"What was it?" the pilot asked.
"Creethas, the natives call 'em, but that doesn't mean much. Six-foot insects. Poisonous. They dig traps like ant-lions on Earth, pits with sloping sides. Once you skid on the ice, you slip on down to the hole at the bottom."
"Dangerous?"
"Not to us, in here. But we might have damaged the engine."
"Keep your eyes open after this, Garth," Commander Benson said sharply.
"Okay." Garth was silent. The truck-cat drove on, leading the procession.
The vehicles were fast. On level ground they raced, hitting eighty m.p.h. sometimes. By Jupiter-set they had reached Chahnn. Paula, for one, was disappointed.
"I expected a city," she told Garth as they stared around at the mile-square block of black stone, raised a few feet above ground level, its surface broken by a few structures oddly reminiscent of the subway kiosks of two centuries ago.
"It's all underground," Garth said. He was feeling shaky, needing a shot or two of liquor. But there was none. In lieu of it, he borrowed a cigaret from the girl and idled about, watching the men make camp.