Toller removed his gloves and made a fresh attempt to bridge the void, but even though he had braced himself against a partition the cold-stiffened rope again failed to unwind properly. It was while he was retrieving it that he noticed an unnerving fact. At the beginning of the rescue effort Flenn had been considerably higher in relation to the ship, level with the upper end of the acceleration strut — but now he was only slightly above the rim of the gondola.

A moment’s reflection told Toller that Flenn was falling. The ship was also falling, but as long as there was warmth inside the balloon it would retain some degree of buoyancy and would descend more slowly than a solid object. This close to the midpoint the relative speeds were negligible, but Flenn was nonetheless in the grip of Overland’s gravity, and had begun the long plunge to the surface.

“Have you noticed what’s happening?” Toller said to Zavotle in a low voice. “We’re running out of time.”

Zavotle assessed the situation. “Is there any point in using the laterals?”

“We’d only start cartwheeling.”

“This is serious,” Zavotle said. “First of all Flenn damages the balloon — then he puts himself in a position where he can’t repair it.”

“I doubt if he did that on purpose.” Toller wheeled on Rillomyner. “The cannon! Find a weight that will go into the cannon. Maybe we can fire a line.”

At that moment Flenn, who had been quiescent, appeared to notice his gradual change of position relative to the ship and to draw the appropriate conclusions. He began struggling and squirming, then made exaggerated swimming movements which in other circumstances might have been comic. Discovering that nothing was having any good effect he again became still, except for an involuntary movement of his hands when Zavotle’s second throw of the rope failed to reach him.

“I’m getting scared, captain.” Although Flenn was shouting his voice seemed faint, its energies leaching away into the surrounding immensities. “You’ve got to bring me home.”

“We’ll bring you in. There’s.…” Toller allowed the sentence to tail off. He had been going to assure Flenn there was plenty of time, but his voice would have lacked conviction. It was becoming apparent that not only was Flenn falling past the gondola, but that — in keeping with the immutable laws of physics — he was gaining speed. The acceleration was almost imperceptible, but its effects were cumulative. Cumulative and lethal.…

Rillomyner touched Toller’s arm. “There’s nothing that will fit in the cannon, captain, but I joined two bits of glasscord and tied it to this.” He proffered a hammer with a large brakka head. “I think it will reach him.”

“Good man,” Toller said, appreciative of the way the mechanic was overcoming his acrophobia in the emergency. He moved aside to let Rillomyner make the throw. The mechanic tied the free end of the glasscord to the rail, judged the distances and hurled the hammer out into space.

Toller saw at once that he had made the mistake of aiming high, compensating for a full-gravity drop that was not going to occur. The hammer dragged the cord out behind it and came to a halt in the air a tantalising few yards above Flenn, who was galvanised into windmilling his arms in a futile attempt to reach it. Rillomyner jiggled the cord in an effort to move the hammer downwards, but only succeeded in drawing it a short distance back towards the ship.

“That’s no good,” Toller snapped. “Pull it in fast and throw straight at him next time.” He was trying to suppress a growing sense of panic and despair. Flenn was now visibly sinking below the level of the gondola, and the hammer was less likely to reach him as the range increased and the angles became less conducive to accurate throwing. What Flenn desperately needed was a means of reducing the distance separating him from the gondola, and that was impossible unless… unless.…

A familiar voice spoke inside Toller’s head. Action and reaction, Lain was saying. That’s the universal principle…

“Flenn, you can bring yourself closer,” Toller shouted. “Use the carble! Throw it straight away from the ship, as hard as you can. That will drift you in this direction.”

There was a pause before Flenn responded. “I couldn’t do that, captain.”

“This is an order,” Toller bellowed. “Throw the carble, and throw it right now! We’re running out of time.”

There was a further pounding delay, then Flenn was seen to be fumbling with the coverings on his chest. Sunlight flared on the lower surfaces of his body as he slowly produced the green-striped animal.

Toller swore in frustration. “Hurry, hurry! We’re going to lose you.”

“You’ve already lost me, captain.” Flenn’s voice was resigned. “But I want you to take Tinny home with you.”

There was a sudden sweeping movement of his arm and he went tumbling backwards as the carble sailed towards the ship. It was travelling too low. Toller watched numbly as the terrified animal, mewing and clawing at the air, passed out of sight below the gondola. Its yellow eyes had seemed to be boring into his own. Flenn receded a short distance before he stabilised himself by spreading his arms and legs. He came to rest in the attitude of a drowned man, floating face-down on an invisible ocean, his gaze directed towards Overland — thousands of miles below — which had taken him in its gravitational arms.

“You stupid little midget,” Rillomyner sobbed as~he again sent the hammer snaking towards Flenn. It stopped short and a little to one side of its target. Flenn, body and limbs rigid, continued to sink with gathering speed.

“He’ll be falling for maybe a day,” Zavotle whispered. “Just think of it… a whole day… falling… I wonder if he’ll still be alive when he hits the ground.”

“I’ve got other things to think about,” Toller said harshly, turning away from the gondola wall, unable to watch Flenn dwindling out of sight.

His brief required him to abort the flight in the event of losing a crew member or sustaining some serious structural damage to the ship. Nobody could have foreseen both circumstances arising as a result of one trivial-seeming accident with the galley stove, but he felt no less responsible — and it remained to be seen if the S.E.S. administrators would also regard him as culpable.

“Switch us back to jet power,” he said to Rillomyner. “We’re going home.”

The cave was in the side of a ragged hill, in an area of broken terrain where numerous gullies, rocky projections and a profusion of spiky scrub made the going difficult for man or beast.

Lain Maraquine was content to let the bluehorn pick its own way around the various obstacles, giving it only an occasional nudge to keep it heading for the orange flag which marked the cave’s position. The four mounted soldiers of his personal guard, obligatory for any senior official of the S.E.S., followed a short distance behind, the murmur of their conversation blending with the heavy drone of insects. Littlenight was not long past and the high sun was baking the ground, clothing the horizon in tremulous purple-tinted blankets of hot air.

Lain felt unusually relaxed, appreciating the opportunity to get away from the skyship base and turn his mind to matters which had nothing to do with world crises and interplanetary travel. Toller’s premature return from the proving flight, ten days earlier, had involved Lain in a harrowing round of meetings, consultations and protracted studies of the new scientific data obtained. One faction in the S.E.S. administration had wanted a second proving flight with a full descent to Overland and detailed mapping of the central continent. In normal circumstances Lain would have been in agreement, but the rapidly worsening situation in Kolcorron overrode all other consideration.…