umatic valves of the plate shifters in the lower control room. The
valves were opening; the plates automatically shifting into neutral,
and disconnecting!

An instant of startled silence. Miko may have realized the
significance of what had happened. Certainly Snap and I did. The
hissing ceased. I gripped the emergency plate shifter switch which
hung over my head. Its disc was dead! The plates were dead in neutral:
in the position they were placed only in port! And their shifting
mechanisms were imperative!

I was on my feet. "We're in neutral!"

The Moon disc moved visibly as the _Planetara_ lurched. The vault of
the heavens was slowly swinging.

Miko ripped out a heavy oath. "Haljan! What is this?"

The heavens turned with a giant swoop. The Moon was over us. It swung
in a dizzying arc. Overhead, then back past our stern; under us, then
appearing over our bow.

The _Planetara_ had turned over. Upending. Rotating, end over end.

For a moment I think all of us in the turret stood and clung. The Moon
disc, the Earth, Sun and all the stars were swinging past our windows.
So horribly dizzying. The _Planetara_ seemed lurching and tumbling.
But it was an optical effect only. I stared with grim determination at
my feet. The turret seemed to steady.

Then I looked again. That horrible swoop of all the heavens! And the
Moon, as it went past seemed expanded. We were falling! Out of
control, with the Moon gravity pulling us down!

"That accursed Hahn--"

A moment only had passed. My fancy that the Moon disc was enlarged was
merely the horror of my imagination. We had not fallen far enough for
that.

But we were falling. Unless I could do something, we would crash upon
the Lunar surface.

Anita, killed in this turret: the end of everything--every hope.

Action came to me. I gasped, "Miko, you stay here! The controls are
dead! You stay here and hold Anita--"

I ignored Moa's weapon. Snap thrust her away.

"We're falling, you fool--let us alone!"

Miko gasped, "Can you--check us? What happened?"

"I don't know--"

I stood clinging. This dizzying whirl. From the audiphone grid
Coniston's voice sounded.

"I say, Haljan, something's wrong. Hahn doesn't signal."

The lookout in the forward tower was clinging to our window. On the
deck below our turret a member of the crew appeared, stood lurching
for a moment, then shouted and ran, swaying, aimless. From the lower
hull corridors our grids sounded with the tramp