "_I_ couldn't take another eleven years." She attempted a smile. "Tell me, somebody--tell me there'll be music on Lucifer--a way to make new strings for my violin before I forget everything...."