globe ahead of them gradually swung off.
The pilot was reversing their position in space to bring the powerful
blast of their stern exhaust toward the moon, so as to resist somewhat
its increasing pull.

Now their stern windows showed the approaching globe. It was slowly
expanding. They were falling toward it. The inventor moved a rheostat,
and from behind them the stern blast rose to a tremendous roar. The
deceleration held them with unbearable weight to the rear of the
cabin.

No thought now for the shining earth, yellow and brilliant in the
velvet sky above. Jerry Foster watched through the slow hours as the
globe beneath them enlarged and expanded in ever-increasing slowness.
Slowly their falling motion slackened as they cushioned against the
terrific thrust of the exhaust below.

* * * * *

The globe ceased to grow and held constant. Winslow cut the exhaust to
a gentler blast. They were definitely within the moon's gravitational
field; their last hold upon the earth was severed. The great globe was
revolving beneath them.

"How about it?" Foster asked breathlessly. "It doesn't revolve like
that--not the moon!"

"We have approached from the earth side," said the other, "but we have
overshot it. Say that the moon is revolving, or say that we are
swinging about it in an orbit of our own--it is all the same thing."

"And soon," he added slowly, "we shall see...." He faltered and his
lips trembled and refused to frame the words of a dream that was
coming true. "We shall see ... the lost side of the moon. What will it
be ... what--will--it--be...?"

To Foster the whole experience had now the unreality of a dream. He
could not bring himself into mental focus. His thoughts were blurred,
his emotions dead.

They were approaching the moon, he told himself. It was the moon that
was there below them, slowly enlarging now, as their own earth had
hung below them, but dwindling, when they left.

"The moon!" he told himself over and over. "The moon--it is real!" But
the numbness in his brain would not be shaken off.

His voice, when he spoke, was casual. He might have been speaking of
any commonplace--a ball-game, or a good show.

"The sun is coming from my right," he said. "We are going around
toward the dark side of the moon. Shall you land there?"

Winslow shook his head. "Wait," he said, "and watch."

Jerry returned to his circle of glass.

* * * *