Half-conscious Barger stumbled down to the engine-room. Haller reeled toward the controls. Everything was spinning before his gaze, the red glare from the searing hull plates dazzled him. Heat! Unbelievable heat ... killing heat! An ant in an oven! Hair singed, hands blistered, he tugged at the rocket switch. Every movement was torture, the hot air tore at his lungs. Frantically he jerked the switch. Why didn't they start?
The sudden roar of the rockets was like a roar of triumph. But though the red-hot hull of the _Lodestar_ was now non-magnetic, the engines were still in the grip of the field. The ship ground forward, but did not rise. Desperately Haller opened the jets wide, and slowly the vessel began to climb, gathering speed with each second. Suddenly, as though breaking invisible bonds that had held her, the little ship, glowing like a furnace, leaped toward open space. With a weary sigh Haller slumped over the controls, out, but anything but cold.
They were heading in the general direction of Vega when Barger staggered into the control room, swung the _Lodestar_ back toward Mars. Fay bent over Haller, pressed a damp cloth to his face.
"O ... okay!" he muttered. "Are we clear?"
"Away clean as a whistle," the quartermaster grinned, caressing blistered hands. "And here's hoping I never see the Isle o' Lost Spaceships again!"
Haller lurched to his feet, one arm about the girl's shoulders.
"Aren't you coming along, then?" he laughed. "I haven't forgotten that crack you made about an aluminum, non-magnetic spaceship, and as soon as we reach Mars I'm going to organize a company, have one built! We'll take a well-armed expedition and have a go at that treasure the sub-men had in their caves. After all, a man needs money when" ... he glanced at the girl beside him ... "when he's going to get married! I'll need you on an expedition like that, Barger. Think of the fortune in that cave! Millions and millions! How about it?"
The old quartermaster shifted his quid to the other cheek, grinned.
"You could talk the devil into installing air-conditioning," he chuckled. "I'll go!"
End of Project Gutenberg's Sargasso of the Stars, by Frederic A. Kummer
