Death Sentence
So time sped by. And outward, ever toward the fringes of Sol's empire, flashed the Liberty on her all-important mission. The sun which but a few short weeks ago had been a blazing furnace threatening fiery annihilation to the space venturers had now dwindled to the apparent size of a tiny, glowing pea, half lost in the black depths behind them. A small, feebly glistening body whose heat at this great distance was scarce sufficient to make its presence felt.
And as this great luminary shrunk, its offspring grew ever larger in the Liberty's vision plate. Now the fifth planet was a heaven-filling orb scant hours away. Already the cruiser had whisked through the orbit of Jupiter's nine satellites and now, on a course carefully set by Lark O'Day, Skipper Warren was preparing to drop the Liberty to Jupiter's surface.
Muldoon, standing beside the space patrolman as he fingered the studs, said wonderingly, "Boy, that's one big planet, ain't it? Only—" His brow furrowed—"there's one thing I don't understand. How far away from it are we?"
"'Bout twenty thousand," answered Warren.
"Well, then, how come it hasn't gripped us yet? I should think a thing as big as that would have a grav-drag strong enough to clamp hold of us about three or four times this far away."
Warren chuckled. "Appearances are deceiving, Flick. Don't let the apparent size of Jupiter fool you."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Simply," explained the pilot, "that the true planet Jupiter is not much larger than Earth."
"What? But I can see for myself—"