Venus filled the viewscreen, the white sea of the planet's sky stretching unruffled beneath them.
"Northern land mass, Tayne. Your Quadrant. Thirtieth Division, Second Regiment, First Battalion, Company 'A'."
Tayne still said nothing. Doug kept the steady pressure on the sword point.
The round, black buttons were arranged like an inverted T. Beneath them were three square, flush-set dials. One was easily recognizable as an artificial horizon-ecliptic indicator. The second, Doug thought, indicated both plus and minus acceleration. And the third, simple velocity and altitude.
Tayne's fingers had not punched the buttons, but had played them almost as though they were the keys of a musical instrument. The horizontal row was for change of direction to either left or right. The vertical, change in axial thrust, for either upward accelerations or forward, depending upon flight attitude. A slow turn executed by pressing the buttons of desired intensity of power in both horizontal and vertical columns simultaneously, with turn sharpness simply a matter of coordinated button selection.
The top button was for full thrust—full speed in level flight, blast-off from take-off position, or full deceleration in landing attitude. Those below it were for power in progressively lesser amounts. A twist of a fingertip would lock any of the buttons at any degree of power output desired. With practiced co-ordination, simple enough. Yet—what about climb or dip from the horizontal? Or inversion for landing? That was something for which he must wait.
The cut across his back throbbed now, and he dared not brush his hands across his eyes to smear the sweat from them.
And suddenly, Tayne's voice grated, "You had better drop the sword, Blair." There was the tightness of pain in his words, but they were clear. "I refuse to invert the ship. If we are to land, it must be inverted in sixty seconds. If you kill me, you kill yourself, for you do not know how to operate the panel beyond what you have seen—and you have not seen the operation for inversion. If you give me the sword, you will land alive."