ike the cork out of a champagne bottle. And as for what
it _felt_ like--since the five who experienced it could never describe
it, even to each other, it is obviously indescribable by or to anyone
else. As Bernice said long afterward, when she was being pressed by a
newsman: "Just tell 'em it was the living end," and that is as good a
description as any.

The girls were unwrapped from their silver-mesh cocoons and, after a
minute or so of semihysterics, were as good as new. Then Deston stared
into the 'scope and gulped. Without saying a word he waved a hand and
the others looked. It seemed as though the entire tip of the mountain
was gone; had become a seething, flaming volcano on a world that had
known no volcanism[3] for hundreds of thousands of years.

[3] Transcriber's note: The original read 'vulcanism'.

"And what," said Deston finally, "do you suppose happened to the other
side of the ship?"

The boom, of course, was gone. So were all twenty of the grounding
cables which, each the size of a man's arm, had fanned out in all
directions to anchorages welded solidly to the vessel's skin and frame.
The anchorages, too, were gone; and tons upon tons of high-alloy steel
plating and structural members for many feet around where each anchorage
had been. Steel had run like water; had been blown away in gusts of
vapor.

"Shall I try the radio now, Doc?" Deston asked.

"By no means. This first blast would, of course, be the worst, but there
will be several more, of decreasing violence."

* * * * *

There were. The second, while it volatilized the boom and its grounding
network, merely fused portions of the anchorages. The third took only
the boom itself; the fourth took only the dangling miles of wire. At the
sixth trial nothing--apparently--happened; whereupon the wire was drawn
in and a two-hundred-pound mass of steel was lowered until it was in
firm and quiescent contact with the solid rock of the planet.

"Now you may try your radio," Adams said.

Deston flipped a switch and spoke, quietly but clearly, into a
microphone. "_Procyon One_ to Control Six. Flight Eight Four Nine.
Subspace Radio Test Ninety-Five--I think. How do you read me, Control
Six?"

The reply was highly unorthodox. It was a wild yell, followed by words
not directed at Deston at all. "Captain Reamer! Captain French! Captain
Holloway! ANYBODY! It's the _Procyon_! The _PROCYON_, that was lost a
year ago! Unl