[80] We dove into the control room, and LeConte banged the outer door shut and jammed huge catches, battening it down for our flight through space.
"Get out as fast as you can!" LeConte panted on, speaking now to Captain Crane as she headed us gently into the tunnel. "The kotomite's due to go off the second the first drums are disintegrated."
I dropped limply on to a seat beside the pilot and sat still.
We passed through the tunnel in five or six seconds. In another five seconds, we had not only taken off, but had worked up a formidable speed. We barely felt the explosion when it came. But on the instrument board in front of Virginia Crane, gleamed a little box with a ground-glass top, and in that we saw, as by a magic, what happened on Orcon.
First the mountains which topped the subterranean power houses were lifted off. Then the whole planet rocked. Finally the caverns were inundated by the deluge of the sea which, in the beginning, had so nearly swallowed us.
Orcon was not destroyed, but we knew even then that such of its inhabitants as might remain alive would not soon again dream of making an attack upon Earth.
On the way back, as Earth took form and grew round in the interminable reaches of space ahead of us, I got on well with Captain Crane. It started when she asked me if I were still so cocksure that woman had no place in the U. S. W. Upper Zone Patrol, and I was forced to answer that I was not. After that, one thing led to another.
We were photographed together when we landed beside the colossal, metal-roofed hangars of the Long Island station of the U. S. W. The snapshot was published in that afternoon's tabloids under the caption: Betrothed.
Transcriber's Note:
This e-text was produced from Astounding Stories January 1932. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.