of landing a ship intact."

"At least the Rippler method's out," Lieutenant Riley said dryly. "We'd have to have fifty gallons of fuel to land a fourteen-valve lifeboat on its rocket jets."

"Even the spiral landing orbit would require twenty-five gallons," Captain Bonnet pointed out. "Both methods are out. We've got about two gallons of rocket fuel in the tank and we'll need most of it in the cooling system to keep us from burning up until we can drop the message."

Hours ticked swiftly away as the space ship moved closer to the earth. The craft had reached the middle of its course, where terrestrial and Venusian gravities neutralized, with speed to spare. From now on it would accelerate slowly under the pull of the earth's attraction and it could be expected to enter the earth's atmosphere at a speed greater than 200 miles a second. The entire trip from Venus to the earth would take about 72 hours. The job of decelerating from 200 miles a second to less than ten would be taken care of in the 1,000 miles of atmosphere lying above the earth. It could be accomplished with no more discomfort than a passenger in a car experiences in a sudden stop. But the last ten miles per second deceleration would mean the overcoming of the force of gravity itself.

Captain Bonnet considered the danger of the moon interfering with the ship's flight to earth. He discovered, to his relief, that the moon was out of the way, on the opposite side of the earth. At least he would not have to use precious fuel to keep the craft from landing on the moon.

He checked the cooling apparatus. It seemed in perfect working condition and should keep the two passengers from roasting alive until the ship crashed. At least this was a comfort.

Lieutenant Riley, who had been sleeping, opened his eyes.

"Say, Paul, I've an idea!"

"Yeah? Spill it."

"Why couldn't we keep the ship in an orbit outside the earth's atmosphere until it is sighted by telescope?"

"There are two pretty good reasons for that," Paul Bonnet replied. "In the first place we'll be going too fast. If we tried to get into an orbit we'd sail right out again. To become a satellite of the earth—and I suppose that's what you're thinking of—we'd have to slow ourselves down to exactly the right speed necessary to overcome the earth's gravity. That would be hard to do with the instruments 

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