bin knew torture. Weight returned to them,
weight more violent than the six gravities they had known for a bare
fourteen seconds at take-off. But that, at least, had been smoothly
applied. This was deceleration at a higher figure yet, and accompanied
by the shaking of bodies which weighed seven times as much as ever
before--and bodies, too, which for weeks past had been subject to no
weight at all.

They endured. Nothing at all could be done. At so many miles per second
no possible human action could be determined upon and attempted in time
to have any effect upon the course of the ship. Joe could see out a
quartzite port. The ground 40 miles below was merely a blur. There was
a black sky overhead, which did not seem to stir. But cloud-masses
rushed at express-train speed below him, and his body weighed more than
half a ton, and the ship made the sound of innumerable thunders and
shook, and shook and shook....

And then, when it seemed that it must fly utterly to pieces, the thunder
diminished gradually to a bellow, and the bellow to a roar, and the
roaring.... And the unthinkable weight oppressing him grew less.

The Earth was farther away and moving farther still. They were 100 miles
high. They were 200 miles high....

There was no longer any sound at all, except their gaspings for breath.
Their muscles had refused to lift their chests at all during the most
brutal of the deceleration period.

Presently Joe croaked a question. He looked at the hull-temperature
indicators. They were very, very high. He found that he was bruised
where he had strapped himself in. The places where each strap had held
his heavy body against the ship's vibrations were deeply black-and-blue.

The Chief said thickly: "Joe, somehow I don't think this is going to
work. When do we hit again?"

"Three hours plus or minus something," said Joe, dry-throated. "We'll
hear from the ground."

Mike said in a cracked voice: "Radar reports we went a little bit too
low. They think we weren't tilted up far enough. We didn't bounce as
soon as we should."

Joe unstrapped himself.

"How about the other ship?"

"It did better than we did," said Mike. "It's a good 200 miles ahead.
Down at the Shed, they're recalculating for us. We'll have to land with
six grazes instead of eight. We lost too much speed."

Joe went staggering, again weightless, to look out a port for the other
ship. He should have known better. One does not spot an eighty-foot
spa