"Sorry!"
"It's bad; it hinders." She raised her arms in a gesture of grim urgency. "Now the ship is moving swiftly away from your ship. I can dimly sense vast distances rushing past. And there's a feeling of loneliness, of utter desolation. No despair, exactly; it's as though I were sensing the utter desolation of deep space through a mind filled with a bitter nostalgia!
"If the feeling wasn't so intense, so strange and bewildering, I'd say it was a 'Carry me back to old Virginia' feeling! Does that make sense to you? It's like—someone thrumming a guitar a billion miles from home, whistling to keep up his courage, remembering something very precious and beautiful lost forever. I can't explain it in any other way."
She was silent for a moment. Then she said: "Now a planet is taking shape in the darkness. It's pale green and crossed by a long, wavering streamer of light. I can make out continents and seas."
Joan stiffened. "Ralph! There's only one planet in the Solar System that catches the sunlight through great swarms of meteors in the plane of its ecliptic. The lights of the Zodiac! It must be the Earth!"
Langford dared not speak for fear of breaking the spell. Joan was trembling now, as though thoughts from the past were impinging with a tormenting intensity on her inner vision.
"The ship's out of control!" came suddenly. "It's plunging down through the lower atmosphere toward a vast expanse of jungle. A tropical rain forest. A mist is rising over the trees and a burst of flame is coming from the ship. It's zigzagging as it descends."
Emotion seemed to quiver through her. For a moment she remained silent, her lips slightly parted.
Then more words came in a rush. "The ship lies on an island in a forking river. Above it the foliage is charred, blackened. There are three rivers and just below the island the water is white with foam. There's a tremendous cataract about five miles below the island. It's the largest cataract I've ever seen."