d yon, in the grip of forces she could no more
resist than can the floating leaf resist the waters of a cataract. And
Cloud's brain was as addled as an egg by the vicious concussions which
were hitting him from so many different directions and so nearly all at
once. Nevertheless, with his one arm and his one leg and the few cells
of his brain that were still at work, the physicist was still in the
fight.

By sheer force of will and nerve he forced his left hand across the
gyrating key-bank to the Bergenholm switch. He snapped it, and in the
instant of its closing a vast, calm peace descended, blanket-like. For,
fortunately, the Berg still worked; the flitter and all her contents and
appurtenances were inertialess. Nothing material could buffet her or
hurt her now; she would waft effortlessly away from a feather's lightest
possible touch.

Cloud wanted to faint then, but he didn't--quite. Instead, foggily, he
tried to look back at the crater. Nine-tenths of his visiplates were out
of commission, but he finally got a view. Good--it was out. He wasn't
surprised; he had been quite confident that it would be. It wasn't
scattered around, either. It _couldn't_ be, for his only possibility of
smearing the shot was on the upper side, not the lower.

* * * * *

His next effort was to locate the secondary observatory, where he had to
land, and in that too he was successful. He had enough intelligence left
to realize that, with practically all of his jets clogged and his wings
and tail shot off, he couldn't land his little vessel inert. Therefore
he would have to land her free.

And by dint of light and extremely unorthodox use of what jets he had
left in usable shape he did land her free, almost within the limits of
the observatory's field; and having landed, he inerted her.

But, as has been intimated, his brain was not working so well; he had
held his ship inertialess quite a few seconds longer than he thought,
and he did not even think of the buffetings she had taken. As a result
of these things, however, her intrinsic velocity did not match, anywhere
near exactly, that of the ground upon which she lay. Thus, when Cloud
cut his Bergenholm, restoring thereby to the flitter the absolute
velocity and inertia she had had before going free, there resulted a
distinctly anti-climactic crash.

There was a last terrific bump as the motionless vessel collided with
the equally motionless ground; and