It was sheer bad luck that brought Colonel Hammer around the corner of the building just as Nick prodded his captive out into the sea of mud, and more bad luck that the camp's commander was nervously fingering a night gun.
Nick felt the gun's light beam fall upon him, saw the red sighting spot, and felt a stunning tug at his shoulder just as he threw himself flat. Then Harmon's pistol rocked in his hand and Hammer's body vanished in a shower of coruscating orange sparks.
Groggily Nick pushed himself to a sitting position. He tried to move his arm and found it limp. His right hand explored the injury. It seemed to be a flesh wound.
Harmon! The ship! All at once he recalled his mission. The overlord had vanished in the darkness and there was no time to look for him. The ship came first. His hand moved from the box of Gravinol to his pistol.
The shining hull lay in a depression blasted into the dry sand by its own landing jets. Water glistened darkly around it now, and against the gleaming metal the open entry port was a circle of blackness. Nick's legs were heavy with clinging mud and weakness as he waded into the pool, and only the knowledge that it was now or never kept him in motion.
His eyes slitted and the gun came up as he glimpsed movement in the water. There it was again, a flash of white with something darker beside it.
"Nick!" a voice screamed. "Don't shoot!"
The cry was too late to stop his trigger finger, but he managed to raise the gun so that the bullet whined off into the darkness.
"Nick!" she screamed again. "It's me!"