Suddenly Haller, peering through the port, gave a cry of wonder. The blinding glare of the forward rockets, driving them in reverse across the rubbled plain, prevented him from seeing anything nearby, while further off, the darkness hung like a pall. In the distance, however, a line of light had become suddenly visible ... pale, orange light, stretching across the close horizon! Brighter and brighter it grew, as the shuddering, bumping vessel ground over the little planetoid's strangely rough surface.
"What ... what is it?" Seltzsky muttered. "It's like a great fire across half of this crazy world!" His face showed fear.
Haller stared, then realization gripped him. They were on the unknown world's darkside, and the line of light indicated its sunside.
His face cleared.
"Sunlight!" he exclaimed. "That's the day side of this chunk of rock! Leave the rockets on, 'til we reach it, Barger! Another mile won't make much difference now, and if we can see where we are, we may be able to do something about it!"
Barger nodded doubtfully and the Lodestar continued to grind ahead toward the line of sunlight. The four mutineers had lost all their bluster; cringing against the wall, they gazed at Haller as though expecting him to find some way out of this mad place. They had been brave, out in open space, but now, face to face with the unknown, they instinctively sought his leadership.
Onward the Lodestar ploughed, held down by the strange magnetism, driven forward by her rockets. At the edge of the dawn-like light, however, there came a staggering shock, as the vessel glanced against a mammoth boulder, and one of the stout glassex ports starred, and then shattered.
"God!" Carlson gave a rising, bubbling cry of terror. "Broken! Our air...."
But there was no hiss of escaping air, no awful suffocation. Haller, who had torn off his coat to stuff into the gap, paused, eyes narrowed. A strange sharp odor had permeated the control room, and he felt an odd exhilaration.
"Air!" Kindt muttered. "Air! Thin, but with a high oxygen content! It's safe out there! Safe!"