Dr. Bryant cried, "A planet! But which, Warren? One of our own universe, or—?"
Warren grinned mirthlessly. "Not on your life. The only place to lick an enemy is in his own back yard. Thank heavens, those Jovian engineers taught me how to use their tricky drive! I warped us clean around that space fleet into the night side of their home planet. The world you see beneath us is Magog itself!
"And now for our landing—" His fingers flickered over the studs. The Liberty dropped slowly, smoothly, speed dwindling as Warren searched for a likely landing place—and found it. A low plateau, cradled like a saucer between encircling hills.
No lights gleamed there; no glare of hostile cities. There was only Stygian darkness and the interminable greenery of jungle. The Liberty, enveloped in its matter-repulsing shield, struck once lightly and bounced; dropped lower. Warren released the shield that the ship might settle. Through the metal hull they could hear the crackling of timber as the great ship plowed its way through virgin forest land ... then the grating grind of metal against rock as the ship wallowed to a landing ... and lay still.
Hugh Warren cut controls. He turned to his friends, panting, his forehead damp with perspiration. But he forced a shaky laugh, and....
"All right, folks. Turn in your tickets. This is the place we started for."
"So," said Flick Muldoon, "we're here. Actually here on Magog! We've been working and plotting and contriving it seems like forever. And all of a sudden when it seems like we're licked—bingo!—here we are!" Flick's face had a curiously woebegone expression. "I'm confused. No kidding, I'm up a tree. All this time, even though I knew where we were heading, I kept thinking subconsciously that we'd never make it. And now we're here, and I'm puzzled even worse. What are we going to do here?"
Dr. Bryant said, "Well, I should say the first thing we must do is test the gravity and atmosphere of Magog to make sure it's safe for us to venture outside."
"We won't have to worry about that," said Warren. "I told you the Liberty had all the latest gadgets. The testing apparatus went into action automatically upon our landing. We'll have a complete report in a few minutes."