e had his small
rocket launcher, from the office. If they ever came close enough... But
of course they'd stay thousands of miles off. He got to the nearest
fallen dome as fast as he could. Everybody had been in armor, but there
were over a hundred dead. Emergency and rescue crews were operating
efficiently.

He glanced around for indications. No explosive, chemical or nuclear,
had yet been used. But there was the old Jolly Lad trick: Accelerate a
chunk of asteroid-material to a speed of several miles per second by
grasping it with your gloved hands, while the shoulder-ionic of your
armor was at full power. Start at a great distance, aim your missile
with your body, let it go... Impact would be sheer, blasting
incandescence. A few hundred chunks of raw metal could finish
Pallastown... Were these just crazy, wild slobs whooping it up, or real
crud provided with a purpose and reward? Either way, here was the
eternal danger to any Belt settlement.

Nelsen could have tried to reach an escape-exit into open space, but he
helped with the injured while he waited for more impacts to come. There
was another series of deflecting flashes from the defense batteries. Two
more domes vanished... Then--somehow--nothing more. Evidently some of
the attackers had been only half hearted, _this time_. Reprieve...

Almost four hundred people were dead. It could have been the whole Town.
Then spreading disaster. All Nelsen's friends were okay. The Posts
called in--okay, too. Nelsen waited three days. He wanted to help
defend, if the attack was renewed. But now the U.N.S.F. was
concentrating in the vicinity. For a while, things would be quiet, Out
Here. Just the same, he felt kind of fed up. He felt as if the end of
everything he knew had crept inevitably a little closer.

He beamed Mars--the Survey Station. He contacted Nance. He had known
that she should have arrived already. He was relieved. He knew what the
region between here and there could be like when there was trouble.

"It's me--Frank Nelsen--Nance," he said into his helmet-phone, as he
stood beyond the outskirts of the Town, on the barren, glittering
surface of Pallas. "I'm still wearing the sweater. Stay where you are.
I've never been on Mars, either. But I'll be there, soon..."

His old uncertainties about talking to her evaporated now that he was
doing it.

"For Pete's sake--Frank!" he heard her laugh happily, still sounding
like the neighbor kid. "Gosh, it's good to hear