verything that was, was blackness. Half was tiny colored stars.

Then there was a sound. A faint sound. It was a moan. It was a howl. It
was a shriek.... And then it was a mere thin moan again. Then it was
not.

"We touched air," said Joe calmly, "at six and a quarter miles per
second. Pretty thin, though. At that, we may have left a meteor-trail
for the populace to admire."

Nobody said anything at all. In a little while there was light ahead.
There was brightness. Instantly, it seemed, they were out of night and
there was a streaming tumult of clouds flashing past below--but they
were 800 miles up now--and Joe's headphones rattled and he said:

"Now we can give a touch of course-correction, and maybe a trace of
speed...."

Rockets droned and boomed and roared outside the hull. The Earth fell
away and away and presently it was behind. And they were plunging on
after the Moonship which was very, very, very far on before them.

It was actually many hours before they reached it. They couldn't afford
to overtake it gradually, because they had to have time to work in after
contact. But overtaking it swiftly cost extra fuel, and they hadn't too
much. So they compromised, and came up behind the Moonship at better
than 2,000 feet per second difference in speed--they approached it as
fast as most rifle-bullets travel--and all creation was blotted out by
the fumes of the rockets they fired for deceleration.

Then the space tug came cautiously close to the Moonship. Mike climbed
out on the outside of the tug's hull, with the Chief also in space
equipment, paying out Mike's safety-line. Mike leaped across two hundred
yards of emptiness with light-years of gulf beneath him. His metal soles
clanked on the Moonship's hull.

Then the vision-screen on the tug lighted up. Lieutenant Commander Brown
looked out of it, quietly grim. Joe flicked on his own transmitter. He
nodded.

"_Mr. Kenmore_," said Brown evenly, "_I did not contact you before
because I was not certain that contact could be made. How many
passengers can you take back to the Platform?_"

Joe blinked at him.

"I haven't any idea," he said. "But I'm going to hitch on and use our
rockets to land you."

"_I do not think it practicable_," said Brown calmly. "_I believe the
only result of such a course will be the loss of both ships with all
hands. I will give you a written authorization to return on my order.
But since all my crew can't return, how many can you