y; shielding him, he suspected, from considerable
hostility. Discipline held up.

A technology that had spanned five orbits and probed beyond was at bay,
and the expedition was tremendous. Hardly an art or science was
unrepresented. If need be, whole ships could be built in space.

A beam from Teyr as they passed told of refugees by the hundreds of
thousands, dumped in the wilderness with a few ships still trickling in.
Tulan would have traded everything he could command to hear a word of
Jezef or the family, but Teyr wasn't concerned with individuals and he
didn't ask.

Sennech was dull gray in the telescopes, showing, as they neared, flecks
of fire. They went in fast, using her gravity to help them curve into a
forced orbit as they strained to decelerate. Thermocouples gave readings
close to the boiling point of water; that, probably, was the temperature
of the lower air.

Roboscouts went down first, then, as conditions were ascertained, manned
ships. Tulan took the flagship down once. Her coolers labored and her
searchlights were swallowed in murk within a few feet. Sounds carried
through the hull; the howl of great winds and the thumps of explosions.
Once a geyser of glowing lava spattered the ship.

Within hours the picture began to form. The surface was a boiling sea
broken only by transient mountain peaks which tumbled down in quakes or
were washed away by the incessant hot rain. It would have been hard to
find a single trace of the civilization that had flourished scant hours
before.

* * * * *

The slower job was learning, by countless readings and painful
deduction, what was going on inside the planet. Tulan occupied himself
with organizational tasks and clung to what dignity he could. After an
eternity Kliu had time for him.

"She'll blow, all right," the scientist said, sinking tiredly into a
seat. "Within half a year. Her year."

"Twenty thousand hours," Tulan said automatically. "How about the other
planets?"

"Coar has one chance in a hundred, Teyr possibly one in ten."

Tulan had to keep talking. "The outer satellites. We can do a lot in
that time."

Kliu shrugged. "A few thousand people, and who knows what will happen to
them afterward? It's going to be a long time before the System's
inhabitable again, if ever."

"Ships ... people can live a long time in ships."

"Not that long."

"There must be something! The power we've got, and this hyperspace
thin