The ring-mountains were gigantic when they blasted again! They were only 20 miles up, then, and some of the peaks rose four miles from their inner crater floors.
The ships were still descending fast. Joe spoke into his microphone.
"Calling Moonship! Calling——" He stopped and said matter-of-factly, "I suggest we fire our last blast together. Shall I give the word? Right!"
The surface of the Moon came toward them. Craters, cracks, frozen fountains of stone, swelling undulations of ground interrupted without rhyme or reason by the gigantic splashings of missiles from the sky a hundred thousand million years ago. The colorings were unbelievable. There were reds and browns and yellows. There were grays and dusty deep-blues and streaks of completely impossible tints in combination.
But Joe couldn't watch that. He kept his eyes on a very special gadget which was a radar range-finder. He hadn't used it about the Platform because there were too many tin cans and such trivia floating about. It wouldn't be dependable. But it did measure the exact distance to the nearest solid object.
"Prepare for firing on a count of five," said Joe quietly. "Five ... four ... three ... two ... one ... fire!"
The space tug's rockets blasted. For the first time since they overtook the Moonship, the tug now had help. The remaining rockets outside the Moonship's hull blasted furiously. Out the ports there was nothing but hurtling whitenesses. The rockets droned and rumbled and roared....
The main rockets burned out. The steering rockets still boomed. Joe had thrown them on for what good their lift might do.
"Joe!" said Haney in a surprised tone. "I feel weight! Not much, but some! And the main rockets are off!"
Joe nodded. He watched the instruments before him. He shifted a control, and the space tug swayed. It swayed over to the limit of the tow-chain it had fastened to the Moonship. Joe shifted his controls again.