His jaw set, then he said gently, "Snug down, kitten, we're going in."
She glanced through the port. "But how can you land on that?"
He tightened the couch about them. "Blow the stuff out of the way," he said cheerfully. "Maybe." He swooped in from the east. "Keep an eye peeled for the Caves' entrance—I bet it won't look like it did last month."
The Latecomer touched the runway at little more than a hundred miles per hour. Its forward rockets braked sharply, blasting aside the scattered dead limbs and smaller trees—roaring, bucking and hissing. Its underside buckled from triphammer contact with rock slides and a few larger logs. It grated to a bumpy halt, gouged, scarred, split, its warped hull a forever useless thing.
Before opening the port he buckled the long knife at his waist, had Carol do the same with the short one. He climbed out, breathing deeply of the warm, moist air, savoring the incense of pine while helping Carol to the ground.
They avoided the radioactive path made by the ship, picked their way along the side of the strip until Carol pointed and cried, "There it is!"
Ken gripped her arm. "You follow behind me, and if the welcoming committee moves this way you get up in that big madrona over there."
"What?"
He pointed out the bear, watching from a wet tangle of brush. "If it's a male—or a female with no cubs—we're probably all right."