been running when the monster seized him was still aboard; apparently the blast-charge had jammed its locks. So there was at least a slim chance for escape.

It was enough for Boone. He persuaded Eileen that, weak as she was, it would be best to stay in her cabin and eat and sleep and rest while they waited for night and stars that might give them some clue as to where they were.For his own part, he moved from one empty carrier-cradle to another, studying the landscape and the sky. The effort brought only bafflement. Here and there in the distance, great mountains towered. But always, the blue of the heavens seemed to chop off their highest peaks, as if the sky were a translucent ceiling that they pierced. Nor could he find the sun, save as a vague, luminous glow that shifted slowly towards the far horizon. Yet the astrogation microreels showed no satellite or planet short of Venus with an atmosphere thick enough to give such an effect. Then, at last, the light began to fade. Eagerly, Boone waited for the stars. Instead, a pitch-black night came down. Only in one tiny spot, almost directly over the fallen globe-ship, could he detect a spark of light. Then it, too, vanished. Boone cursed aloud. But when, once again, he scanned the sky, the spark was back where it had been. Or was it? Before, the glint had shone cold and blue. Now, it seemed to have a faint orange cast. He settled down to watching it, as nearly without blinking as he could. For a few minutes it grew brighter, then faded again till only ebon black remained. Still Boone held his eyes on the place where it had been. A dim, greenish glow, so pale he could not be sure that it was really there. Then a pin-prick of undeniable light. Minutes, ticking by. A rustle of movement. At his elbow, Eileen said, "Fred, that light--this black--I don't understand." "I'm afraid I do." Boone rubbed the stiffness from his neck and quit trying to watch the spark above. "We've always thought of the outer worlds as rock and ice. Where this one's concerned, we were wrong. There's ice, all right, but at least in places it's just a shell, with a warm pocket underneath." He could hear Eileen's breath hiss in the darkness. "Then you mean--" "Yes. We must have been crossing this planetoid's orbit when the crew abandoned ship. It's too small to have much gravity, but there was enough to pull us in. So we crashed through the ice-shell and landed here." The girl's body touched his. He could feel her shiver. "Then those lights we see are the stars as they pass above the hole we made? We'll have to go through it again to get back into space?" "That's right." Boone put his arm about her shoulders. "It shouldn't be too hard. I'm betting this is Hyperion--and that means we 

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