Another hillock. The carrier struck it a glancing blow that churned up new clouds of sand and dust as it skated diagonally down the slope beyond.
Ahead, jutting from the endless waste of powdery grit that stretched as far as eye could see, loomed low outcroppings of fantastically-eroded rock.
The carrier plowed into them with a rending crash. Claw-like crags gouged at the craft's thin metal skin. A hiss of escaping air played sudden gusty counterpoint to the whistle of the wind. Line-welds popped. Seams split. Bucking and shuddering, the carrier jolted to a halt.
Before the echoes could even die, then, the cowling-seal flipped loose from its seat. The warped entrance-bubble lifted jerkily, wrenched up an inch or two at a time.
Barely half open, it halted. A man wearing a plastron breather-mask squirmed through the slot and, falling, sprawled prostrate in the shifting sands beside the tiny vessel.
But now a new sound echoed overhead—the heavy vibrance of a spaceship's ramping-drone.
Sobbing for breath, the man beside the carrier moved convulsively, then lurched to his knees. His chrysolite-green tunic was ripped wide where it had caught on the cowling. A long gash above his left temple stained dun-drab hair scarlet. His nose was bleeding, too, so that the transparent breather-mask bubbled spreading ruby streaks every time he sucked in air.
Now, clutching at the carrier's shattered hull, he dragged himself to his feet, stood swaying there.
Simultaneously, the vibrance overhead echoed louder. A sleek-lined, compact Grade IV short-range cruiser plummeted into view through the dust-clouds and hovered momentarily in ramping position—base down, tail fins parallel to the surface of the ground below.
The face of the man from the carrier contorted behind the breather-mask. Turning sharply, he lurched away from the wrecked craft, wading calf-deep through the powdery Venusian dust towards another, larger outcropping of eroded rock.