galactic disaster....

With the energy shield off, and under reduced power, the Serpent came down into the atmosphere of Kaidor III. The planet's satellite lay, like a crescent of silver, in the dark blue, star-flecked sky of the stratosphere.

Beneath them, the vast curving surface of the planet flattened as the starship sank lower, the mottled blues and greens and browns taking shape of oceans, islands and continents. The sky grew lighter—a pale blue—as the Serpent crossed the twilight line and slanted down toward the surface of the turbulent sea.

Scud clouds raced across the sky and light rain pattered against the ports of the slowly moving spaceship. Quite suddenly the squall passed, and the Serpent hung above a sea of brilliant blues and greens, frothed with white-caps.

Deve watched through the ports, enraptured. "Look, Aram! Look at the colors in that sea!"

Side by side they watched the play of colors in the ocean, fascinated by the swirling grace and chromatic wonder of the waves.

In the far distance lay the low silhouette of land. Jerrold let the Serpent move toward it, keel skimming the dancing white crowns of the sea.

There were a few graceful sea-birds with leathery wings and brightly plumed breasts, and there was life in the sea. Deve and Jerrold could see schools of lithe shapes flashing silver beneath the water. But the land itself was silent. The white sand of a curving beach came up out of the distance to meet them. Beyond lay green rolling hills and wooded slopes bright with flowers, and farther into the glare of the morning sun great snow-capped mountains reared their jagged spines against the blue in the sky.

"Aram ... it's beautiful!" the girl breathed. "It's the world we dreamed of finding...."

Jerrold remembered the nights they had shared back on mighty Terminus. He recalled their idle dreams of a world beyond the farthest stars where they could be free. This, he felt, was such a world.

Deve turned around suddenly to face him. There was longing in her eyes—a look of wistfulness that filled him with tenderness.

"We ... we must never forget this world, Aram," she said. "Perhaps one day we can come here...." She let her voice sink low. "Oh, Aram! If we could only stay here! If we could just forget everything but this 

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