going to die. Even if she couldn't be of any use, even if she did have to be in a hammock, what of it? If her Thlaskin died she was going to die too, and that was all there was to it. If they made her go ashore she'd cut her own throat right then, so there!

And that was that.

A dozen armed Dhilians came aboard, as pre-arranged, and the cruiser blasted off. Then, while Thlaskin was maneuvering inert, to familiarize himself with the controls and to calibrate the blast, Cloud brought out the four semi-portable projectors. They were frightful weapons, so heavy that it took a strong man to lift one upon Earth. So heavy that they were designed to be mounted upon a massive tripod while in use. They carried no batteries or accumulators, but were powered by tight beams from the mother ship.

Luda was right; such weapons were unknown in that solar system. They had no beam transmission of power. The Dhilian warriors radiated glee as they studied the things. They had more powerful stuff, of course, but it was all fixed-mount, wired solid and far too heavy to move. This was wonderful—these were magnificent weapons indeed!

High above the stratosphere, inert, the pilot found his exact location and flipped the cruiser around, so that her stern pointed directly toward his objective upon the planet beneath. Then, using his forward, braking jets as drivers, he blasted her straight downward. She struck atmosphere almost with a thud. Only her fiercely-driven meteorite-screens and wall-shields kept her intact.

"I hope you know what you're doing, chum," the pilot remarked conversationally as the scene enlarged upon his plate with appalling rapidity. "I've made hot landings before, but I always figured on having a hair or two of leeway. If you don't hit this to a hundredth we're going to splash when we strike—we won't bounce!"

"I can compute zero time to a thousandth and I can set the clicker to within a hundredth, but it's you that'll have to do the real hitting." Cloud grinned back at the iron-nerved pilot. "Sure a four-second call is enough for you to get your rhythm, allow for reaction-time and lag, and blast exactly on the click?"

"Absolutely. If I can't get it in four I can't get it at all. Pretty close now, ain't it?"

"Uh-huh." Cloud, staring at the electro-magnetic reflection-altimeter which indicated continuously their exact distance above objective, began to sway his shoulders. He was more than a master 

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