heir controls.
The little ship spun in emptiness. Its bow turned and pointed down. The
steering rockets made their roarings.

Joe found himself panting. "The--rocket's rising faster--than we are.
It's been gaining--altitude maybe--two minutes. It's lighter than
when--it started but--it can't stop--less than a minute, anyhow so we
duck under it----"

He did not make computations. There was no time. The war rocket might
have started at four or five gravities acceleration, but it would speed
up as its fuel burned. It might be accelerating at fifteen gravities
now, and have an attained velocity of four miles a second and still
increasing. If the little ship ducked under it, it could not kill that
rate-of-climb in time to follow in a stern chase.

"Haney!" panted Joe. "Watch out the port! Are we going to make it?"

Haney crawled forward. Joe had forgotten the radar because he'd seen the
rocket with his own eyes. It seemed to need eyes to watch it. Mike spoke
curtly into the microphone broadcasting to ground. He was reporting each
action and order as it took place and was given. There was no time to
explain anything. But Mike thought of the radar. He watched it.

It showed the vast curve of Earth's surface, 400 miles down. It showed a
moving pip, much too much nearer, which was the war rocket. Mike made a
dot on the screen with a grease pencil where the pip showed. It moved.
He made another dot. The pip continued to move. He made other dots.

They formed a curving line--curved because the rocket was
accelerating--which moved inexorably toward the center of the radar
screen. The curve would cut the screen's exact center. That meant
collision.

"Too close, Joe!" said Mike shrilly. "We may miss it, but not enough!"

"Then hold fast," yelled Joe. "Landing rockets firing, three--two--one!"

The bellowing of the landing-rockets smote their ears. Weight seized
upon them, three gravities of acceleration toward the rushing flood of
clouds and solidity which was the Earth. The ship plunged downward with
all its power. It was intolerable--and ten times worse because they had
been weightless so long and were still shaken and sore and bruised from
the air-graze only minutes back.

Mike took acceleration better than the others, but his voice was thin
when he gasped, "Looks--like this does it, Joe!" Seconds later he gasped
again, "Right! The rocket's above us and still going away!"

The gyros squealed again. The ship plunged int