Page 10 (2/2)
"Mommy, does that mean they almost hit each other?" Ann whispered "Why&039;s Mr Brecht so happy? Because they missed?"
"Not exactly, dear He&039;d probably have enjoyed the spectacle Mr Brecht is happy because he likes to know exactly where things are, so he can put his hands on them in the dark"
"Mr Brecht can&039;t put his hands on the new planet, Mohts there"
Oxyheliua from the tank Don Merriam had valved open Its pressure sealed the inner hatch and opened two doors in Don&039;s hel the new airin free fall It pushed into Don&039;s hel the foul air there His features twitched and he shuddered a little His breathing strengthened and he went into a deep, healthy sleep
The Baba Yaga reached the top of its trajectory, poised there, then began to fall back toward the moon As it fell, it tumbled slowly Every thirty seconds, about, its spacescreen looked at the moon, and fifteen seconds later at Earth As it tuan tovery slowly
The Little Man called ahead to Paul: "I don&039;tTwo beach gate seems to be a lot farther away than you led us to believe Easy, Ragnarok!"
"It&039;s right in front of the blinking red light," Paul told hi he were inwardly as sure of that as he tried to make his voice sound He added, "I have to adht"
"Don&039;t worry, Doddsy Paul will get us there," Doc pronounced confidently
The three of the to relieve Hunter, the Ramrod, and one of the two other men at the three corners of the fat wo, Wanda?" the thin wo by the cot in the sand "You can have another digitalis"
"A little better," the fat wo her eyes open They rested on the Wanderer "Oh, e orb, inexorably rotating, presented a new aspect The ree yellow C around the lefthand ri to the center, so that the effect was of D-in-C The Little Man did another quick sketch, labeling it simply, "Two Hours"
The Wanderer
Ann said, "I think the C is a straw basket on its side and the D a piece of cake with le And the ry," her iant purple needle," Ann quickly pointed out
The Golden Serpent coils around the Broken Egg, the Raht Chaos is hatched
The moon and its shadow hadof relief when a thread of night-sky appeared between the two orbs
The man at the fourth corner of the cot, a heavy-faced welder na the rest period, said: "There&039;s one thing I don&039;t get at all If that&039;s a real planet out there big as Earth, how co at us - sort of hter, at least"
"For the saravity of the h we know the size of the new planet, we have no idea of its mass Of course," he added, "if it did appear out of hyperspace, there ravity field didn&039;t exist for us and then an instant when it did - I&039;ravity field ht - but apparently there were no transition effects"
"That we noticed," Doc a doubt on ence-fro have coht have approached the solar systeed or somehow blacked-out," Hunter asserted "We should consider all the improbabilities Your own philosophy back at you, Rudy"
"Humph," Doc commented "No, I think what Paul told us about twist fields in the star photos tips the scales toward Brecht&039;s Hyperspace Hypothesis And it would have had to have its gravity blacked out too, I&039;d think, by your theory Incidentally, I i about the planet&039;s mass It&039;s now sevenat his wrist "About two hours since the new planet appeared"
&039;Two hours and five minutes," the Little Man inserted
"You&039;re a pearl, Doddsy Everybody engrave that eleven-oh-two PST on their randchildren may ask you to tell them the exact time you saw Mrs Monster pop out of hyperspace But anyway, at one ahest in the sky, an hour toward setting I judge she&039;s definitely east of that point, still near her highest About three or four degrees east, I&039;d say - six or eight ravitational pull of the eo, the newcoht"
"Wow," Wojtowicz said appreciatively "Just howlike the moon&039;s a rocket?"
"Why, from two-thirds of a mile to a second to" Doc hesitated, then said, as if incredulous of his own figures: "to four or more miles a second"
He and Hunter looked at each other
"Wow," Wojtowicz repeated "But now I take it, Doc, the moon keeps on in her old orbit, just speeded up a lot? Maybe a month every week, huh?" The black isthmus between moon and planet had widened a little while they&039;d been speaking
"I think we&039;d better be getting a move on, ourselves," Doc said in an oddly distant way, stooping for his corner of the cot
"Right," Hunter seconded brusquely
Great rotary pu water to the port side of the "Prince Charles" to co the starboard rails and crowding the starboard portholes to watch the Wanderer and the moon set in the Atlantic, while dawn paled the sky behind them unnoticed The thickness of Earth&039;s atold orange Its wake across the calineer of the atorowing aed to land his airplane on the south end of Lake Nicaragua near the mouth of the San Juan River, despite the broken left aileron and the half-dozen holes struck or burnt through the wings by chunks of red-hot pu rock had missed him!
The volcano on Ometepe was now joined by its brother peak, Madera, and they were sending twin ruddy pillars skyward al all expectation on such a crazy opening night, he saink on, scarcely a mile away, the twin red flares the Araiza brothers had prouide him to the launch Caramba, que fidelidadl He&039;d never accuse another Latin American of frivolity or faithlessness
Suddenly the reflection of the Wanderer in the black lake shattered toward him He saw the sinister water for him Barely in time, he headed the plane around into theh with a great heave and splash Earthquake or landslide waves!