Obediently Chip sprang to the board, plunged the studs Salvation had named. As he did so, the steady hum of the hypatomic deepened. There came the ponderous thud! of a rocket jet exploding. Then another. Then almost at once the first again.
The floor beneath him shook, throbbed, trembled. Chip was conscious of a curious lightness, a sense of whirling giddiness that he recognized almost immediately. He had experienced the sensation once before when a spaceship in which he had been a passenger was thrown into axial revolution by the titanic tug of Jupiter. Clinging for support to whatever offered itself, he moved with difficulty to the room's vision-plates, opened the circuit that revealed the exterior of the Aurora, and—what he saw brought a cry to his lips. A cry in which was mingled triumph and awe and almost a certain horror-stricken, involuntary pity.
His depression of studs 1 and 12, firing-jets at opposite poles of the Aurora, had spun the tiny planetoid into axial rotation. It was whirling, now, like a gigantic top in the void. And from its surface, no longer held captive by the feeble artificial gravity, were hurtling the bodies of those whom a moment before had so proudly and confidently strode the asteroid's surface!
Chip saw one sight which would haunt him forever. Blacky Jordan emerging from the surface tunnel ... being whisked from the bosom of the Aurora as if by an invisible hand ... drawn violently to his vacuum tomb. For the split second there was an expression of terrible, uncomprehending fear on the pirate's face—then there was neither face nor pirate. Just the black, inexorable depths of space, studded with the myriad planetoid shards which formed the Bog.
Afterward Chip Warren said to Dr. Blaine, "I'm afraid Doctor, that if we're ever to set foot again in any civilized port, you must take us there. After the Aurora stopped revolving I went top-side to look for the Chickadee. I thought we might be able to repair it. But it's gone, just like Blacky Jordan and his crew. Everything on the surface of the planetoid was whisked away."
Dr. Blaine said, "I intend to do just that, Chip. As a matter of fact, Syd is already plotting our course. But I hope that after we've landed you, that won't be the last we'll ever see of you. Alison and I owe you an undying debt of gratitude. Had it not been for you—"
"You were magnificent!" breathed the girl. And looking at her, finding with an incredulous surprise a look in her eyes which more than echoed her father's wish, Chip knew Dr. Blaine would not, indeed, easily avoid seeing more of him. For he had heard the Lorelei's call and found it sweet.
Salvation, intercepting the look that passed between them, laughed. Flushing, Chip took refuge in denial of Dr. Blaine's claim. "Thank you, sir, but I'm afraid you overestimate our part in besting Jordan. Or at least my part. All I did was press the plunger. I wouldn't have known to do that if you folks hadn't told me. And I still don't understand what caused Jordan and all of the rest of his men who were below ground to race for the surface of the asteroid."
Dr. Blaine said, "That was Sydney's idea." But Syd contradicted him peremptorily. "Nope! I'm a great one for passing the buck. Oh, I thought of the means, maybe. But it was Chip who gave me the idea."