"Tie him into one of the chairs in the pilot room," Jonny was saying. Harb came plunging out of the ship. "Nobody else aboard. He came over here alone." By the time Carlin had the unconscious man secured in the pilot room, Harb and the others had slid open the big hatch in the side of the "Phoenix." Hastily, fumbling in darkness, they ran out the ship hoist and hooked onto the big magnetic dredge. Then, with infinite labor, they swung the massive mechanism into the hold amidships. Mere short flashes of hand lamps had to suffice to guide the beam-head of the dredge down into the round keel opening. "Fasten half the frame bolts—they'll hold till we get into space," panted Jonny. Carlin skinned his knuckles in the dark, fumbling with bolts and wrench. Every instant he expected to hear an alarm from Loesser that Control officers were coming. "That'll have to hold," said the sweating Jonny. "Run the truck off the tarmac. Harb, make ready for take-off!" CHAPTER VIII Solar Struggle Oxygenators started throbbing, doors clanged, as the others tumbled aboard. Harb Land, smeared with dirt and oil, his shock of hair wild, climbed into the pilot seat and expertly touched controls. "Generators coming on!" sang Loesser's breathless voice from the interphone, as the low, deep hum began. "Stasis on," said Harb rapidly, his fingers busy. The blue cushion of force was around them as Carlin slumped drunkenly into a seat. "Zero, two and five acceleration schedule. Here we go!" And the "Phoenix" swept up with a rush from the spaceport, the propulsion-waves streaming from its drive-plates hurling it out and upward into the star-sown sky, the spaceport lamps and the southward blinking lights of New York falling swiftly away. "Authorization!" yelped a startled voice from the universal communic on the panel. "Give authorization for take-off!" "Authorization already given," Harb Land rapped back, then cut the communic. He laughed. "That'll puzzle them a while." Crazy, reckless, suicidal, to Carlin seemed the way that Harb was
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