With that, he jerked open one of the lockers and began pulling out weapons. He buckled on a pistol and dagger, and handed other weapon-belts to the girls behind him. He found two of the heavy big-game rifles, and several bandoliers of ammunition for them. He tossed out carbines, and boxes of carbine and pistol cartridges. He found two bomb-bags, each containing six light antipersonnel grenades and a big demolition-bomb. Glancing, now and then, at the forward screen, he caught glimpses of blue sky and green-tinted plains below.
“All right!” the pilot yelled. “We’re coming in for a landing! A couple of you stand by to get the hatch open.”
There was a jolt, and all sense of movement stopped. A cloud of white smoke drifted past the screens. The girls got the hatch open; snatching up weapons and bedding-wrapped bundles they all scrambled up out of the boat.
There was fire outside. The boat had come down upon a grassy plain; now the grass was burning from the heat of the jets. One by one, they ran forward along the top of the rocket-boat, jumping down to the ground clear of the blaze. Then, with every atom of strength they possessed they ran away from the doomed boat.
The ground was rough, and the grass high, impeding them. One of the girls tripped and fell; without pausing, two others pulled her to her feet, while another snatched up and slung the carbine she had dropped. Then, ahead, Kalvar Dard saw a deep gully, through which a little stream trickled.
They huddled together at the bottom of it, waiting, for what seemed like a long while. Then a gentle tremor ran through the ground, and swelled to a sickening, heaving shock. A roar of almost palpable sound swept over them, and a flash of blue-white light dimmed the sun above. The sound, the shock, and the searing light did not pass away at once; they continued for seconds that seemed like an eternity. Earth and stones pelted down around them; choking dust rose. Then the thunder and the earth-shock were over; above, incandescent vapors swirled, and darkened into an overhanging pall of smoke and dust.
For a while, they crouched motionless, too stunned to speak. Then shaken nerves steadied and jarred brains cleared. They all rose weakly. Trickles of earth were still coming down from the sides of the gully, and the little stream, which had been clear and sparkling, was roiled with mud. Mechanically, Kalvar Dard brushed the dust from his clothes and looked to his weapons.
“That was just the fuel-tank of a little Class-3 rocket-boat,” he said. “I wonder what the explosion of the ship was like.” He thought for a moment before continuing. “Glav, I think I know why our jets burned out. We were stern-on to the ship when she blew; the blast drove our flame right back through the jets.”
“Do you think the explosion was observed from Doorsha?” Dorita inquired, more concerned about the practical aspects of the situation. “The ship, I mean. After all, we have no means of communication, of our own.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t doubt it; there were observatories all around the planet watching our ship,” Kalvar Dard said. “They probably know all about it, by now. But if any of you are thinking about the chances of rescue, forget it. We’re stuck here.”
“That’s right. There isn’t another human being within fifty million miles,” Seldar Glav said. “And that was the first and only spaceship ever built. It took fifty years to build her, and even allowing twenty for research that wouldn’t have to be duplicated, you can figure when we can expect another one.”
“The answer to that one is, never. The ship blew up in space; fifty years’ effort and fifteen hundred people gone, like that.” Kalvar Dard snapped his fingers. “So now, they’ll try to keep Doorsha habitable for a few more thousand years by irrigation, and forget about immigrating to Tareesh.”
“Well, maybe, in a hundred thousand years, our descendants will build a ship and go to Doorsha, then,” Olva considered.
“Our descendants?” Eldra looked at her in surprise. “You mean, then. … ?”
Kyna chuckled. “Eldra, you are an awful innocent, about anything that doesn’t have a breech-action or a recoil-mechanism,” she said. “Why do you think the women on this expedition outnumbered the men seven to five, and why do you think there were so many obstetricians and pediatricians in the med. staff? We were sent out to put a human population on Tareesh, weren’t we? Well, here we are.”
“But. … Aren’t we ever going to. … ?” Varnis began. “Won’t we ever see anybody else, or do anything but just live here, like animals, without machines or ground-cars or aircraft or houses or anything?” Then she began to sob bitterly.
Analea, who had been cleaning a carbine that had gotten covered with loose earth during the explosion, laid it down and went to Varnis, putting her arm around the other girl and comforting her. Kalvar Dard picked up the carbine she had laid down.
“Now, let’s see,” he began. “We have two heavy rifles, six carbines, and eight pistols, and these two bags of bombs. How much ammunition, counting what’s in our belts, do we have?”
They took stock of their slender resources, even Varnis joining in the task, as he had hoped she would. There were over two thousand rounds for the pistols, better than fifteen hundred for the carbines, and four hundred for the two big-game guns. They had some spare clothing, mostly spacesuit undergarments, enough bed-robes, one hand-axe, two flashlights, a first-aid kit, and three atomic lighters. Each one had a combat-dagger. There was enough tinned food for about a week.
“We’ll have to begin looking for game and edible plants, right away,” Glav considered. “I suppose there is game, of some sort; but our ammunition won’t last forever.”
“We’ll have to make it last as long as we can;
