"At the most," said Borion staring, white lipped, at the altimeter, "at the most, I should say a half an hour."
The door to the control room burst open and Thamon rushed in closely followed by Keltry.
"I heard you talking to your engineers, Borion," the scientist said rapidly. "Are we in trouble?"
"We are," said Borion, "and it may be the last trouble any of us ever have. Our repellor has gone out for some reason. And we're heading for the surface of Saturn like a meteorite."
"Can't anything be done?" said Thamon.
"My engineers are doing all they can to find the source of the trouble," Borion replied. "But until they do, I can't slow the ship up."
Keltry's great brown eyes were enormous as she moved over beside Dynamon and took his right hand in hers.
"As long as I'm with you, Dynamon," she said in a low voice, "I'm not afraid to die. But I hate to see your expedition fail. Perhaps the fate of the Earth depends on us here in this Carrier."
"I know," said Dynamon, squeezing her hand. His eyes followed Borion as the navigator went to the loud-speaker system again. But apparently the news from below was not encouraging, and Borion's shoulders sagged as he turned to face the other three people in the control room.
"They haven't found the source of the trouble yet," he said dully, "and there's not a thing to be done until they do. I'm sorry that, as navigator of this Carrier, I am plunging you all to your death. But it's a case of a simple mechanical failure which I couldn't foresee."