Strength was coming back to him slowly, his normal resilience overcoming to some extent the beating his body had taken. The grayness had thinned somewhat. He was less inclined to slip off into semiconsciousness.

Again he examined the circuit. The essential wire that fed the drone control the signals from the blockhouse was clipped to the terminal post. All he had to do was unclip it and reconnect it to the drone-control input.

He couldn't control his fingers accurately yet, and he made several attempts to pull the alligator clip off the terminal post. Finally he made it, and sank back exhausted from the physical effort.

Far below, in the blockhouse, the indicator light on the control panel changed from green to red. Circuit not operating! Those in the blockhouse had no way of knowing that it had been out of operation since before the take-off. To them, the sudden switch in signal meant something had gone wrong in flight.

Rick vaguely realized that the light must have changed, but he didn't think about it. Now he had to find the proper terminal for the input wire. He should know where it was. He had wired this circuit himself.

But try as he would, he could not find the contact.

The rocket was accelerating rapidly now, and its flight pattern was changing slowly. Instead of dropping tail first, it was canting to one side. In less than a minute it would be entering the outer fringes of the atmosphere, in the region where friction against air molecules and atoms would start heating the rocket.

Rick's flashlight beam probed the innards of the drone control. The place from which the input wire had been ripped must be within easy reach. Otherwise, the Earthman couldn't have disconnected it in what must have been a short time. For another thing, it had to be within the length of loose wire, because the Earthman had simply disconnected it, then reconnected it in another place.

He was thinking more clearly now. He poked the loose wire around, careless of possible shorts, and his luck held. A dozen times the bare wire tip brushed within a tiny s.p.a.ce of terminals that would have shorted out the whole control.

He found the terminal.

The wire had been soldered into place. The Earthman must have used a pair of needle-nose pliers to reach in and jerk it loose. There was a channel in the solder where the tip had rested.

Rick tried to replace the wire, but the area was too small for his hand.

When he had wired the contact originally, the cha.s.sis had been sitting in the open on his workbench. Now it was encased in aluminum, except on the top where he had removed the cover plate.

He was conscious suddenly of a faint hiss. It was so faint that he didn't even notice it at first. Then, with sudden horror, he realized what it was. The rocket was striking the atmosphere! There wasn't yet enough air to act on the control surfaces. But soon the rocket would enter the denser layers of air and the airfoils would take hold. The rocket would turn over and plunge nose-down.

With the renewed energy of fear, Rick started to work again. He thrust his hand into the box, tearing the skin on the metal edge. He couldn't reach the terminal.

If he could only open the box in some way. But he couldn't do it with his bare hands. He needed a tool of some kind. He started to search his pockets and his hand brushed the kit at his belt. The pliers! He had completely forgotten them. He shook his head, and sweat ran down the sides of his face.

The rocket continued its rapidly accelerating fall, and heat built up, even from the thin air at a hundred and twenty miles. At the rocket's velocity of fall, Rick had less than two minutes to live. Pegasus was approaching dense air that would heat its skin to incandescence.

With the pliers he tore at the side of the box and managed to chew out a piece of the thin aluminum. Then he bent back the jagged edges and tried again. The wire touched the terminal.

Now to hold it in place!

He searched through the tool kit again, but found nothing that was useful for this purpose. The wire had to be locked in place fairly tightly, or it would tear loose just from vibration.

Again he flashed the light around, noting absently that he could see better. Light was diffusing into the cabin now that Pegasus had reached lower alt.i.tude.

The light fell on Prince Machiavelli. The s.p.a.cemonk was taped tightly.

Instruments were held to his shaven skin by surgical tape. Rick pulled himself to the monk's side and found an end of tape. It held the stethoscope. He pulled it free and the monk chattered at him excitedly.

"Sorry, boy," Rick muttered. The side-cutting pliers weren't the best tools, but he managed to chew off a piece of the tape. It was ragged, but it would have to do. Holding the piece of tape in the pliers, he pressed it down against the wire, forcing the wire tip into its tiny groove. Then he rubbed it with the blunt end of the pliers, trying to get a good bond between the tape and the solder of the junction.

He drew back and waited. The connection was made. He knew that the rush of air outside was louder, and he suddenly realized that the cabin was very hot. Jerry Lipton would have taken over control long ago! Why wasn't the control responding?

Rick fought down the fear that gripped at his throat and made breathing hard. He couldn't panic! There must be something still wrong. But what was it?

The flashlight beam moved over the maze of wiring, then stopped on the coppery gleam of a cut wire.

Of course! When he had pulled the alligator clip, the board had showed red. Jerry didn't know the controls were working!

Rick tried to reconnect the wire he had cut. The ends barely touched; the wire had been tight. He couldn't hold contact.

Jerry had to understand that the controls were working. If only he had a microphone, a key--anything with which to signal.

The heat was increasing rapidly. The temperature must surely be over a hundred. Pegasus had reached the air again, and was falling out of control!

CHAPTER XIX

The Unyielding Ground

Prince Machiavelli began to cry. He let Rick know he didn't like the heat in a series of sobbing yelps.

Rick glanced up, surprised at the sudden noise, and flashed his light on the monk. The little animal was suffering from the heat, the fur of his head matted and his eyes staring. Dangling from his little chest was the stethoscope Rick had ripped away to get the tape.

Rick stared at it. If only ...

He fought his body's tendency to fly to the top of the rocket and got a firm grip with one leg around the channel under the s.p.a.cemonk, then he took the stethoscope bell and began to tap in Morse code:

T-A-K-E C-O-N-T-R-O-L T-A-K-E C-O-N-T-R-O-L.

In the blockhouse, Charlie Ka.s.sick was watching the display with an anxious eye. Suddenly the straight line--a reading of zero--that had begun when the stethoscope quit functioning began to break up into a regular pattern.

Charlie couldn't read Morse code. He only knew there was something strange going on. He let out a yell that brought John Gordon jumping to his side.

Gordon studied the strange pattern, a square wave shape, a blank, then a peak followed by a square wave shape, a blank, then a square wave, peak, and square ...

Rick was still tapping when he heard the sudden whine of servomotors.

The rocket tilted but continued its fall, rushing toward earth while its nose swung slightly upward. Then the airfoils took hold and Pegasus began to climb once more.

Rick was flat on the floor, thrown there for a few seconds when gravity became normal. He climbed to his feet again, fighting pain and weakness.

Jerry Lipton was flying Pegasus. It was a reprieve. The boy and the marmoset had a chance after all, if the heat didn't get them. Rick could feel his skin tighten, feel the moisture baking out of him.

He held on to the channel with one hand and found the stethoscope with the other. Concentrating, he tapped out a message.

E-R-T-H-M-A-N I-N E-L-E-C-T-R-O-N-C G-R-P H-E O-N-E O-F L-S-T T-O E-N-T-R R-O-C-K-T.

He signed his initials.

The rocket was dipping toward earth again, in accordance with the landing flight plan. It was traveling nearly ten thousand miles an hour.