He picked up the flame-gun where Marshall had dropped it and watched the three of them as they fastened space toggings about their bodies. Marshall was the first to go through the airlock. Dr. Haliburton, looking slightly dazed, went next. There was only room for one of them at a time.
Alyce Marshall stood hesitant, waiting for the hiss of escaping gas that would be the signal for her turn. As she did Rufus Thallin stalked to her side, wrenched loose the upper fastening of her spacetogs. When her face came free he brushed back her tangled hair and kissed the exposed lips savagely.
"That wasn't in the bargain either!" he ground out furiously, and spun on his heel.
She was gone. He sat at the controls and waited. She would be going from the outer door of the lock now, and the space police would be creeping nearer. Perhaps Alyce would tell them how he had gained entrance to the cavern, but by that time, it would be too late.
His hand flickered over the controls. A low thunder shook the space-flyer. On the outside a seething cushion of flames would be supporting it. Through the glassite he glimpsed retreating figures, saw the cavern abruptly become as light as day.
The space-flyer floated out over the edge of the abyss and dropped. It descended straight for three miles, then followed the curl of the titanic crevice toward the horizontal. Ancient civilized men had shaped the upper cavern, men of a lost generation, but this titanic lower abyss was a fault created by nature herself.
Rocket flames cast a weird illumination on the monstrous grotto, sent grotesque shadows leaping far ahead. The volcanic walls fell away from either side and were gone. Overhead he glimpsed crusty stars that twinkled like diamonds. On all sides were high black walls. The space-flyer had emerged in the giant crater called Copernicus.
The down-lash of flames became more furious, lifted the spacer high. Prow jets spat additional flames and sent the nose of the space-flyer angling vertically toward the dim, dark regions of outer space.
It held poised on the maelstrom of unleashed flame for an instant like a living thing of metal. He reached down, snapped on the radiation propulsion beam. Instantly the space-flyer began to accelerate.
The dark side of the moon was cleft asunder by a puff of high flame that lingered for a moment and then was gone. Only a thin column of shimmering light rose, slim and tall and straight. On its peak a space-flyer was hurtling on its way.