Arcot pushed the little red switch to the first notch. The air around them pulsed with power for an instant, then space had readjusted itself.
The point that was Nansal grew to a disc, and then it was swiftly leaping toward them, welling up to meet them, expanding its bulk with awesome speed. Torlos watched it tensely.
There was a sudden splintering crash, and Arcot jerked open the circuit in alarm. They were almost motionless again as the stars reeled about them.
Torlos had been nervous. Like any man so effected, he had unconsciously tightened his muscles. His fingers had sunk into the hard plastic of the arm rest on his chair, and crushed it as though it had been put between the jaws of a hydraulic press!
"I'm glad we weren't holding hands," said Wade, eyeing the broken plastic.
"I am very sorry," Torlos thought humbly. "I did not intend to do that. I forgot myself when I saw that planet rushing at me so fast." His chagrin was apparent on his face.
Arcot laughed. "It is nothing, Torlos. We are merely astonished at the terrific strength of your hand. Wade wasn't worried; he was joking!"
Torlos looked relieved, but he looked at the splintered arm rest and then at his hand. "It is best that I keep my too-strong hands away from your instruments."
The ship was falling toward Nansal at a relatively slow rate, less than four miles a second. Arcot accelerated toward the planet for two hours, then began to decelerate. Five hundred miles above the planet's surface, their velocity cut the ship into a descending spiral orbit to allow the atmosphere to check their speed.
The outer lux hull began to heat up, and he closed the relux screens to cut down the radiation from it. When he opened them again, the ship was speeding over the broad plains of the planet.