At last we are moving for the air. As we gain altitude and look down towards our friends on the ground we see that the Martonian ship is rising too. It is faster than we are. We are circling over this territory and straightening out to be headed for the Earth. The Martonian ship is alongside of us. At three thousand feet up the Martonian ship is still with us travelling towards the Earth. We are ten thousand miles from the Moon towards the Earth. The Martonian ship has escorted us thus far but it is now turning around and going back.
We are encountering some storm but not as bad as it was when we came in. We are now thirty thousand miles out. Things are no different than they were when coming in. We are fifty thousand miles out, now seventy thousand miles, just ten thousand miles away from the gap.
At seventy-two thousand miles we are encountering trouble, a very heavy meteoric shower. Our ship is out of control, at least we think it is for it seems to be zig-zagging between these meteors. There is one awfully big one headed towards us, if it hits us we are done for. We just missed it by going up over it and Bob said he had nothing to do with throwing the ship up and nothing to do with the zig-zagging. We can't figure it out and yet the ship is not in danger, as we can detect it.
We are now entering the gap. It may save us. We got through that shower all right, but how, we don't know. Something strange has taken place which we can't figure out.
After twenty thousand miles of the gap, we are leaving it. Through this neutral zone we have encountered pretty much the same conditions as we did coming to the Moon.
Now we are one hundred ten thousand miles away from the Moon and encountering more meteors. Our ship is missing them or they are missing us but there are more meteors now than we had seen on the way to the Moon. Also our ship is beginning to feel the gravitational pull towards the Earth. Our instruments are functioning perfectly. Here is a shower of big meteors coming right for us. If they strike us we are done for. Bob doesn't know what to do, but the ship is taking a dip, a four thousand foot dip and just passed beneath the meteors. The ship is now rising to where we were. That was really a close call that time. We are travelling smoothly now, very few meteors and they are at a great distance.
We are one hundred eighty thousand miles out from the Moon. Our contact with the Earth's radar has been broken each time we zig-zagged past, over or under the meteors, so the Earth lost track of us. Right now we are unable to contact them again. They surely realize we are having trouble.
Forty thousand miles above the Earth we are running into another heavy meteoric shower. The heat right in this spot is terrific. We did not experience this on the way going to the Moon. Our ship is being zig-zagged. It could easily be said it is out of control, yet the instruments are all functioning perfectly.
Now throughout our ship we hear a voice from a Martonian ship saying just to keep right on going, not to worry about our strange course and explaining that we are being protected by the little gadget they have placed in the ship. So now we know that our ship is being controlled by the Martonians through these perilous spots.
At twenty-eight thousand miles from Earth we have again established contact with the Earth through radar. We are beginning to feel the Earth's gravitational pull terrifically. The ship seems to want to plunge now, being pulled. The radar tells us that all the radio stations throughout the Earth are beamed to it and getting the information from them as they get it from us. They also tell us there are tens of thousands of people gathered at the base in the southern part of the state to see us come in.