This wheel by itself could turn the ship when it was in free fall and then hold it in the new position. (It must be clearly understood that this turning had no effect at all on the course or speed of the Galileo, but simply on its attitude, the direction it faced, just as a fancy diver may turn and twist in falling from a great height, without thereby disturbing his fall.)

The little wheel was able to turn the huge vessel by a very simple law of physics, but in an application not often seen on the earth. The principle was the conservation of momentum, in this case angular momentum or spin. Ice skaters understand the application of this law; some of their fanciest tricks depend on it.

As the little wheel spun rapidly in one direction the big ship spun slowly in the other direction. When the wheel stopped, the ship stopped and just as abruptly.

"Dark glasses, boys!" Cargraves called out belatedly as the ship started to nose over and the stars wheeled past the port. In spite of their wretched nausea they managed to find their goggles, carried on their persons for this event, and get them on.

They needed them very soon. The moon slid away out of sight. The sun and the earth came in to view. The earth was a great shining crescent like a moon, two days past new. At this distance- one-fourth the way to the moon -it appeared sixteen times as wide as the moon does from the earth and many times more magnificent. The horns of the crescent were blue-white from the polar ice caps. Along its length showed the greenish blue of sea and the deep greens and sandy browns of ocean and forest and field... for the line of light and dark ran through the heart of Asia and down into the Indian Ocean. This they could plainly see, as easily as if it had been a globe standing across a school room from them. The Indian Ocean was partly obscured by a great cloud bank, stormy to those underneath it perhaps, but blazing white as the polar caps to those who watched from space.

In the arms of the crescent was the nightside of earth, lighted dimly but plainly by the almost full moon behind them. But- and this is never seen on the moon when the new moon holds the old moon in her arms -the faintly lighted dark face was picked out here and there with little jewels of light, the cities of earth, warm and friendly and beckoning!

Halfway from equator to northern horn were three bright ones, not far apart—London, and Paris, and reborn Berlin. Across the dark Atlantic, at the very edge of the disk, was one especially bright and rosy light, the lights of Broadway and all of Greater New York.

All three of the boys were seeing New York for the first time, not to mention most of the rest of the great globe.

But, although it was their home, although they were it from a glorious vantage point new to mankind, their attention was torn away from the earth almost at once. There was a still more breath-taking object in the sky—the sun.

Its apparent width was only one-sixteenth that of the mighty crescent earth, but it brooked no competition. It hung below the earth- below when referred to the attitude of the Galileo, not in the sense of "up" or "down" -and about four times the width of the earth away. It was neither larger nor smaller than it appears from the earth and not appreciably brighter than it is on a clear, dry desert noon. But the sky was black around it in the airless space; its royal corona shone out; its prominences could be seen; its great infernal storms showed on its face.

"Don't look too directly at it," Cargraves warned, "even when you have the polarizer turned to maximum interference." He referred to the double lenses the boys wore, polaroid glass with thick outer lens that were rotatable.

"I gotta have a picture of this!" Art declared, and turned and swam away. He had forgotten that he was space sick.

He was back shortly with his Contax and was busy fitting his longest lens into it. The camera was quite old, being one of the few things his mother had managed to bring out of Germany, and was his proudest possession. The lens in place, he started to take his Weston from its case. Cargraves stopped him.

"Why burn out your light meter?" he cautioned.

Art stopped suddenly. "Yes, I guess I would," he admitted. "But how am I going to get a picture?"

"Maybe you won't. Better use your slowest film, your strongest filter, your smallest stop, and your shortest exposure. Then pray."

Seeing that the boy looked disappointed, he went on, "I wouldn't worry too much about pictures of the sun. We can be sure that to the astronomers who will follow us after we've blazed the trail. But you ought to be able to get a swell picture of the earth. Waste a little film on the sun first, then we will try it. I'll shade your lens from the sunlight with my hand."

Art did so, then prepared to photograph the earth. "I can't get a decent light reading on it, either," he complained. "Too much interference from the sun."

"Well, you know how much light it is getting—the works. Why not assume it's about like desert sunlight, then shoot a few both above and below what that calls for?"

When Art had finished Cargraves said, "Mind the sunburn, boys." He touched the plastic inner layer of the quartz port. "This stuff is supposed to filter out the worst of it—but take it easy."

"Shucks, we're tanned." And so they were; New Mexico sun had left its mark.

"I know, but that's the brightest sunshine you ever saw. Take it easy."

"How much chance is there," asked Morrie, "that this pure stuff is dangerous? I mean aside from bad sunburn."

"You read the same papers I did. We're getting more cosmic radiation, too. Maybe it'll knock us down dead. Maybe it'll cause your children to have long green tendrils. That's one of the chances we take."

"Well, Columbus took a chance."

"And look how far he got!" put in Art.

"Yeah, thrown in the hoosegow for his trouble."

"Be that as it may," said Cargraves, "I'm going to turn the ship again so that the sun doesn't shine in so directly. This tub is getting too hot." It was no trouble to keep the Galileo warm enough, but how to get rid of unwanted heat was another matter. Her polished sides reflected most of the heat that struck them, but sunshine pouring directly in the view port produced a most uncomfortable greenhouse effect. Refrigeration, in the ordinary sense, was no answer; the ship was a closed system and could lose heat only by radiation to outer space. At the moment she was absorbing radiant heat from the sun much faster than she was radiating it.

"I want to take some more pictures," Art protested.

"I'll keep the earth in sight," Cargraves promised, and set the controls of the spinning wheel to suit his purpose. Then he floated back to the view port and joined the others, who were swimming in front of it like goldfish in a bowl.

Ross touched the transparent wall with a finger tip; the light contact pushed him back from the port. "Doc, what do you think would happen if a meteor hit this port?"

"I don't like to think about it. However, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Ley has calculated that the chance of being hit by a meteor on a trip out to the moon and back is about one in a half a million. I figure I was in much graver danger every time I climbed into that alleged automobile you guys drive.

"That's a good car."

"I'll admit it performs well." He turned away with a motion much like that of a sprint swimmer turning on the side of a pool. "Art, when you are through snapping that Brownie, I've got something better for you to do. How about trying to raise earth?"

"Just one more of—Huh? What did you say?"

"How about heating up your tubes and seeing if there is anybody on the air-or lack-of-air, as the case may be?"

No attempt had been made to use the radios since blasting off. Not only did the jet interfere seriously, but also the antenna were completely retracted, even spike antenna, during the passage through the atmosphere. But now that the jet was silent an attempt at communication seemed in order.