flames might be splashed out by the wind. Instead of streaking astern in
a lance-like shape, they might be pushed out like a rocket blast when it
hits the earth in a guided missile take-off. Such a blast spreads out
flat in all directions. Here the rocket flames might be spread by wind
until they played upon the hull of the ship. If they did, they might
melt it as they melted their own steel cases in firing. And
three-fourths or more of the hull might be torn loose from the cabin bow
section. So much was unlikely, but it was possible.

The impossible odds were that the four could survive even if the cabin
were detached. They were decelerating at three gravities now. If part of
the ship burned or melted or was torn away, the rocket thrust might
speed the cabin up to almost any figure. And there is a limit to the
number of gravities a man can take, even in an acceleration chair.

Nevertheless, that was what Haney proposed. They were due to be killed
anyhow. Joe tried it.

He dived into atmosphere. At 60 miles altitude a thin wailing seemed to
develop without reason. At 40 miles, the ship had lost more than two
miles per second of its speed since the landing-rockets were ignited,
and there was a shuddering in all its fabric--though because of the loss
of speed it was not as bad as the atmosphere-graze. At 30 it began to
shake and tremble. At 25 miles high there was as horrible a vibration
and as deadly a deceleration as at the air-graze. At 12 miles above the
surface of the Earth the hull temperature indicators showed the hind
part of the hull at red heat. The ship happened to be traveling backward
at several times the speed of sound, and air could not move away from
before it. It was compressed to white heat at the entering surface, and
the metal plating went to bright red heat at that point. But the hull