He reached out frantically, his fingers flying unerringly over the myriad controls, jabbing viciously at the studs regulating the batteries of rocket tubes.
Something was pulling, tugging, at the small ship, drawing it down, held in a relentless clutch that grew stronger with each passing moment!
The ship surged with power; steel crossbeams groaned and screeched, threatening to buckle under the strain placed on them. And still it rushed downward!
He cursed wildly and punched hard at the stud controlling the forward tubes. The craft lurched drunkenly under this new force, then continued its downward flight, moving not quite so fast now.
For the first time since awakening, he glanced at the Vizio-screen, and what he saw rooted him to the spot, eyes dilated with astonishment. The New Frontiers was hurtling down on a planet, dark and foreboding; a world where no world should be! It loomed in the screen like a great black eight-ball—and he was definitely behind it! Now he was entering an atmosphere, according to the instruments. He jiggled the dials, but the reading did not change. What wouldn't the astronomers of Earth give to know about this!
What manner of world was this rushing up to meet him? He could not know. But his instruments told him that in a very short while the first Earthian feet would walk upon this mystery planet. If he lived through the crash.
Wrestling mightily with the controls, he succeeded in bringing the craft out of its dive and leveled off in a long skim above the sphere's surface, now close below.
He hunched tensely over the controls, a thin film of cold sweat standing out on his brow. Hardened though he was, he could not help but feel a quickening fear of the inexplicable world he was fast approaching.
A formidable upjutting of rock suddenly reared up directly in his path, completely blacking out the screen!
He held his breath as his finger nicked out and impaled the stud operating the forward tubes. Once more fire burst from the nose of the ship, roaring out to meet the unyielding wall of rock in a titanic impact.