"We are still falling but not so fast as before!"
"At full repulsion, too!"
"Yes—we are too close, and the gravity is so great! Without the strength of the resisters we can only hope to come down as lightly as possible!"
The professor knew this latter statement to be nothing but hope. Their fall was rapid enough to smash them all to bits of wreckage when the spaceship crashed. And their precious brains would be scattered among the ruins.
The great world swelled on their vision, its proportions so vast that it filled the sky before them. Mountainous country reached giant fingers to receive them. On the horizon, the topography was obscured by cloud masses drifting in the great, dense sea of atmosphere. Already, they were able to feel the mighty attraction of the planet's gravity upon their metal bodies.
"Keep the reverse charges going until the last minute—until we strike!"
"The unusual density of the atmosphere may help slow our descent!"
This, they knew, was a long chance. The density of the atmospheric lower levels was commensurate with the planet's strong gravity.
A sobbing wail arose from outside the ship, swelling into a roar of many waterfalls. The spaceship throbbed and trembled, and every machine man realized that they had penetrated into the atmosphere at a tremendous speed. Anxiously, they consulted their instruments. Their mad fall was checked but slightly, and they realized their doom, for in the hundred miles or more left them, there was no possible chance of braking their speed to a safe maximum even with the increasing density of the atmosphere to help them.