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when there’s nothing. All you have to do is believe it!”
    “What are you getting at?” Mason asked hurriedly, too frightened to realize. His eyes fled to the altitude gauge. Seventeen thousand … sixteen thousand … fifteen …
    “Telepathy,” Ross said, triumphantly decisive. “I say those men, or whatever they are, saw us coming. And they didn’t want us there. So they read our minds and saw the death fear, and they decided that the best way to scare us away was to show us our ship crashed and ourselves dead in it. And it worked … until now.”
    “So it worked!” Mason exploded. “Are you going to take a chance on killing us just to prove your damn theory?”
    “It’s more than a theory!” Ross stormed, as the ship fell, then Ross added with the distorted argument of injured vanity, “My orders say to pick up specimens from every planet. I’ve always followed orders before and, by God, I still will!”
    “You saw how cold it was!” Mason said. “No one can live there anyway! Use your head, Ross!”
    “Damn it, I’m captain of this ship!” Ross yelled. “And I give the orders!”
    “Not when our lives are in your hands!” Mickey started for the captain.
    “Get back!” Ross ordered.
    That was when one of the ship’s engines stopped and the ship yawed wildly.
    “You fool!” Mickey exploded, thrown off balance. “You did it, you did it!”
    Outside the black night hurtled past.
    The ship wobbled violently. Prediction true was the only phrase Mason could think of. His own vision of the screaming, the numbing horror, the exhortations to a deaf heaven – all coming true. That hulk would be this ship in a matter of minutes. Those three bodies would be …
    “Oh … damn!” He screamed it at the top of his lungs, furious at the enraging stubbornness of Ross in taking them back, of causing the future to be as they saw – all because of insane pride.
    “No, they’re not going to fool us!” Ross shouted, still holding fast to his last idea like a dying bulldog holding its enemy fast in its teeth.
    He threw switches and tried to turn the ship. But it wouldn’t turn. It kept plunging down like a fluttering leaf. The gyroscope couldn’t keep up with the abrupt variations in cabin equilibrium and the three of them found themselves being thrown off balance on the tilting deck.
    “Auxiliary engines!” Ross yelled.
    “It’s no use!” Mickey cried.
    “Damn it!” Ross clawed his way up the angled deck, then crashed heavily against the engine board as the cabin inclined the other way. He threw switches over with shaking fingers.
    Suddenly Mason saw an even spout of flame through the rear viewer again. The ship stopped shuddering and headed straight down. The cabin righted itself.
    Ross threw himself into his chair and shot out furious hands to turn the ship about. From the floor Mickey looked at him with a blank, white face. Mason looked at him, too, afraid to speak.
    “Now shut up!” Ross said disgustedly, not even looking at them, talking like a disgruntled father to his sons. “When we get down there you’re going to see that it’s true. That ship’ll be gone. And we’re going to go looking for those bastards who put the idea in our minds!”
    They both stared at their captain humbly as the ship headed down backwards. They watched Ross’s hands move efficiently over the controls. Mason felt a sense of confidence in his captain. He stood on the deck quietly, waiting for the landing without fear. Mickey got up from the floor and stood beside him, waiting.
    The ship hit the ground. It stopped. They had landed again. They were still the same. And …
    “Turn on the spotlight,” Ross told them.
    Mason threw the switch. They all crowded to the port. Mason wondered for a second how Ross could possibly have landed in the same spot. He hadn’t even appeared to be following the calculations made on the last landing.
    They looked out.
    Mickey stopped breathing. And Ross’s mouth fell