At zero hour, all rockets were blowing at full capacity. Rob could feel the Rigel bending to the implacable will of the big world. As the ship’s nose was pulled inward, the young spaceman could see the anxiety on his superior’s face.
“I hope we’ve calculated this thing correctly, Rob,” the lieutenant said tightly. “The ship should begin to turn tail on Saturn in a little while.”
But the Rigel still had not turned after twenty, nor even forty, minutes.
“We’re losing ground!” Lieutenant Stone said, checking a dial on the screen. “Something’s wrong! But that can’t be!”
Rob went over to the screen, where the spectroscope dial showed that the globe was growing closer, although it was not visibly so. If the Rigel were not checked within a short time, the space ship would plunge into Saturn’s poisonous atmosphere! Rob picked up a clipboard of papers and began studying it.
“I’d give anything if we were on the Procyon which took you and your brother to Jupiter!” Lieutenant Stone complained. “The Rigel’s built primarily for distance and hasn’t a fraction of the Procyon’s rocket thrust!”
“There seems to be something wrong in the figures for Titan!” Rob suddenly spoke.
Lieutenant Stone looked over his shoulder. Silently the two went through the figures, inspecting every equation where the numbers appeared relating to Saturn’s largest satellite.
“The figures are wrong in two places!” the officer exclaimed. “No wonder we miscalculated the total gravity pull! Whoever prepared these notes back at the base will surely catch it! I guess we can’t blame him too much, though. These figures were worked up on extra short notice for us.”
“What’re we going to do, lieutenant?” Rob asked. “The ship’s on top power drive now!”