Beak climbed onto the fuselage, holding onto the cowling with one hand, while his feet dangled over the side. His other hand, Jerry knew, was on the rip cord of the ’chute.
“Ten years ago I’d ha’ told you to go to hell!” he said bitterly, and shoved off.
His body was visible as a sprawling thing for an instant, then vanished absolutely. Jerry, staring backward, caught a dim flare of near-by whiteness—the opening parachute.
“Poor Beak!” he muttered, with a searing pity of youth for age.
He turned forward again. The stick rattled and the plane moved uncertainly. Jerry tightened his fingers and the ship ceased its erratic motion.
“I feel as if the tail had dropped off her,” he muttered.
The sense of emptiness behind him in the other cockpit made his back feel uncomfortable. He switched on the motor. Its roar made him feel better.
“No use sticking around up here till she quits,” he decided. He picked out a star and flew toward it for several minutes, to give Beak plenty of room in descending.
With a piece of his shoelace he suspended his jackknife, pendulum-fashion, from the unlighted instrument board in front of him. Then, gingerly, he set the ship up on one wing in a tight spiral, as Beak had done. The man and plane spun downward toward the hidden, unfriendly earth.
He waited, occasionally staring downward, occasionally looking upward, to see if the stars were still visible. They were. He whistled, as well as he could. He had a long way to go yet. Then suddenly, wisps of vapor, like an army of specters, assailed the ship. He was in it.