grid, they soared upward to seek it. If Stan's plan didn't work, they'd die. He was going to gamble their lives and the last morsel of power the skid's power unit contained, on information gained in two peeps at slab-motors on the grid, and the inference that all motors on this planet would be made on the same principle. Of course, as a subsidiary gamble, he had also to bet that he in an unarmed and wrecked space yacht could defy a civilization that had lived since before Khor Alpha was a dwarf star.

They soared out of atmosphere on a trajectory that saved power but was weirdly unlike any normal way of traveling from one spot on a planet's surface to another. Beneath them lay the vast expanse of the desert, all dense, velvety black except for one blindingly bright area at its western rim. That bright area widened as they neared it, overtaking the day. Suddenly the rectangular edges of the grid shed appeared, breaking the sharp edge of dusk.

The Erebus had grounded about fifty miles northward from the planet's solitary structure. Stan turned on his suit-radio and listened intently. There was no possible landmark. The dunes changed hourly during the day and on no two days were ever the same. He skimmed the settling sand clouds of the dusk belt. Presently he was sure he had overshot his mark.

He circled. He circled again. He made a great logarithmic spiral out from the point he considered most likely. The power meter showed the drain. He searched in the night, with no possible landmark. Sweat came out on his face.

Then he heard a tiny click. Sweat ran down his face. He worked desperately to localize the signal Esther had set to working in the yacht before she left it. When at last he landed and was sure the Erebus was under the starlit sand about him, he looked at the power gauge and tensed his lips. He pressed his space helmet close to Esther's, until it touched. He spoke, and his voice carried by metallic conduction without the use of radio.

"We might make it if we try now. But we're going to need a lot of power at best. I'm going to gamble the local yokels can't trace a skid drive and wait for morning, to harness the whirlwinds to do our digging for us."

Her voice came faintly back to him by the same means of communication.

"All right, Stan."

She couldn't guess his intentions, of course. They were probably insane. He said urgently:

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