Eight Zoromes sat securely fastened near the ship's controls, and the first one who recovered his mental balance forced the super-resisters into action.
Night, with its flaming stars, replaced daylight, yet the noonday sun still shone upon them. They had cleared the atmosphere and were in space—but were far from being free of Ajiat. Their battle with the planet's mighty attraction had just begun.
They were forced to accept one discouraging fact with fatalism. They were heading off Ajiat straight for the sun which was shortly to explode! To have waited for Ajiat to rotate would have lost for them more precious time.
In space, they still maintained the speed of their initial rise, yet they realized that their speed must be increased if they were to win free of the giant world.
In suspense, they watched the speed gauges and waited. 20R-654 gave the ship every advantage he had learned in his long career of space navigation.
Their speed gradually increased, yet dangerously slow in acceleration even though they were winning free. The nova would spread with the speed of light and catch them in their battle against the strong gravity of Ajiat! In free space, the flight of the spaceship exceeded that of light several times over, but within the grip of Ajiat their speed was appallingly small. They were gaining more speed and were now sure of escaping Ajiat, but if the computations were correct they knew they would not escape the nova.
They were heading straight for the sun and dared not wheel in another direction until they were free of Ajiat's attraction.
The remaining hours fled. Minutes were left.
The machine men knew that a respite of thirteen minutes would be granted them from the time the explosion took place on the sun until the bright, hot flare of light reached them. The flaming gases to follow would reach Ajiat about a day and a half later.
They kept onward until it was agreed that with the little time left them they might turn at an angle of forty-five degrees from their course, then gradually turn this angle into a curve away from both the sun and the orbital course of Ajiat. They were speeding upon this curve when Professor Jameson announced that the meteoric mass they had passed in space before coming to Ajiat was probably, at that moment, hurling its provocative bulk into the sun.