In a mad lunge he pulled the space bar all the way back. The forward tubes blasted violently—the ship drew to a theoretical stop. Poised motionless amidst the splendor of a trillion stars.
Working frantically Michel Drawers made the proper connections. He might find a valuable deposit of Roxite yet. Perhaps there would be something to take back to Earth after all. Perhaps all was not yet hopeless. He might still be rich when he got back—if he got back.
The powerful little rockets streamed blazing glory again and the little silvery projectile was drawn by the magic of the Roxitometer, down the path of Roxite radiations to some still unknown world from where it emanated.
And gradually Drawers began to realize that they were heading for a beautiful little globe more than sixty million miles from a medium sized sun. And he prepared to enter the atmosphere of this world—and let the powers of the Roxitometer lead him to the location of the Roxite deposit. He muttered a silent prayer that it might not be located too deeply in the bowels of the planet.
Now he was holding tight as the "Star-Struck" streamed through the atmosphere of the planet. The landscape began to lay itself out before him. He could make out soft blue forests of alien vegetation—golden streams of unknown liquids. At two thousand feet he halted the ship's descent. Momentarily he allowed it to float above the terrain of this strange world. Drinking in its wonders with curious eyes.
He had been drawn to many worlds before by the insistent clangings of the Roxitometer—but never had he witnessed a world of such unutterable beauty and color. Barely a discordant note in the entire scheme of things. Even the winds blew softly, gently, against the hull of his ship. Prompted by an unfathomable urge he tested the atmosphere of the planet. Oxygen and Nitrogen proved present in appreciable quantities—but there was also another—and unknown gas of undetermined qualities.
He wondered if it were breathable. It had been so long, so very long since he had known anything other than the metallic smell of synthetic air. With gladness he would trade half of his possessions for a few great lungfulls of pure, fresh, untainted air.
Then it was that Michel Drawers performed a suicidical act. He opened the inner and outer locks of his ship simultaneously and allowed the atmosphere of this unfamiliar world to pour in and mingle with that of the ship. He breathed in deeply, heavily. Lungful after lungful. Nothing happened. The new air had a certain, pleasant perfumed quality—perhaps a characteristic of the new gas. If it were fatally poisonous, at least it was not immediately so.
Forgotten were thoughts of Roxite and riches. Forgotten was his heartbreaking longing for Earth. Only one instinct possessed him. A desire to set foot upon real soil again. To tread agilely forward—to breath in natural air—to view natural, though alien sights. To see streams of liquids bubble past.
He settled the "Star-Struck" with unprecedented clumsiness down upon the surface of the world—saved from a bad shock by the light gravitational pull of the planet.