"No, Rawley," the frog's voice came again, vibrant but strained. "No, we are not leaving the planet. I think I know what is happening. Rawley, you have an instrument which enables you to see the ship as though it were being viewed from a distance by someone out on the planet. Horiz—horizonscope. Suppose we see for ourselves."
We descended in the jacket-lift together, the frog bracing its knees precisely as the commander had done long ago in another world.
I don't know how I lived through the next ten minutes. When I stood in the control room and looked in the horizonscope I saw a sight which I shall never forget if I live to be a hundred.
On both sides of the ship were dozens of froglike shapes moving in single file, their bodies bent nearly double as though they were straining at the leash.
All about them swirled steamy vapors and flickering tongues of flame. A blood-red sun, so gigantic that it spanned a fifth of the sky, hung like a vast, glowing eye directly overhead, dazzling my pupils as I stared. Even in the horizonscope it seemed huge, blinding.
The scent was weird beyond all imagining—weird and unutterably terrifying.
"Rawley, they are moving the ship. They are using magnetic tow lines and making a mighty good job of it."