<h2 title="Foreword"><SPAN name="p9" id="p9"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[p</span>9<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>FOREWORD</h2>
<p>He left the mother ship and headed for Terra;
he smiled at the instrument panel and watched the
operation of the big scout ship as it rocketed toward
the light ribbon of atmosphere that enveloped
the planet. It was a joke, in a way. In a manner of
speaking, he was the first Terran to fly an alien
space ship, but he wasn’t thinking of that. He was
thinking of the woman, Elizabeth Danson of
Everett, Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>She was waiting.</p>
<p>And he could see the warmth of her body,
sheathed in the web-like gown that seemed spun
over her turgid breasts and curved hips by an army
of artistic spiders. It would not be a hard thing
to love a woman like that.</p>
<p>His fingers curled about the controls, his feet
working the rudder pedals of the screaming ship
as he headed for the strange darkness of the Atlantic
Ocean. The space ship was operating well
and the Earth lifted her curved bosom to meet his
rush.</p>
<p>Trouble came early. The danger lights flickered
in his eyes and the fear welled up within him like
a flood. Fifteen hundred miles an hour and the
scout ship was out of control! The behavior of the
craft was erratic, as though a giant hand was
slapping the silver belly as he plummeted toward
the ball of the earth.</p>
<p><SPAN name="p10" id="p10"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[p</span>10<span class="ns">]<br
/></span></span>Desperately he tried to reduce the speed of the
hurtling ship, his fingers working the buttons and
levers in a frenzy of determination. The craft
refused to respond. She whipped into a cloud bank,
headed for the sea, lifted suddenly and whirled
back toward space.</p>
<p>In an agony of fear he realized that he no longer
was the master of the space ship - <!-- TN: original uses spaced hyphen as dash -->he was a prisoner
in a violent, uncontrollable meteor that would
finally slam him into infinity against the very earth
that was to be home...</p>
<p class="tb"> </p>
<p>In the early hours of morning, Jean Renault of
Nova Scotia fingered the wheel of his fifty foot
boat through the grey ground swells of the Grand
Banks, almost to the place where he would cast
his nets into the water. The overcast sky was refusing
to emit the sunlight and a light mist hung
over the sea like a disjointed ghost. When Jean
heard the whirring roar of the ship, it was too
late. The silver streak whipped over his fishing
boat with all the furies of the gods, and nearly tore
his steadying sail away. Muttering a string of
French curses, Jean picked up his radio telephone
and reported in violent tones the presence of the
jet to the Coast Guard.</p>
<p class="tb"> </p>
<p>In the half-light<!-- TN: original reads 'halflight' --> of early dawn, the United States
and Canada whirled with reports upon the strange
craft. The CQ of the National Defense system began
systematically pinpointing the track of the strange
craft as it raked across the adumbral sky.</p>
<p>Then, it was gone!</p>
<p>The rocketing ship had appeared over one observation
station near Lake Ontario. It had been
spotted by a CD worker near Auburn, N.Y., then
<SPAN name="p11" id="p11"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[p</span>11<span class="ns">]
</span></span>it was gone. The last observation of the craft
showed it flying an erratic track toward the mountain
country of Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>At CQ operations office, in Washington D.C., Lt.
Colonel Martin Griswold tossed the last report on
his desk and pinched his lower lip thoughtfully.
Colonel Delbert, sitting across from him, looked
serious.</p>
<p>“It’s out of control,” he mused. “And it isn’t
one of ours. Russian?”</p>
<p>“Might be.” He looked at the rugged country
along the Pennsylvania, New York map for a moment,
then he picked up the phone on his desk.
“This is Colonel Griswold. Get me the Pentagon.”</p>
<p>At 0930 a special plane left Washington, bound
for the town in northern Pennsylvania that had been
chosen as a base of operations. On board the plane
were the Secret Service men who were to track
down the crashed ship.</p>
<p>They were several hours too late...</p>
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