Babs stumbled,
and Cochrane caught her, and they ran onward hand in hand to get clear
away from the down-blast of the rockets. The rocket-roaring grew louder
and louder.
The castaways gazed. It was the ship. From below, fierce flames poured
down, blue-white and raging. The silver hull slanted a little. It
shifted its line of descent. It came down with a peculiar deftness of
handling that Cochrane had not realized before. Its rockets splashed,
but the flame did not extend out to the edge of the clearing that had
been burned off at first. The rocket-flames, indeed, did not approach
the proportion to be seen on rockets on film-tape, or as Cochrane had
seen below the moon-rocket descending on Earth.
The ship settled within yards of its original landing-place. Its rockets
dwindled, but remained burning. They dwindled again. The noise was
outrageous, but still not the intolerable tumult of a moon-rocket
landing on Earth.
The rockets cut off.
The airlock door opened. Cochrane and Babs waved cheerfully from the
edge of the clearing. Holden appeared in the door and shouted down:
"Sorry to be so long coming back.
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