“You must have had some control over the ship,” Garry said, “otherwise she would have crashed headlong onto the moon.” “I had some control,” Ben explained. “As soon as I released the flier from the _Carefree_, I started my attempt to save the ship and myself as well. I donned a pressure suit and went into the flight deck. Remember, I had gone in there before, soon after the collision. I had noticed then that most of the instrument panel had been destroyed.” “I remember too, Ben, that you helped build the _Carefree_,” Garry said, “so you must’ve known a lot about her.” “I tore out the cover of the console and began working in the section beneath. With tools, I was able to get the braking jets to functioning. This slowed the ship down to a slow orbit around the moon and gave me time to work on the steering controls. I couldn’t do much with them, but I was able to move the ship a little to the port or starboard side, as I wished. I knew this was as far as I could go, but with some luck I felt there was a chance of bringing her down safely.” “Why didn’t you try this before we all left the ship?” Patch wanted to know. Ben shook his head. “Risk everybody’s life on some crazy plan of my own? No, it was too farfetched in the first place, and I guess I would not even have tried it myself unless I’d had to. The flier was much the safer route to safety, and that’s why getting it to go was my first concern. With you guys out of the way, I had no one’s life to risk but my own.” “How did you manage to land as close to the flier as you did?” Garry asked. “My first thought was to land near one of the settlements, because if I did make it, then I would immediately send out a search party for the rest of you. But I knew I _had_ to land in one of the vast dust pits on Luna, because the ship would be destroyed by friction if it skidded along the bare ground. I made one orbit of the moon as the ship slowed down more and more and lost altitude. I knew roughly in what area the flier would likely come down, and I remembered Hornfield Crater as one being full of dust pits. As the ship glided lower and lower, I figured this would be where I would try to bring her down. The pit we’re in now is a very large, long trough, maybe a quarter of a mile long and a hundred feet wide. I therefore had a pretty good chance of landing in it.” “Gee, you had a lot of nerve to try something like that!” Patch exclaimed. “I took one last look out where I hoped to come down,” Ben said, “and then went under the console into the working parts again. I cut out a few of the upper braking jets, and this caused the ship to nose down. I felt it plough into the dust as if into a big flour barrel. The ship heated up from the friction created, but it slowed her down rapidly, and she came to rest on this spot, half buried in pumice. Even so, I nearly missed the dust pit, landing only about thirty feet from the edge of it.”