“What happens next?” Analea wanted to know.  “Do we blow, too?”

“Yes, as soon as the fuel-line burns up to the tanks.”

“Can you land on Tareesh before then?” Dard asked.

“I can try.  How about the satellite?  It’s closer.”

“It’s also airless.  Look at it and see for yourself,” Kalvar Dard advised.  “Not enough mass to hold an atmosphere.”

Glav looked at the army officer with new respect.  He had always been inclined to think of the Frontier Guards as a gang of scientifically illiterate dirk-and-pistol bravos.  He fiddled for a while with instruments on the panel; an automatic computer figured the distance to the planet, the boat’s velocity, and the time needed for a landing.

“We have a chance, sir,” he said.  “I think I can set down in about thirty minutes; that should give us about ten minutes to get clear of the boat, before she blows up.”

“All right; get busy, girls,” Kalvar Dard said.  “Grab everything we’ll need.  Arms and ammunition first; all of them you can find.  After that, warm clothing, bedding, tools and food.”

With that, he jerked open one of the lockers and began pulling out weapons.  He buckled on a pistol and dagger, and handed other weapon-belts to the girls behind him.  He found two of the heavy big-game rifles, and several bandoliers of ammunition for them.  He tossed out carbines, and boxes of carbine and pistol cartridges.  He found two bomb-bags, each containing six light anti-personnel grenades and a big demolition-bomb.  Glancing, now and then, at the forward screen, he caught glimpses of blue sky and green-tinted plains below.

“All right!” the pilot yelled.  “We’re coming in for a landing!  A couple of you stand by to get the hatch open.”

There was a jolt, and all sense of movement stopped.  A cloud of white smoke drifted past the screens.  The girls got the hatch open; snatching up weapons and bedding-wrapped bundles they all scrambled up out of the boat.

There was fire outside.  The boat had come down upon a grassy plain; now the grass was burning from the heat of the jets.  One by one, they ran forward along the top of the rocket-boat, jumping down to the ground clear of the blaze.  Then, with every atom of strength they possessed they ran away from the doomed boat.

* * * * *

The ground was rough, and the grass high, impeding them.  One of the girls tripped and fell; without pausing, two others pulled her to her feet, while another snatched up and slung the carbine she had dropped.  Then, ahead, Kalvar Dard saw a deep gully, through which a little stream trickled.

They huddled together at the bottom of it, waiting, for what seemed like a long while.  Then a gentle tremor ran through the ground, and swelled to a sickening, heaving shock.  A roar of almost palpable sound swept over them, and a flash of blue-white light dimmed the sun above.  The sound, the shock, and the searing light did not pass away at once; they continued for seconds that seemed like an eternity.  Earth and stones pelted down around them; choking dust rose.  Then the thunder and the earth-shock were over; above, incandescent vapors swirled, and darkened into an overhanging pall of smoke and dust.