"It says this is the main lateral-thrust lever," said Hull, putting his hand on a little burnished lever. "Fifty degrees east... seven of these little vernier marks to the left."
The gigantic snake of the nebula slid out of their view in the screen.
"Zenith and nadir thrust control," muttered Hull, touching still another of the small levers.
The star-fields changed in the screen. The ship, still running at a velocity far higher than that of any craft ever known in the galaxy, moved again with apparent sanity through the jungle of suns on a course parallel with the rim of the galaxy, arrowing slightly zenithward in the starry swarm.
Gordon felt a tension that was now unbearable. He knew that the H'Harn did not mean to let them escape, that the thing had something up its sleeve, some trap that would close directly they landed...
Don't think of that, he told himself. Keep your mind on Hull and what he's saying about the controls.
After what seemed an endless time, a yellow sun very like Sol lay dead ahead, and its disc grew as the ship flew on. Presently they could see the planet that swung around it.
"Is this the world?" Gordon demanded.
"Yes," came the H'Harn's answering thought.
The creature then gave Hull further telepathic instructions, and Hull said, "Deceleration control... two notches," and touched another lever.
Gordon watched Hull closely. If the H'Harn meant suddenly to seize their pilot, it was likely to be fairly soon. So far, Hull's face remained normal. But he knew how swiftly the change could come, to that inhuman stiffness. And if that happened... Don't think about it. Don't think!
The planet rushed toward them, a green-and-gray globe, its surface hidden here and there by belts of cloud. Gordon caught the glint of a sea, far around its curve.
"Deceleration... two more notches, to reach stationary orbit," repeated Hull, voicing the instructions of the H'Harn.
And after a few minutes, "Needle centered on third dial... orbit stationary. Trim lever, four notches..."
He touched the trim lever and the ship rotated, then began descending tail first toward the surface of the planet. Hull Burrel said, "Descent control... three notches." They went down through streaming clouds, and a little muted bell rang somewhere.
"Friction alarm," said Hull. "Reduce descent velocity by two notches." He moved the lever under his hand.
They looked downward, through the aft view-screen, and saw the planet rising toward them. There was a green landscape, with forests and plains, and the silver ribbon of a river. Gordon heard the quick breathing of Shorr Kan and thought, He's as keyed up as I am... think about Shorr Kan... think whether you can trust him...
"One-half notch less," said Hull, and moved the lever again.
They were a thousand feet above the forest when Gordon struck. He did it with the abrupt ferocity of a man who will not have a second chance and knows it. Hull Burrel's hand still held the lever. Gordon hit it and smashed it downward. The lever went wide open and there was a shrieking roar of air.
Hull shouted something and the next moment the tail of the ship hit the ground. Gordon went flying, with the sound of the ship's collapsing fabric loud in his ears. He caromed into the control panel and the breath went out of him. There was a long falling cadence of grindings and crackings and metallic screamings. Gradually they ceased. By the time Gordon got his head cleared and his breath back, the ship was quite still, canted drunkenly over on one side.
Shorr Kan was picking himself up, streaming blood from a cut on the forehead. Hull Burrel lay on the deck, limp and motionless. In a panic, Gordon pawed at him, rolled him over and felt for the pulse in his throat.
"Dead?" asked Shorr Kan. He had opened his tunic and was tearing a strip of cloth from his undergarment.
Still gasping for breath, Gordon poked up one of Hull's eyelids and shook his head. "Unconscious. I don't think he's badly hurt."
Shorr Kan pressed the bit of cloth over the gash on his head. It rapidly became crimson. "Lucky," he said. "We could all be dead." He glared at Gordon. "Why in the name of hell did you crash us... ?"
He suddenly fell silent. Shorr Kan had one of the quickest minds that Gordon had ever met. He was now looking at the after part of the alien ship.
The bulkheads back there were crumpled like tin. The tail of the descending ship had taken the full force of the impact. Shorr Kan turned again to Gordon, with an arctic light in his black eyes.
He whispered, "Do you get anything now?"
Gordon too had been listening, straining not only with his ears but with his mind.
"Nothing," he said. "Not the faintest flicker. I think the H'Harn must have died in the landing."
"It would pretty well have to be dead, the way the ship is wrecked back there," said Shorr Kan. "Of course. That's what you were trying to do, kill the H'Harn in the landing."
Gordon nodded. He felt horribly shaky, a reaction from the ordeal of mental battle.
"It was never going to let us walk away free," he said. "That was sure. I took a chance on getting it first."
Shorr Kan refolded the sopping cloth. He nodded, and the gesture made him wince. "I'll say for you, Gordon, you have the courage of your convictions. But I think you were right. I think it would have blasted our minds... or at least two of our minds... before it let any of us go free. To coin a phrase, we know too much."
"Yes," said Gordon. "I only wish we knew more."
Hull Burrel remained unconscious so long that Gordon was beginning to worry. Finally he came around, grumbling that every bone in his body was broken, then adding that it was worth it to be rid of the H'Harn. He looked at Gordon with narrowed, appraising eyes.
"I'm not sure I'd have had the nerve to risk it," he said.
"You're a spaceman," Gordon said. "You know too well what might have happened." He nodded to the crumpled hull plates. "Drag your fractures over here and give us a hand."
Hull laughed and shook his head, and came. It took them a long time to lever the plates wide enough so that they could edge through, but was no other way out... the lock was hopelessly jammed... and the impact had already done most of the work for them. They climbed out at last into warm yellow sunshine and dropped to the green-turfed ground.
Gordon looked around wonderingly. This world, or at least this portion of it, had a startling similarity to Earth. The men stood at the edge of a green forest, and not far from them the forest thinned and they had glimpses of a rolling plain. The sky was blue, the sunshine golden, the air sweet and full of the dry fragrance of leaves and grasses. It was true that the individual shrubs, trees, and plants he saw were quite unlike terrestrial ones in detail, but the overall resemblance to a scene in the temperate zone of Earth was very great.
Hull Burrel had other thoughts. He was frowning gloomily at the wreck of the ship that had brought them so far across the void.
"That one will never fly again," he said.
"Even if it was undamaged, you couldn't handle it," said Gordon. "It was only through the H'Harn that you managed."
Hull nodded. "So here we are, without a ship, on an uninhabited world."
Gordon knew what he meant. Stranded.
"But is it uninhabited?" said Shorr Kan. The cut had now ceased to bleed. "I know the H'Harn said it was, but those creatures are the fathers of lies. Just before we crashed I thought I saw a distant something that might be a town."
"Mm," said Gordon uneasily. "If this world is inhabited, and the H'Harn was making for it, it's extremely likely to be one of the nonhuman worlds in this part of the Marches that follow Narath Teyn... and the counts."