"Get Professor Morees' luggage for her," Ihjel said. "Vion's coming, there's his signal. I'm sending this ship up before any of the locals spot it."

When he cracked the outer port the puff of air struck them like the exhaust from a furnace. Dry and hot as a tongue of flame. Brion heard Lea's gasp in the darkness. She stumbled down the ramp and he followed her slowly, careful of the weight of packs and equipment he carried. The sand burned through his boots, still hot from the day. Ihjel came last, the remote-control unit in his hand. As soon as they were clear he activated it and the ramp slipped back like a giant tongue. As soon as the lock had swung shut the ship lifted and drifted upwards silently towards its orbit, a shrinking darkness against the stars.

There was just enough starlight to see the sandy wastes around them, as wave-filled as a petrified sea. The dark shape of a sandcar drew up over a dune and hummed to a stop. When the door opened Ihjel stepped towards it and everything happened at once.

Ihjel broke into a blue nimbus of crackling flame, his skin blackening, charred, dead in an instant. A second pillar of flame bloomed next to the car and a choking scream, cut off even as it began. Ihjel died silently.

Brion was diving even as the electrical discharges still crackled in the air. The boxes and packs dropped from him and he slammed against Lea, knocking her to the ground. He hoped she had the sense to stay there and be quiet. This was his only conscious thought, the rest was reflex. Rolling over and over as fast as he could.

The spitting electrical flames flared again, playing over the bundles of luggage he had dropped. This time Brion was expecting it, pressed flat to the ground a short distance away. He was facing the darkness away from the sandcar and saw the brief, blue   glow of the ion-rifle discharge. His own gun was in his hand. When Ihjel had given him the missile weapon he had asked no questions, just strapped it on. There had been no thought that he would need it this quickly. Holding it firmly before him in both hands he let his body aim at the spot where the glow had been. A whiplash of explosive slugs ripped the night air. They found their target and something thrashed voicelessly and died.

In the brief instant after he fired a jarring weight landed on his back and a line of fire circled his throat. Normally he fought with a calm mind, with no thoughts other than the contest. But Ihjel, a 

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