 What happened to the Whale?
It lit the snow slope to a frozen glare, penciled black shadow down the long furrow, and flashed at the furrow's end on a thing of metal and plastics, an artifact thrown down in the dead wilderness. There was never anything wrong with the Whale till right at the end and even then I doubt if it was the ship itself that fouled things up. Matt Hennessy, from Farside Observatory, back of the Moon, just back from a proving flight cum astronomical survey in the starship Whale . Walking, talking natives on a blue sky planet with 1.1 g gravity and a twenty per cent oxygen atmosphere at fifteen p.s.i. "Two, they brew a near-beer that's a lot nearer than the canned stuff we had aboard the Whale .
 The Whale came out of its star-jump in the wrong position. It then crashed into the Pacific.
 Charlie sabotaged the deuterium fusion drive. The drive shut down, and the Whale crashed into the Pacific.  The ion rockets on the Whale exploded. It then crashed into the Pacific.  The Cazamian laser exploded, causing the Whale to crash down into the Pacific.  The Whale came out of its star-jump in the wrong position. It then crashed into the Pacific.