ur heads, a moment ago! How did that
happen?"

"Simply because I threw the lever too far to the right. We are in
interstellar space, obviously, where every change of direction
involves an adjustment of equilibrium."

And if Stoddard didn't exactly understand, being first a secret
service man and only secondarily a scientist, at least he showed his
ignorance no further. If the professor could bring this astounding
machine back to Earth, that was all he wanted.

Prescott said he could, he thought, providing they had fuel enough
left. So for the next few minutes, while the younger man held his
breath, the professor labored with the various instruments on that
complicated dial.

"Now then, I think we're headed back," he said at length, relaxing.
"But we've got to have visibility, otherwise we will land with a
velocity of about twenty thousand miles an hour, which is what I
figure we're making at the present time."

"Good Lord!" gasped Stoddard. "I'll say we've got to have visibility!
Wait a minute! Let me look around!"

He searched the room for further instruments--to find nothing that in
any way met the purpose.

But even as he returned dejected, the professor cried out:

"Here--I've got it! Take a look at this!"

Bending over a small table beside the dial, Stoddard saw mirrored, in
its ground-glass surface a hazy circular panorama that at first had no
significance. But as he continued to peer down upon the scene, certain
familiar aspects loomed out. It was the Earth--and what he was looking
at was a view of the North and South American continents!

* * * * *

For some moments Stoddard stared at this amazing panorama in silence;
saw it grow rapidly clearer, as the careening rocket plunged like a
giant shell toward the earth.

"My God!" he whispered at length in awe. "Do you think you can ever
check our speed?"

"I think so," the professor replied, busy over his instruments. "But
where do we want to land? How do we know what state we were in?"

Whereupon Stoddard told him of that Texas license plate.

"But we don't want to land anywhere near that fiend Krassnov," he
added, with a shudder. "I suggest, if it's possible, that you pick out
some aerodrome, preferably in the western part of the state--for if I
remember my geography, Texas isn't mountainous in the east."

"I will do the best I can," said Prescott, grimly.

There followed tense minutes as the panorama in that gro