"Keltry!" he cried into his transmitter. "Where are you? Answer me!"
Straining his ears Dynamon heard a tiny voice far away saying, "I'm still falling."
"I'm coming after you, Keltry!" the centurion yelled, and reaching up to the knob on his helmet, twisted frantically. By doing that, he multiplied the gravitational pull of the planet and was now falling much more swiftly than Keltry. How deep this black pit was, Dynamon had no idea, but he prayed it would be deep enough so that he could catch up with Keltry before she hit the bottom. It was a desperate chance but Dynamon was willing to take it.
"Keltry!" he shouted into the transmitter. "Can you hear me? I'm coming for you."
"Yes, I hear you, Dynamon," came the answer, and Dynamon's heart leapt as it seemed to him that the voice sounded a little stronger.
"Keep your courage up, Keltry," he said, trying to sound calm. "I'm falling faster than you are. There doesn't seem to be any bottom to this pit so I'm bound to catch up with you."
"Oh, Dynamon! You shouldn't have jumped after me. There's—there's only—one chance in a million that we don't crash."
Keltry was bravely trying to hide the despair and terror in her voice, but most important of all to Dynamon was the fact that she sounded—still nearer! He resolutely put out of his mind the frightful probability that at any second, first Keltry and then he, would be dashed to pieces at the bottom of the pit. It seemed to him that he had been falling for miles, and he thought that there was beginning to be more air resistance now. He bent his head and peered downward, trying to pierce the inky blackness with his eyes, but he could see nothing. It was a fantastic sensation or, better still, a lack of all sensation. He seemed to be resting immobile in a black nothingness, with only the rushing air tearing at his cloak to indicate that he was falling.
"Keep talking, Keltry," he cried.