The flare parted the waters of the Lake and sent up a billow of steam for about a hundredth of a second. The autopilot cut the drive and the violence ceased as the Lancaster sank into the deep, cool waters, to stop, to come rising buoyantly toward the surface again.
Farradyne hit the switch that opened the scuttlebutt of the water tank and the lake waters rushed in, killing their buoyancy.
The astrodome porpoised once, gently, and then the Lancaster sank very slowly. Farradyne waited until the ship was resting tail down on the bottom; he turned it slightly to one side and opened the drive by a bare fraction. Water churned below them and the ship moved logily sideways, toward the shore. He wondered whether he had enough power coming from the motor to cut up a stream of bubbles and steam, hoping that the cooling water would kill the rising turbulence so as to conceal his operation.
He spent an hour testing and trying the depth along the shore until he found a place that was just deep enough to let the Lancaster stand upright with its dome a foot or two below the surface.
A small fish goggled at the shining metal hungrily.
Farradyne stretched. "We got this far anyway!"
Norma looked at him dizzily. "How?"
"My pappy used to tell me about this sort of come-in," he said. "Seems as how he once knew a gent that had piloted one of the old chemical rockets that used braking ellipses for landings. That was a heck of a long time ago, before we had power to burn. But anyway, it wasn't expected, I gather, because we succeeded."
"Now what?"
Farradyne grinned. "This is going to be a bit wet," he said. He took the retractible antenna from its stowage and wound it with insulating tape half way up its length. Then he pulled out the astrodome plug and ignoring the stream of water that splashed on the control-room floor, he shoved the antenna into the hole and made it fast. The water stopped. The upper half of the antenna projected above the surface of the lake.