OUT OF THE DARKNESS, light. Out of the sultriness, a thin, cool finger of breeze. Out of the silence of death, life!
Tim Mallory opened his eyes. And a thick, wordless cry of thanksgiving burst from his lips as he stared about him. The impossible had happened!
The ship had crashed. Its control-room was a fused and twisted heap of wreckage smoldering in the giant crater it had plowed. But somehow the observation turret, offset in a streamlined vane of the Orestes, had escaped destruction.
Great rents gaped where once girders had welded together sturdy permalloy sheets, purposeless shards lay strewn about, even the hammocks had been wrenched from their strong moorings, but he and his companions still lived!
Even as Tim fought to loose the straps that circled him, Captain Lane groaned, st
