"They're all dead, I'm sure," he said in a voice hard and emotionless as his graven face. "They must be, for the asteroid is now visible, and that means that the doors of the power building were open. Inside and out, all there is dead, machinery and men.... Still, it had to be done. It was they or we. A variation of the trick we used to escape from the dome before, Eliot; and Tantril of course didn't expect it and protect himself as Ku Sui did that other time. It's all done now—yes, its gravity-plates too, for see, it's turning."
"And fast!" murmured Friday.
The body was rotating around its longer axis at about twice the speed of an Earth-watch's second hand. Now the dome was sliding under, out of their sight, the craggy rock belly coming up to take its place. Nine hundred miles away was Earth—rather, less than that, for the body was now free to accept the tremendous gravity pull of the planet so near. Soon it would plunge to destruction there....
thought came to Carse, and he said:
"Perhaps Ku Sui would like to see what has become—"
On the last word he stopped and whirled around. His eyes were suddenly intense and his face startled.
"I heard a hiss!" said Friday.
"You too? Then it was a port-lock!" Carse turned to the visi-screen. "Look there!" he cried.