At sixty miles up the kicker stopped working and Tom cut in the regular fuel line. But the worry about conserving the fuel was over.
The flight tape recorder nicely engineered the difficult descent through the outer layer of air. The Star Spear was reversed, so that the thrust of the motors was upward to brake their descent.
Within a few minutes the boys could distinguish the outline of San Francisco and soon they were hovering five thousand feet over the Navy airport.
“Look at the crowd!” Bud cried, as they drew near the field.
Excited people were rushing about, cars were arriving in droves. News cameras were mounted on building tops. Television equipment stood poised on the runway.
“There’s the Sky Queen!” Tom cried. “My folks are here!”
After receiving clearance to land, Tom slowly throttled down the motors, and amidst the cheers of the crowd, set the history-making craft down on its magnesium cylinder landing legs on the runway in front of the administration building.
206 TOM SWIFT AND HIS ROCKET SHIP
The space-defeating rocket swayed slightly as the landing-weight distributor moved a fraction to bring the craft level. Tom turned off the engines and beckoned Bud to crank open the heavy, airtight door.
As the two boys looked out, the applause became tremendous. They waved and gave an overhead handclasp. Waving back at them frantically were the Swifts, the Newtons, and the Barclays.
Tom suddenly noticed the large airport clock. It showed the time to be only 9:20.
“Look at that clock, Bud!” he laughed. “We left Fearing Island at ten. We’ve traveled around the world in minus forty minutes!”