Lents came puffing from an observation port.
"She's slowing!" he reported triumphantly. "Our trajectory—give her a little more!"
The Joy Bubble was becoming more and more disc-shaped, and it was slowly turning on a major axis as the contending forces became uncentered.
"Flopping like a flapjack," Lents commented as he watched the shifting vista. A moment later; "It's a close squeeze. See there, past the horizon—a prominence?"
It was like a white plume, this jet of vapor thrown far into space. Not uncommon in Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere. But it was bright, dazzling! That meant they were not far from the sunlight!
"Pull away!" the fat mathematician shouted. "We have to take a chance!" Instantly Sine reversed the lever. Everyone grasped handholds as the ship backed out of the pit. Now they could see the vast ruin they had wrought. Sine gave her all the speed he dared, for the sun, for home!
The great ruin was slowly turning, and in a few minutes they saw again the darker shadow that was the fighting patrol ship, still clamped to her side. At the same instant the dull red pinpoint winked on. The Jovians had sighted them again! In a few minutes the hull was getting uncomfortably warm.
Lents laid down his pad.
"They will crash!" he declared. "But they have an hour, the fools! Instead of trying to burn us why don't they get into their space suits and free themselves?"
Jan, resting on the bench, shook his shaggy head.