head. He gasped, "Yes! Get down to air-resistance. A chance--not good
but a chance--ejection seats--with space suits--might make it...."

He began to let himself back toward his acceleration chair. He could not
possibly have climbed forward. It was a horrible task to let himself
down, with triple his normal weight pulling at him and after the beating
taken a little while ago.

Sweat stood out on his skin as he lowered himself sternward. Once his
grip on a hand-line slipped and he had to sustain the drag of nearly six
hundred pounds by a single hand and arm. It would not be a good idea to
fall at three gravities.

The landing rockets roared and roared, and Joe tilted the bow down a
little farther, so that the streaming flood of clouds drew nearer.

Haney got to his acceleration chair. He let himself into it and his eyes
closed.

Mike's sharp voice barked: "What's the chance, Haney?"

Haney's mouth opened, and closed, and opened again. "Rocket flames," he
gasped, "pushed back--wind--splash on hull--may melt--lighten
weight--hundred to one against----"

The odds were worse than that. The ship couldn't land because its
momentum was too great for the landing rockets to cancel out. If it had
weighed five tons instead of twenty, landing might have been possible.
Haney was saying that if the ship were to be lowered into air while
rushing irresistibly sternward despite its rockets, that the rocket