In the blockhouse, Charlie Kassick was watching the display with an anxious eye. Suddenly the straight line—a reading of zero—that had begun when the stethoscope quit functioning began to break up into a regular pattern.
Charlie couldn't read Morse code. He only knew there was something strange going on. He let out a yell that brought John Gordon jumping to his side.
Gordon studied the strange pattern, a square wave shape, a blank, then a peak followed by a square wave shape, a blank, then a square wave, peak, and square ...
Rick was still tapping when he heard the sudden whine of servomotors. The rocket tilted but continued its fall, rushing toward earth while its nose swung slightly upward. Then the airfoils took hold and Pegasus began to climb once more.
Rick was flat on the floor, thrown there for a few seconds when gravity became normal. He climbed to his feet again, fighting pain and weakness. Jerry Lipton was flying Pegasus. It was a reprieve. The boy and the marmoset had a chance after all, if the heat didn't get them. Rick could feel his skin tighten, feel the moisture baking out of him.
He held on to the channel with one hand and found the stethoscope with the other. Concentrating, he tapped out a message.
E-R-T-H-M-A-N I-N E-L-E-C-T-R-O-N-C G-R-P H-E O-N-E O-F L-S-T T-O E-N-T-R R-O-C-K-T.
He signed his initials.
The rocket was dipping toward earth again, in accordance with the landing flight plan. It was traveling nearly ten thousand miles an hour. The speed had to be lost, and the only way to lose it was by friction against the air. But uncontrolled friction would turn it into a meteor, so Jerry was letting the heat build up by diving the rocket, then turning it upward again in a long glide, where it could cool in the outer fringes of atmosphere. Little by little it was losing its excess of kinetic energy.