He slipped out of his bunk and climbed into his pants. Ascending into the control room, he saw Lockhart, the two astronomers, and the entire engineering crew gathered over the controls in worried concentration.
He peered over their shoulders, but the dials meant little to him, since he did not know what they should have said. "What's happened?" he asked Russ.
Russ took him aside. "We're not going to make our connection with Venus," he said. "Our generators didn't operate exactly as we had hoped. We haven't been able to slow down enough, the pull of the Sun is stronger than the power we can raise to stop it at our present speed. We're going to shoot past Venus' orbit way ahead of the planet, and we're still heading sunward at a faster rate than we figured on."
"You mean—we're falling into the Sun!" gasped Burl.
"As things stand right now," said the youthful astrogator, "that's just what is happening."
Chapter 7.
Hot Spot on Mercury
It seemed strange to Burl at that moment that there wasn't more excitement on board the Magellan. To learn so early in the game that all were doomed should have brought more reaction. It should have excited some sort of frenzy, or efforts to abandon ship, or something. But the men in the cabin, though keyed up, were anything but panicky.
Instead, there seemed to be grim concentration on their faces, an earnestness that spoke of a plan. Through a viewer which had been shielded so that the light would not blind the eyes, Burl could see the wide disc of the Sun now. A few spots were visible on its blazing surface, and great tongues of burning gases encircled it for hundreds of thousands of miles. Were they really destined to end a mere cinder—an instantaneous flicker of fire in one of those prominences?
Clyde was working with Oberfield at the calculators. Burl watched them in silence, trying to determine what it was they were getting at. Finally they pulled a figure from one of their machines and took it over to Lockhart and the engineers. There was a brief conference, and something seemed to be agreed upon.