Terry found himself aiming the gun-camera. He pulled trigger and changed film and pulled trigger and changed film.
The bright light ceased to climb. It grew steadily brighter and brighter, and then it flared for the third time—Terry's mind asked skeptically, 'Braking rockets?'—and the light was so intense that the cracks in the yacht's deck-planking could be seen. Then the extra brilliance vanished, and suddenly the moving light was no longer white, but reddish.
Terry aimed again and fired the gun-camera.
The light passed almost directly overhead. Terry had the impression that he felt its heat upon his skin.
It plunged into the sea two miles beyond the Esperance. The shock-wave caused by the impact tapped on the yacht's side-planking a few seconds later. Starlight shone upon a plume of steam.
Then there was nothing but the noise of the circling planes above. Then a sound, as of thunder. It disappeared northward. It was the sound of the bolide's passage, arriving after the object itself had dived into the sea.
The people on the Esperance were dumfounded. Nick went below and came up again a few minutes latter.
"The planes were calling," he reported. "They say they noted the unusual phenomenon. They ask if they should stay around for something else."
"I think," said Davis caustically, "that that's all that's scheduled just now. Tell them so."
The Esperance went on steadily again, a trifle west of north. Davis was below, talking via radio to Dr. Morton at the satellite tracking base.