"Something?" Wright hurried over, gray eyes wide and sparkling. "I'd quit hoping." Ann joined him, quick-motioned in her slimness, too taut. Wright slipped an elderly arm around her. "Parallel lines, in jungle? Ah.... Now, why none in the open ground?"
Spearman suggested: "We could take more shots. But...."
Paul Mason broke the darkening silence. "But what, Ed?"
"We're falling, some. I could move us out into a self-sustaining orbit by using more of the reaction mass. We have none to waste. Jensen's death eleven years ago——" Spearman shook his gaunt but heavy head. "Thirty pre-calculated accelerations—and the rest periods they allowed us were insufficient, I think. You remember what wrecks we were when it was finished; that's why I tried to allow more time in deceleration." His brassy voice slowed, fetching out words with care: "The last acceleration, as you know, was not pre-calculated. Jensen was already dead (must have been heart) when his hand took us out of automatic, made another acceleration that damn near flattened us——"
"Still here though." Sears Oliphant chuckled and patted his middle. "We made it, didn't we, boy?" It sounded a little forced.
"In deceleration I had to allow for the big step Jensen never meant; more of the mass was used to correct a deflection. Same allowance must be made in returning, not to mention the biggest drain of all—getting out of gravity here, a problem not present at the spaceport. Oh, it's planned for—she's built to do it, even from a heavier planet than this. But after she's done it the margin for return will be—narrower than I care to think."
Dorothy, small and soft, leaned back in Paul's arms. Her even voice was for everyone in the control room: "Nevertheless we'll go down."
Spearman gazed across at her without apparent comprehension. He went on, deliberate, harassed: "Here's a thing I never told you. In that accidental acceleration the ship did not respond normally: the deflection happened then, and it may have been due to a defect in the building of Argo, a fault in the tail jets. At the time, it was all I could do to reach Jensen before I blacked out—I still don't know how I ever managed it. Later I tried to think there could be no defect. The forward jets took care of us nicely in deceleration. Until we start braking, we can't know. Indicators say everything's all right down there. Instruments can lie. Lord, they've sweated out atomic motors since before 1960, almost a century now—and we're still kids playing with grown-up toys."
Sears smiled into plump hands. "So I must be sure to pack my microscope in one of the lifeboats—hey?"
"You're for landing, then."