e only a short time until the ventilator
overloaded and burned out. They had to reach the asteroid before then.
The trouble was that there was nothing further he could do about it. He
had only air bottles left, and their blast was so weak that the effect
wouldn't speed him up much. Nevertheless, he called to Santos and
directed him to use his bottles.

Santos spoke up. "Sir, we're going to make it."

In the same instant, Rip saw that they would land on the dark side. The
asteroid was turning over and over. For a second he had the impression
that he was looking at a turning globe of the earth, the kind used in
elementary school back home. But this gray planet was scarcely bigger
than the giant globe at the Space Council building on Terra.

He knew he was going to hit hard. The way to keep from being hurt was to
turn the vertical energy of his arrival into motion in another direction.
As he swept down to the metal surface he started running, his legs
pumping wildly in space. He hit with a bone-jarring thud, lost his
footing and fell sideways, both hands cradling his helmet. He got to his
feet instantly and looked for Santos.

"You all right, sir?" Santos called anxiously. "I think the others are
over there." He pointed.

"We'll find them," Rip said. His hip hurt like fury from smashing against
the unyielding metal, and the worst part was that he couldn't rub it. The
blow had been strong enough to hurt through the heavy fabric and air
pressure, but his hand wasn't strong enough to compress the suit. Just
the same, he tried.

And while he was trying, he found himself in direct sunlight!

He had forgotten to run. Standing still on the asteroid meant turning
with it, from darkness into sunlight and back again. He yelled at Santos
and legged it out of there, moving in long, gliding steps. He regained
the shadow and kept going.

The first order of business was to stop the rock from turning. Otherwise
they couldn't live on it.

Rip knew that they had only one means of stopping the spin. That was to
use the tubes of rocket fuel left over from correcting the course. They
had three tubes left, but he didn't know if that was enough to do the
job.

Moving rapidly, he and Santos caught up to Koa and the Planeteers.

The Connie prisoners were pretty well bunched up, gliding along like a
herd of fantastic sheep. Their shepherds were Pederson, Nunez, and Dowst.
The three Planeteers had a pistol in each hand. The spares were