320

The transition into null-space and back again is smooth - too smooth! You miss the slight jar that usually shakes Falcon's Wing as the hydraulic legs adjust to the ground above which you rematerialise. The camera shows a thin mist, then you sit up and stare as a ghostly shape floats upwards past you. It looks like a series of metal girders riveted together with a crude rocket engine welded on at the back. The girders are braced by metal struts atop which a large crystal or faceted boulder rests. Your stomach leaps into your throat - the crude spaceship with its open-to-the-stars construction is not climbing, you are falling through the dense Thrixian atmosphere and you have just seen a Thrixian starship. Your altimeter shows 460 metres and you are gaining speed or accelerating at 10 metres per second from the stationary position in which you were held as you emerged from null-space. You have no retro-rockets - the only way to stop Falcon's Wing plummeting to destruction is to engage the Variac Drive and throw your Time Machine back into null-space and then back into Thrix, 1776 AD. If you get the timing exactly right, you may be able to wink out and return only inches above the surface. When will you instruct CAIN to engage the Variac Drive?