The space-ship leaned, and leaned....
Cochrane's lips tensed.
The space-ship's rockets bellowed and a storm of hurtling smoke flashed
up around it. It lifted, staggering as its steering-jets tried
frantically to swing its lower parts underneath its mass. It lurched
violently, and the rockets flamed terribly. It lifted again. Its tail
was higher than the trees, but it did not point straight up. It surged
horribly across the top of the forest, leaving a vast flash of flaming
vegetation behind it. Then it steadied, and aimed skyward and
climbed....
Then it was not. Obviously the Dabney field booster had been flashed on
to get the ship out to space. The ship had vanished into emptiness.
The Dabney field had flicked it some hundred and seventy-odd light-years
from Earth's moon in the flicker of a heart-beat. It might have gone
that far again. Whoever was in it had had no choice but to take off, and
no way to take off without suicidal use of fuel in any other way.
Cochrane looked at where the ship had vanished. Seconds passed. There
came the thunderclap of air closing the vacuum the ship's disappearance
had left.
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