"My fuel is almost exhausted," he said.
"Prepare to dive into the Earth," said Urol in his emotionless voice. "We cannot waste the power of our ship to ray you. The senseless assaults of the madmen caused us to waste much of our power."
"I am leaving now," said Thig. "May the Law of the Horde endure forever!" And under his breath: "on Ortha."
Thig let the life boat drop away from the other ship. Slowly it fell at first, and then faster as gravity gripped it. Fifty miles the ship must fall before it smashed into the ground. By that time the cruiser would be already beyond the orbit of the moon, and all they would see would be the moment of impact.
Friction was heating the metal skin of the ship slowly as it fell. Thig locked the controls; set the rocket relays for increasingly powerful thrusts of power, and waddled clumsily out through the lock into the frigid thin air of the stratosphere. He stepped out into emptiness.
Inside the space suit it was warm, and the air was clean. When he had fallen a few miles farther he would open the glider wings, that were built into all Orthan suits instead of parachutes, and land on Long Island. But not until he was sheltered by the clouds from the view of the space cruiser.
He was going back to Ellen and the children with the knowledge that Earth was saved from the Horde—saved by nothing more deadly than a lie!
And the part of Thig's brain that was Lewis Terry was already busying itself with the plotting of a Western novel about the handcart pioneers.... Once he had rescued Brazos from that Apache-ringed mesa, he would get to work on it....