Captain Bonnet pointed to a small globe painted with a map of the world. His finger touched a dot in the South Pacific near the Antarctic continent at 60 degrees south latitude and 120 degrees west longitude.
"That's Dougherty Island," he said. "Between that island and San Francisco are 6,300 miles of empty Pacific ocean. We're going to try to land near Dougherty Island at a speed so fast we'll barely touch the surface of the water. But as we touch the water, the frictional heat of the sides of our space ship will transform the water instantly into steam. The steam will cushion our ship against shock and decelerate us rapidly—but not too rapidly for endurance. The stop will be rough, but we can take it. We ought to be able to stop in 6,300 miles."
"Whew! A steam landing!"
Captain Bonnet kept his hands on the control, ready to use a few drops of precious fuel to keep the craft in its spiral parallel to the surface of the earth. The earth seemed to float upward slowly to meet the space ship.
The interior of the craft grew uncomfortably hot, but the cooling system worked.
A vast expanse of white appeared directly below the craft. It was the South Polar ice cap.
"We're over James Ellsworth Land," the captain said, checking his position. "That's about twenty-three degrees east of the longitude of Dougherty Island. That's lucky."
"Lucky?" said the lieutenant.
"We can circle the earth once, drop our message over some city and get back on the right longitude," the captain explained. "It'll take us about an hour and a half at our present speed to make the circumnavigation. In that time the earth will turn twenty-two and one-half degrees beneath us."