rward, his ears a-prick with curiosity. Their training had
been the same since cubhood--to range and explore, but always in the
company and at the order of man. This was not according to the pattern
she knew, and she was suspicious. But to her sensitive nose the smell of
the ship was an offense, and the puffs of breeze from without enticing.
Her mate had already slipped through the break; now he barked with
excitement and wonder, and she trotted on to join him.

Above, the Redax, which had never been intended to stand rough usage,
proved to be a better survivor of the crash than most of the other
installations. Power purred along a network of lines, activated beams,
turned off and on a series of fixtures in those coffin-beds. For five of
the sleepers--nothing. The cabin which had held them was a flattened
smear against the mountain side. Three more half aroused, choked, fought
for life and breath in a darkness which was a mercifully short
nightmare, and succumbed.

But in the cabin nearest the rent through which the coyotes had escaped,
a young man sat up abruptly, looking into the dark with wide-open,
terror-haunted eyes. He clawed for purchase against the smooth edge of
the box in which he had lain, somehow got to his knees, weaving weakly
back and forth, and half fell, half pushed to the floor where he could
stand only by keeping his hold on the box.

Dazed, sick, weak, he swayed there, aware only of himself and his own
sensations. There were small sounds in the dark, a stilled moan, a
gasping sigh. But that meant nothing. Within him grew a compulsion to be
out of this place, his terror making him lurch forward.

His flailing hand rapped painfully against an upright surface which his
questing fingers identified hazily as an exit. Unconsciously he fumbled
along the surface of the door until it gave under that weak pressure.
Then he was out, his head swimming, drawn by the light behind the wall
rent.

He progressed toward that in a scrambling crawl, making his way over the
splintered skin of the globe. Then he dropped with a jarring thud onto
the mound of earth the ship had pushed before it during its downward
slide. Limply he tumbled on in a small cascade of clods and sand,
hitting against a less movable rock with force enough to roll him over
on his back and stun him again.

The second and smaller moon of Topaz swung brightly through the sky, its
weird green rays making the blood-streaked face of the explorer a