gyros and steering jets to keep the ship on its hair-line course. He
panted heavily. The beating of his heart became such a heavy pounding
that it seemed that his whole body shook with it. He had to do
infinitely fine precision steering with hands that weighed pounds and
arms that weighed scores of pounds and a body that had an effective
weight of almost a quarter of a ton.

And this went on and went on and on for what seemed several centuries.

Then the voice in the speaker said thickly: "_Everything is in the
clear. In ten seconds you can release your rockets. Shall I count?_"

Joe panted, "Count!"

The mechanical voice said, "_Seven ... six ... five ... four ... three
... two ... one ... cut!_"

Joe pressed the release. The small, unburnt stubs of the take-off
rockets went hurtling off toward emptiness. They consumed themselves as
they went, and they attained an acceleration of fifty gravities once
they were relieved of all load but their own substance. They had to be
released lest one burn longer than another. It was also the only way to
stop acceleration by solid-fuel rockets. They couldn't be extinguished.
They had to be released.

From intolerably burdensome heaviness, there was abruptly no weight at
all in the ship. Joe's laboring heart beat twice with the violence the
weight had called for, though weight had ended. It seemed to him that
his skull would crack open during those two heart-beats. Then he lay
limply, resting.