look pretty good."

The colonist took off his gloves, lit a cigarette. The flame was
strong and piercing and Dylan moved to check him, but stopped. It
didn't make much difference. The aliens knew where they were.

And this is right where we're gonna be, he thought.

"You know," he said suddenly, speaking mostly to himself, "I been in
the army thirty years, and this is the first time I was ever in a
fight. Once in a while we used to chase smugglers--never caught any,
their ships were new--used to cut out after unlicensed ships, used to
do all kinds of piddling things like that. But I never shot at anybody."

Rush was looking off into the woods. "Maybe the mail ship will come in."

Dylan nodded.

"They got a franchise, dammit. They got to deliver as long as they's a
colony here."

When Dylan didn't answer, he said almost appealingly: "Some of those
guys would walk barefoot through hell for a buck."

"Maybe," Dylan said. After all, why not let him hope? There were four
long hours left.

Now he began to look down into himself, curiously, because he himself
was utterly without hope and yet he was no longer really afraid. It
was a surprising thing when you looked at it coldly, and he guessed
that, after all, it was because of the thirty years. A part of him
had waited for this. Some crazy part of him was ready--even after all
this time--even excited about being in a fight. Well, what the hell, he
marveled. And then he realized that the rest of him was awakening too,
and he saw that this job was really his ... that he had always been, in
truth, a soldier.

Dylan sat, finding himself in the snow. Once long ago he had read
about some fool who didn't want to die in bed, old and feeble. This
character wanted to reach the height of his powers and then explode

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