THE ENGINEERS, THE power-resource group, the jacks-of-all-trades, and every able-bodied man and woman who knew which end of a hammer to grip were set to work putting down the landing-strip grids. A second work force erected the prefabricated sections of the landing control and meteorology tower, in which Ongola and the other meteorologists would be based.

The tower was three stories high, two square sections supported by a wider and longer rectangular base. Initially the ground level would serve as headquarters for the admiral, the governor, and the informal council. When the proper administrative square had been built later on, the entire installation would be turned over to meteorology and communications.

The third and smallest group—all eight of Mar Dook’s agronomists, plus a dozen able-bodieds, Pol Nietro from zoology, Phas Radamanth and A. C. Sopers of xenobiology and Ted Tubberman and his crew—had the task of choosing the site for the experimental farm. Others were detailed to scout for varieties of vegetation that might be efficiently converted into various plastics which the colony would need for building. On the one minisled brought along, Emily Boll flew between the agronomy survey and the control tower, correlating data. Once the emergency infirmary was set up, medics were kept busy patching bruises and scrapes, and peremptorily ordering rest periods for the older workers who were overextending themselves in enthusiasm.

By midday, those in orbit had a nonstop show of the disciplined but constant activities on the surface.

“It keeps people home,” Sallah remarked to Barr Hamil, her copilot, as they traversed nearly empty corridors on their way back from the main hangar where they had been checking cargo manifests for their first trip down.

“It’s fascinating, Sal. And we’ll be there tomorrow!” Barr’s eyes were shining, and she wore a silly grin. “I really can’t believe we’re here, and will be there!” She pointed downward. “It’s like a dream. I keep being afraid I’ll wake up suddenly.”

They had reached their own quarters and both had eyes only for the vid screen in the corner.

“Good,” Barr said with a relieved sigh. “They’ve got the donks assembled.”

Sallah chuckled. “Our job is to get the shuttle down in one piece, Barr. Unloading is someone else’s problem.” But she, too, was relieved to see the sturdy load handlers lined up at the end of the almost completed landing strip. The donks would greatly facilitate unloading, and speed up the shuttles’ return to their mother ships for the next run. Already there were informal competitions between the various units to bring their projects in faster and more efficiently than programmed time allowed.

Sallah and Barr watched, as everyone did, until the dark tropical moonless night rendered the broadcasts impossible to interpret. Broadcasts from the surface would be primitive until Drake Bonneau and Xi Chi Yuen, in the admiral’s gig, had a chance to install the commsats on the two moons. Nonetheless, the last scene raised a nostalgic lump in Sallah’s throat, reminding her of the hunting trips that she and her parents had enjoyed in the hills around First Centauri.

The screen showed tired men and women seated around an immense campfire, eating an evening meal that had been prepared in a huge kettle from freeze-dried Terran vegetables and meats. In the failing light, the white strips of the runway grids and the wind sock having convulsions in the brisk breeze, were just barely visible. The planetary flag, so proudly displayed that morning, had wrapped itself around the pole above the control tower. Someone began to play softly on a harmonica, an old, old tune so familiar that Sallah couldn’t name it. Someone else joined in with a recorder. Softly and hesitantly at first, then with more confidence, the tired colonists began to sing or hum along. Other voices added harmony, and Sallah remembered that the song was called “Home on the Range.” There certainly had been no “discouraging words” that day. And the evening serenade did make the landing site seem a bit more like a home.

The next morning Sallah and Barr had been up long before the klaxon sounded, assembling their passengers and making last-minute weight calculations. The pilots had been given a very serious briefing from Lieutenant Commander Ongola on the necessity of conserving fuel.

“We have just enough liquid fuel to get every man, woman, and child, beast, parcel, package, and reusable section of the ships down to the surface. Waste not, want not. Fools waste fuel! We have none to waste. Nor,” he added, with his sad wistful smile, “fools among us.”

Watching on the loading-bay screens, Sallah and Barr could follow the six shuttles lifting from the planet’s surface. Then the scene shifted to a panoramic view of the main landing site.

“It’s breathtaking, Sal, breathtaking,” Barr said. “I’ve never seen so much unoccupied, unused land at one time in my life.”

“Get used to it,” Sallah replied with a grin.

With the activities of the landing party to watch, it seemed like no time at all before the shuttles were locking on. The loading detail were trundling the first crates into the hold before Kenjo and Jiro could exit. Sallah was a little annoyed with Kenjo for his brusque dismissal of Barr’s excited questions. Even Jiro looked abashed by his senior’s truculence as Kenjo succinctly briefed Sallah on landing procedures, advice on handling the shuttle’s idiosyncrasies, and the frequency for the tower meteorological control. He wished her a safe drop, saluted, and, turning on his heel, left the bay.

“Well, hail and farewell,” Barr said, recovering from the snub.

“Let’s do the preflight even if Fussy Fusi has made such a big deal of turnover,” Sallah said, sliding into the lock of the Eujisan an inch ahead of the next big crate being loaded. They had finished their check by the time loading was complete. Barr did passenger inspection, making very certain that General Cherry Duff, the oldest charterer and the pro tem colony magistrate, was comfortable, and then they were cleared for the drop.

“We were barely there,” Barr complained as Sallah taxied the Eujisan into takeoff position at the end of the runway eight hours later. “And now we’re away again.”

“Efficiency is our guide. Waste not, want not,” Sallah told her, eyes on the instrumentation as she opened the throttle on the Eujisan for lift-off thrust. She grimaced, eyes flicking between fuel gauge and rev counter, not wanting to use a cc more of fuel than necessary. “Kenjo and the next eager set of colonists will be chewing hunks out of the cargo hatch. We must up, up, and away!”

“Kenjo never made an error in his life?” Barr asked of Sallah sometime later after the famous pilot had made a disparaging remark about the shuttle’s consumption of fuel during the trips made by the two women.

“That’s why he’s alive today,” Sallah replied. But his comment rankled. Though she knew that she had expended no more fuel than was absolutely necessary, she began keeping a private record of consumption on each of her trips. She noticed that Kenjo generally oversaw the Eujisan’s refueling and supervised its fifty-hour checks. She knew that she was a better than average pilot, in space or atmospheric craft, but she did not want to make waves with a hero pilot who had far more experience than she did—not unless she absolutely had to, and not without the ammunition of accurate records.

Patterns were quickly established. Those on the ground began each morning by erecting the housing and work areas for those due to arrive during the day. The agronomy teams handily cleared the designated fields. The infirmary had already dealt with its first clients; fortunately, all the accidents so far had been minor. And despite all the hard work, senses of humor prevailed. Some wit had put up street signs with estimated distances in light-years for Earth, First Centauri, and the homeworlds of the other members of the Federated Sentient Planets.

Like everyone else waiting to drop, Sorka Hanrahan spent a lot of time watching the progress of the settlement, which had been informally dubbed “Landing.” To Sorka, watching was only a way to pass the time. She was not really interested, especially after her mother kept remarking that they were seeing history made. History was something one read about in books. Sorka had always been an active child, so the enforced idleness and the constriction of shipboard life quickly became frustrating. It was small comfort to know how important her father’s profession of veterinary surgeon was going to be on Pern when all the kids she had met in the mess halls and corridors were getting down to Pern faster than she and her brother were.

Brian, however, was in no hurry. He had made friends with the Jepson twins, two aisles away. They had an older brother Sorka’s age, but she did not like him. Her mother kept telling her that there would be girls her age on Pern whom she would meet once she got to school.

“I need a friend now,” Sorka murmured to herself as she wandered through the corridors of the ship. Such freedom was a rare privilege for a girl who had always had to be on guard against strangers. Even home on the farm in Clonmel, she had not been allowed out of sight of an adult, even with old Chip’s protective canine presence. On the Yokohama, not only did she not have to watch out, but the whole ship was open to her, provided she kept out of engineering or bridge territory and didn’t interfere with the crew. But at that moment she did not feel like exploring; she wanted comfort. So she headed for her favorite place, the garden.

On her first long excursion, she had discovered the section of the ship where great broad-leafed plants arched over the ceiling, their branches intertwining to make green caves below. She loved the marvelous aroma of moist earth and green things, and felt no inhibition about taking deep lungfuls of air that left a clean, fresh taste at the back of her mouth. Beneath the giant bushes were all sorts of herbs and smaller plants with tags on them, soon to be transported to the new world. She did not recognize most of the names, but she knew some of the herbs by their common names. Back at home her mother had kept an herb garden. Sorka knew which ones would leave their fragrances on her fingers and she daringly fingered the marjoram, then the tiny thyme leaves. Her eyes drank in the blues and pale yellows and pinks of the flowers that were in bloom, and she gazed curiously at the hundreds of racks of shoots in little tubes of water—nutrient fluids, her dad had told her—sprouted only a few months back, to be ready for planting once they reached Pern.

She had just bent to gently feel the surface of an unfamiliar hairy sort of silver-green leaf—she thought it had a nice smell—when she saw a pair of very blue eyes that no plant had ever sprouted. She swallowed, reminding herself that there were no strangers on the ship; she was safe. The eyes could belong only to another passenger who, like herself, was investigating the peaceful garden.

“Hello,” she said in a tone between surprise and cordiality.

The blue eyes blinked. “Go ’way. You don’t belong here,” a young male voice growled at her.

“Why not? This is open to anyone, so long as you don’t damage the plants. And you really shouldn’t be crouched down in there like that.”

“Go ’way.” A grubby hand emphasized the order.

“I don’t have to. Who’re you?”

Her eyes, adjusted to the shadows, clearly read the boy’s resentful expression. She hunkered down, looking in at him. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“I doan gotta tell nobody my name.” He spoke with a familiar accent.

“Well, excuse me, I’m sure,” she said in an affected tone. Then she realized that she recognized his accent. “Hey, you’re Irish. Like me.”

“I’m not like you.”

“Well, deny you’re Irish.” When he didn’t—because he couldn’t, and they both knew it—she cocked her head at him, smiling agreeably. “I can see why you’d hide in here. It’s quiet and it smells so fresh. Almost like home. I don’t like the ship either; I feel—” Sorka hugged herself. “—sort of cramped and squashed all the time.” She lengthened the words to make them express her feelings. “I come from Clonmel. Ever been there?”

“Sure.” The boy’s tone was scornful, but he brushed a strand of long orange hair from his eyes and shifted his position so that he could keep his eyes on her.

“I’m Sorka Hanrahan.” She looked inquiringly at him.

“Sean Connell,” he admitted truculently after considerable delay.

“My dad’s a vet. The best in Clonmel.”

Sean’s expression cleared with approval. “He works with horses?”

She nodded. “With any sick animal. Did you have horses?”

“While we was still in Ballinasloe.” His expression clouded with resentful grief. “We had good horses,” he added with defensive pride.

“Did you have your own pony?”

The boy’s eyes blinked, and he dropped his head.

“I miss my pony, too,” Sorka said compassionately. “But I’m to get one on Pern, and my dad said that they’d put special ones in the banks for you.” She wasn’t at all sure of that, but it seemed the proper thing to say.

“We’d better. We was promised. We can’t get anywhere ’thout horses ’cause this place isn’t to have hovervans er nothing.”

“And no more gardai.” Sorka grinned mischievously at him. She had just figured out that he must be one of the traveling folk. Her father had mentioned that there were some among the colonists. “And no more farmers chasing you out of their fields, and no more move-on-in-twenty-four-hours, or lousy halts, and no roads but the ones you make yourself, and—oh, just lots of things you really want, and none of the bad things.”

“Can’t be all that good,” Sean remarked cynically.

Suddenly the comm unit in the garden erupted into sound. “The boarding call has been issued for the morning drop. Passengers will assemble immediately in the loading bay on Deck Five.”

Like a turtle, Sean drew back into the shadows.

“Hey, does he mean you?” Sorka tried to make out Sean’s face in the darkness. She thought she saw a faint nod. “Boy, are you lucky, going so soon. Third day! What’s the matter? Don’t you want to go?” She got down on her hands and knees to peer in at him. Then slowly she drew back. She had seen real fear often enough to recognize it in Sean. “Gee, I’d trade places with you. I can’t wait to get down. I mean, it’s not that long a trip. And it’ll be no different from getting to the Yoko from Earth,” she went on, thinking to reassure him. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” She had been so excited, even knowing that she would be put in deep sleep almost as soon as they got on board, that she had been unaware of anything but the first pressure of take-off.

“We was shipped up asleep.” His words were no more than a terrified mutter.

“Gee, you missed the best part. Of course, half the adults,” she added condescendingly, “were weeping about their last view of old Terra. I pretended that I was Spacer Yvonne Yves, and my brother, Brian, he’s much younger than we are, but he made like he was Spacer Tracey Train.”

“Who’re they?”

“C’mon, Sean. I know you all had vidscreens in your caravans. Didn’t you ever see Space Venturers?”

He was openly scornful. “That’s kid stuff.”

“Well, you’re a Space Venturer right now, and if it’s only kid stuff, there’s nothing to be afraid of, is there?”

“Who said I was afraid?”

“Well, aren’t you? Hiding away in the garden.”

“I just needed a decent breath of fresh air.” Suddenly he pushed himself out.

“When you’ve a planet full of fresh air below you, only hours away?” Sorka grinned at him. “Just pretend you’re a space hero.”

The comm unit came alive, and she could hear the edge to the embarkation officer’s voice. Desi Arthied had not had to remind any other load of passengers to assemble. “The shuttles drop in precisely twenty minutes. Passengers scheduled for this drop who default go to the end of the list.”

“He’s angry,” Sorka told Sean. She gave him a little push toward the door. “You’d better git. Your parents’ll skin you alive if you keep them from making their drop.”

“That’s all you know,” he said savagely. He stomped out of the garden room.

“Scaredy-cat,” she said softly, then sighed exaggeratedly. “Well, he can’t help it.”

Then she turned back to examine the fragrant plant.

By the sixth day all essential personnel were on the surface. Seating was removed from all but one of the shuttles and set about the bonfire square until needed again. Mountains of supplies were dropped, distributed, and stored. Delicate instruments packed in shockproof cocoons followed, along with sperm and the precious fertilized ova from Earth and First—Sallah was certain that Barr did not take a deep breath throughout those drops. Immediately fertilized eggs were implanted in those cows, goats, and sheep that had fully recovered from their deep sleep. Small sturdy types had been brought, not themselves the best genotypes available on Earth but suitable as surrogate dams; the embryos were different again, specially adapted for hardiness and resistance. The resultant progeny would, it was hoped, be able to digest Pern-grown fodder, which would have much more boron in it than the usual Terran produce, and a good variety of native weeds. If there were problems, Kitti Ping and her granddaughter, Wind Blossom, would use the Eridani techniques to alter the next generation appropriately. The plan was for at least some of the animals to be tailored to make the required enzymes in their own glands, instead of using symbiotic bacteria as their ancestors had on Earth.

Admiral Benden proudly remarked that by the time the ships were completely evacuated, the first chicken eggs were likely to hatch on Pern. He went on to announce that there was evidence that the planet harbored its own egg-layers, too, for broken shells had been found above the high-tide line on the beach where the harbor and the fish hatchery were being constructed. Zoologists were trying to figure out what sort of creature had laid the chickenlike eggs; they hoped it was the rather beautiful and unusual avians mentioned by the EEC team, but so far, the reptiloid creatures mentioned in the survey report had not been observed. As the analysis of the shell showed a high level of boron, the team put egg and its inhabitant on the dubious list of indigenous inedibles.

The shuttles made only two trips a day for the next four, since the loading and unloading of all that matériel was time-consuming.

“I prefer a few passengers,” Barr remarked as the off-duty pilots were enjoying dinner in the mess hall, “as a leaven to crates and crates, big, little, medium. Or all those absolutely irreplaceable herbs and bushes. There’s still plenty of people to go down.” The mess hall, not nearly so crowded anymore, was still full of diners.

Looking about, Sallah noticed the redheaded family seated at the far left. She waved, smiling brightly because the youngsters looked so glum.

“Gorgeous red hair, isn’t it?” Sallah said wistfully.

“Too unusual,” Avril Bitra said derisively.

“I dunno,” Drake remarked, staring at the party. “Makes a nice change.”

“She’s too young for you, Bonneau,” Avril said.

“I’m a patient man,” Drake countered, grinning because it was not often that he got a rise out of the sultry beauty. “I’ll know where to find her when she grows up.” He appeared to consider the prospect. “Of course, the boy is much too young for you, Avril. A full generation away.”

Avril gave him a long, disgusted look and, grabbing the wine carafe, stalked to the dispensers. Sallah exchanged glances with Barr. Avril was scheduled first the next morning, and the wind factors provided sufficient danger even without alcohol-blurred reactions. They both looked toward Nabol, her copilot, but he shrugged indifferently. Sallah hadn’t hoped for much support from the man. No one had much influence on Avril.

“Hey, Avril, hold off on the sauce,” Drake began, rising to intercept her. “You did promise me a rematch in gravity ball. The court’ll be empty now.” His smile was challenging, and from where she sat, Sallah could see his hand slide caressingly up Avril’s arm. The astrogator’s mouth assumed a less discontented line. “We’d best use it while we may,” he added, his smile deepening. Moving his arm up to her shoulders, he took the carafe from her hand and placed it on the nearest table as he guided her out of the mess hall without a backward look.

“Wow! Charm has its uses,” Barr said.

“Shall we see if it’s ball they’re playing in the gray court?” Nabol suggested, an unsettling glitter in his eyes.

“There’s ball games and ball games,” Sallah said with a diffident shrug. “I’ve seen ’em all. Excuse me.” She stood up and strode over to the Hanrahans’ table. She knew she had left her friend stranded, but Barr could leave, too, if Nabol made her uncomfortable. “Hi, there. When do you drop?” she asked, as she reached the Hanrahans.

“Tomorrow,” Red said with a welcoming grin. He pulled a chair over from the next table. “Join us? I think we’re on your ship.”

“We are.” Sorka beamed at Sallah.

“You’ve had a long wait,” Sallah remarked, sitting down.

“I’m vet, and Mairi’s childcare,” Red replied. “We aren’t exactly essential personnel.”

“Perhaps not now,” Sallah replied with a wide grin that acknowledged the future importance of their specialties.

“Is it really as nice down there as it looks?” Sorka asked.

“I can’t say I’ve had much time to find out,” Sallah said with a rueful expression. “We drop, unload, and lift. But the air is like wine.” She flared her nostrils in deprecation of the recycled atmosphere of the ship. “And a breeze, too.” She laughed. “Sometimes a bit stiff.” She pantomimed fighting with the control yoke of the shuttle. Mairi looked wistful, while her husband looked eager. Sallah turned to the kids. “And school’s great. Outdoors! Teaching you all we know about our new home.” The two children had groaned at her first phrase, but began to brighten as she went on. “Sometimes the teachers are just a skip ahead of the students.”

“They didn’t have bonfires last night,” Brian said, disappointed.

“That’s because they got light pylons up, but watch tonight. You aren’t the only one who missed ’em. I heard they decided to have a bonfire square, and every night someone new gets a chance to light it, if they’ve worked very hard and earned the privilege.”

“Wow!” Brian was elated. “Whaddya have to do to get to light it?”

“You’ll think of something, Brian,” his father assured him.

“See you all bright and early?” Sallah rose, giving Sorka’s hair a ruffle.

“Be there before you,” Red replied with a grin.

To Sallah’s surprise, they were, for Mairi had insisted on reassuring herself that their precious personal baggage was safely stowed in the cargo hold. Mairi had worried and worried about her precious family heirlooms, especially the rose-wood dower chest which had been in her family for generations. It had been carefully unglued and took up most of the weight allowed them, but Mairi had insisted that it accompany them to Pern. Indeed Sorka could not recall her parents’ bedroom without the dower chest under the window. Sorka had been forced to reduce her treasured collection of toy horses to three of the smallest, and her book tapes to ten. Brian’s ship models had been dismantled, and he, too, fretted about finding the proper glue.

That was his urgent question when Sallah and Barr greeted them.

“Glue?” Sallah repeated in surprise. “They’ve dropped everything else; why on earth would they leave glue out?” She winked at Red, who grinned. “Otherwise our local experts are sure to be able to whomp something up. Pern seems to be well supplied. On board with you now, Clan Hanrahan. We’re only a skip ahead of today’s horde.”

As the first arrivals, the Hanrahans got their choice of seats, and Sorka suggested that they take the last row so they would be the first out. It was almost agonizing to have to wait until everyone else was strapped in and the drop begun. Excitement almost strangled Sorka. She was disappointed that the forward screen was malfunctioning, because then she did not know exactly when the shuttle left its bay. And a display would have given her something to distract her from the shuttle’s vibrations. She looked anxiously at her parents, but they had their eyes closed. Brian looked as bug-eyed as she felt, but she would not give him the satisfaction of appearing scared. Then, suddenly, she remembered Sean Connell, hiding in the garden, and forced herself to imagine Spacer Yvonne Yves leading an exciting mission to a mysterious planet.

And then they were there. The retros pushed her back into her padded seat, nearly depriving her of breath, and the shuttle bumped lightly as its landing gear made contact.

“We’ve landed! We made it!” she cried.

“Don’t sound so surprised, lovey!” her father said with a laugh, and reached over to give her knee a pat.

“Can we eat when we get out?” Brian asked petulantly. Someone up front chuckled.

Sorka heard the whoosh as the passenger hatch was cracked. Then the two pilots appeared at the top of the aisle and gave the order to disembark. A blast of sunlight and fresh air streamed into the spacecraft, and Sorka felt her heart give an extra thump of gladness.

Laughing, her father flipped open her safety belt and urged her to move. But a moment of nervousness held her back.

“Go on, you little goose,” Red said, grinning to let her know that he understood her hesitation.

“Hey, Sorka, you can leave now,” Sallah called.

Sorka’s legs were a bit wobbly as she stood. “I’m heavy again,” she exclaimed. Full weight was a new sensation after the half gravity of the Yoko. At the exit, she stopped, awed by her first glimpse of Pern, a vast panorama of the grassy plateau, with its knobs of funny bluish bushes and the green-blue sky.

“Don’t block the exit, dear,” said a woman who was standing outside by the ramp.

Sorka hastily obeyed, though how she got down the ramp with so much looking around to do, she never knew. The ground cover was subtly different from grass on the farm. The bushes were more blue than green, and had funny-shaped leaves, like the put-together geometric shapes of a toy she had played with as a toddler.

“Look, Daddy, clouds! Just like home!” she cried, excitedly pointing to the sky.

Her father laughed and, with an arm about her shoulders, moved her forward with him.

“Maybe they followed us, Sorka,” he said kindly, smiling broadly. Sorka knew that he was just as excited as she was to be landing on Pern at last.

Sorka threw her head back to the fresh breeze which rippled across the plateau. It smelled of marvelous things, new and exciting. She wanted to dance, free once more under a sky, without ceiling or walls to constrict her.

“Are you Hanrahan or Jepson?” the woman asked, a recorder in her hand.

“Hanrahan,” Red replied. “Mairi, Peter, Sorka, and Brian.”

“Welcome to Pern,” she said, smiling graciously before she made a tick on her sheet. “You’re House Fourteen on Asian Square. Here’s your map. All the important facilities are clearly marked. Now, if you’ll just lend a hand to unload and clear the shuttle . . .” She handed him a sheet, gestured toward the float that was backing up to the open cargo hatch, then moved on to the Jepsons, who had just emerged.

“We made it, Mairi love,” Red said, embracing his wife. Sorka was surprised to see tears in her parents’ eyes.

There was more to be unloaded than just the personal luggage of the passengers. Cartons of stores still had to be checked off the supercargo’s lists.

“Tell the dispatcher that more furnishings are required,” Sallah was told once the shuttle’s hold had been emptied. “Or some people won’t have beds tonight.”

“That’s efficiency for you,” Sallah remarked to Barr. She waved to the Hanrahans as she closed the hatch to prepare for the return flight. “Soon there won’t be anyone above and precious little left of the ships but the hulls.”

“I know,” Barr replied. “I half expect to find our bunks already gone.”

The two began their take-off check and Sallah grinned as she made her notations. She had the glide down to perfection, which meant that she was saving nearly twenty liters every journey. The wind was veering to stern, and she warned Barr to speed up her checklist.

“Want to take advantage of that tail wind. Saves fuel.”

“Good God, Sal, you’re as bad as Fussy Fusi.” But Barr completed her list with a flourish. “What I want to know is why are we busting ass saving fuel? We can’t go anyplace useful with what we’d be saving. And once the ships are gutted, there isn’t any use for space shuttles, now is there?”

Sallah gave her a searching stare and then chuckled drolly. “A very good point, my friend. A very good point. I think,” she added after a moment’s thought, “I’ll check the tanks while Fussy’s dropping.”

But when she had done that, she was not that much wiser. If they were saving so much fuel, then the level in the tanks should have been higher. Barr, who was enjoying a flirtation with one of the resource engineers, forgot her idle observation. But Sallah did not. During one of Kenjo’s drops, she did a bit of checking in the mainframe’s banks.

Fuel consumption was at acceptable levels in both of Yoko’s remaining tanks. Sallah computed in her average fuel consumption per trip, plus an estimate of Kenjo’s, and came up with a total that should have left them with an extra two thousand liters of available fuel. She knocked off a percentage, based on consumption during her heavier trips, when drift and wind factors had required a higher expenditure of fuel. Once again she came up with a deficit figure, slightly lower than before but still higher than the amount available.

What good would it do anyone to hoard fuel? Avril? But Avril and Kenjo were not at all friendly. In fact, Avril had made snide remarks about Kenjo on several occasions, unacceptable ethnic-based slander.

“Of course, if you wanted to put someone off the track . . .” Sallah murmured to herself.

Checking the distance to the nearest system, which had been interdicted a century before by the EEC team, and the distance to the nearest habitable system, and computing in the cruising range and speed of the captain’s gig, Sallah came up with the answer that the Mariposa could, even with the most careful management, make it only to the uninhabitable system. But what good would that do anyone? Disgusted by the waste of the afternoon, Sallah went in search of Barr. They had the evening run to make, and that meant that they would get to sleep planetside.