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any choice but a picture of a cold, wet immersion in any of
several possible bodies of water was not encouraging. The suit would
probably float but which end first was a matter for conjecture and out
of it he would be as badly off for Johnny could not swim a stroke.
Nor had he any clear idea how long it would take to slow down to a
vertical drop. Able Jake made a full half swing of the globe to brake
down but Able Jake was an ultra-streamlined object with many times
the mass and weight of Johnny and his rig; furthermore the ships were
controllable to a certain degree while Johnny was not. Beyond the
certain knowledge that the effect of the chutes would be quite violent
and probably short-lived, the rest was unpredictable.
He tried to shake off gloomy speculation, uneasily aware that much of
the carefree confidence of the last hour had deserted him. In a more
normal state of mind again he became prey to tension once more, a
pounding heart and dry mouth recalling mercilessly the essential
frailties of his kind. So, with aching neck and burning eyes he strained
for a clear view past the length of the cylinder and--
There! The preliminary to the visual changes, a sudden sweep of
distortion over the landscape as his angle of sight through the refracting
particles became more shallow. Now was the time he had judged the
throat vane gyros should begin their run-up.
He worked the lanyard back carefully, fearful an awkward movement
might upset the cylinder's line-up, pulling the trigger lever over to
half-cock where the micro switch should complete circuit with the dry
power pack. There should be approximately one minute before the
major color changes began, which was also the minimum time for gyro
run up. Johnny resumed the watching and the waiting.
How long is a minute?
Is it the time it takes the fear-frozen trainee, staring glass-eyed at the
fumbled grenade to realize that this one at his feet is a dud?

Or is it the time before the rock-climber, clinging nail and toe to the
rock face with the rope snapped suddenly taut, feels it at last slacken
and sees the hands gripping safely come into sight?
Perhaps the greenhorn, rifle a-waver, watching the glimpse of tawny
color in the veldt-grass and waiting the thunder and the charge, could
say.
They'd all be wrong. It's much longer.
Long enough for Johnny to think of a dozen precautions he could have
taken, a dozen better ways to rig this or that. Long enough to worry
about whether the gyros were really running up as they should. A
thousand queries and doubts piled mountainously upward to an almost
unbearable peak of tension till suddenly the browns and greens below
flashed a shade lighter and it was time, and the savage snap on the
lanyard a blessed relief and total committal.
* * * * *
In the few seconds after the firing of the prime and before the busy
little timer snapped the valves wide open Johnny managed to slip his
toes under the jet pedals to avoid accidental firing. At the same time he
braced himself as rigidly as possible with aching arms against the walls
of the cylinder.
He saw briefly the flare of the jet reflected off the remnants of his cloud
of station stores before deceleration with all its unpleasantness began.
The lip of the cylinder's mouth swept up past his helmet as he was
rammed deep into the absorbent mass of ribbon chute. This wasn't a
padded contour chair under a mild 3G lift. The chutes took the first
shock, but Johnny took the rest the hard way, standing bolt upright.
He found with some surprise his head was right down through the neck
ring and inside the suit proper, his arms half withdrawn from the
sleeves, knees buckled to an almost unbelievable angle considering the
dimensions of the lower case.

He had time to hope fervently the cheap expendable motor wouldn't
burn out its throat and send him cart-wheeling through space, or blow
the surrounding tanks before the blackout came down.
He came out of it sluggishly, to find the relief from the dreadful
pressure almost as stupefying as the deceleration itself. While his
conscious mind screamed the urgency of immediate action, his bruised
and twisted body answered but feebly. The condition of complete
weightlessness and the springy reaction of the ribbon mass was all that
allowed him finally to claw himself out of the cylinder to where he
could use the suit jet without fear of burning the precious chutes.
He was so tired. His muscles of their own accord seemed to relax
intermittently, interfering with the control of his movements. Only the
sudden sight