Four minutes later Wallace brought the two handles of the bridge control together—and the ship winked into hyperspace. Wallace's body jerked upright, and he sat stiff and straight, fighting the impulse to retch that rode his stomach muscles. The room around him took on the visual consistency of thin milk. The low hum of the ship's instruments increased in intensity through the hands that he pressed tightly to his head. Mingled with the sound of the small motors was Saxton's high-strained muttering: "I can't take any more of it! I can't take any more of it!"
Then all was normal again. They were out of hyperspace.
Wallace reached for a knob on the board in front of him and began turning it slowly. Both men watched the vision panel on the front wall. After a minute a blue globe floated in from one side. "We'll have to try that one," Wallace said. "It at least has atmosphere."
"We don't have any choice," Saxton answered. With his head he indicated the s-tracer. Its stark chirping had begun again.
"The hound's closer than I thought," Wallace complained. "We'll have to risk a faster passage to the surface than would ordinarily be safe." Drops of perspiration that had gathered on his forehead joined together and ran down the side of his nose. He shook his head to clear them away.
By the time they entered the blue planet's atmosphere the intervals between the chirps of the s-tracer had shortened until now they were almost continuous. Gradually, as they plunged toward the planet's surface, the room's temperature rose. They stripped to their shorts and kept the pace steady. When it seemed that they could stand the heat no longer the ship paused, and settled slowly to the ground.
Quickly Wallace shut off the drive motors. The only sound within the ship was the purring of the cooling apparatus.
"Any chance that it can detect our cooling motor?" Saxton asked.
"I don't believe it can follow anything smaller than our main drive," Wallace answered. He pointed to the s-tracer. "It's already lost us. Of course we know it won't go away. It'll circle the planet until we come out and try again."
During the next hour, as the temperature within the ship returned slowly to normal, Wallace and Saxton kept busy checking the gauges that measured and recorded the elements in the planet's atmosphere.