I dashed up to the deck. Ah, the Moon was so close now! So horribly
close! The deck shadows were still. Through the forward bow windows the
Moon surface glared up at us.

* * * * *

I reached the turret. The _Planetara_ was steady. Pitched bow-down, half
falling, half sliding like a rocket downward. The scarred surface of the
Moon spread wide under us.

These last horrible minutes were a blur. And there was always Anita's
face. She left Miko. Faced with death, he sat clinging. Ignoring her,
Moa, too, sat apart. Staring--

And Anita crept to me. "Gregg, dear one. The end...."

I tried the electronic engines from the stern, setting them in the
reverse. The streams of their light glowed from the stern, forward
along our hull, and flared down from our bow toward the Lunar surface.
But no atmosphere was here to give resistance. Perhaps the electronic
streams checked our fall a little. The pumps gave us pressure, just in
the last minutes, to slide a few of the hull-plates. But our bow stayed
down. We slid, like a spent rocket falling.

I recall the horror of that expanding Lunar surface. The maw of
Archimedes yawning. A blob. Widening to a great pit. Then I saw it was
to one side. Rushing upward.

A phantasmagoria of uprushing crags. Black and gray. Spires tinged with
Earth-light.

"Gregg, dear one--good-by."

Her gentle arms around me. The end of everything for us. I recall
murmuring, "Not falling free, Anita. Some hull-plates are set."

My dials showed another plate shifting, checking us a little further.
Good old Snap.

I calculated the next best plate to shift. I tried it. Slid it over.
Good old Snap....

Then everything faded but the feeling of Anita's arms around me.

"Gregg, dear one--"

The end of everything for us....

There was an up-rush of gray-black rock.

An impact....

CHAPTER XXII

_The Hiss of Death_

I opened my eyes to a dark blur of confusion. My shoulder hurt--a pain
shooting through it. Something lay like a weight on me. I could not seem
to move my left arm. Very queer! Then I moved it, and it hurt. I was
lying twisted: I sat up. And with a rush, memory came. The crash was
over. I am not dead. Anita--

She was lying beside me. There was a little light here in this silent
blur--a soft, mellow Earth-light filtering in the window. The weight on
me was Anita. She lay sprawled, her head and shoulders half way across
my lap.

Not dead! Tha