"No, thanks." O'Dea bent over to look through the port. The jagged terrain was closer, and a horrified shudder ran down his bony frame. "No, I'll let you answer to Saint Peter for the death of us both!"
His expression as he glared at Hawthorne was distasteful, but the makings of a grin played on the corners of his lips, and a thinly-hid concern was in his eyes.
"This is the end," he said. In one hand he clutched a photograph of a dark-haired girl. "The end, Mercedes! To think you'll be a widow before you're even a wife, all because that ape of a Hawthorne lost all our fuel in Centauri's asteroid belt—"
"Shut up!" the pilot demanded. One of his hands flipped a wad of something green back in O'Dea's direction. "Here's the ten platins I owe you. And get ready—this is it!"
A roughly level spot swept up at them—an uneven mesa that ended abruptly a few hundred feet ahead. Hawthorne dropped the vessel in a cushion of rocket blasts that were starting to cough for lack of fuel.
The ship bellied along the mesa, dipped into a pocket. O'Dea crashed into the stocky pilot as the ship turned end over end, then both struck the control board, smashing fifty thousand platins worth of instruments as they bounced around. The ship hesitated for a second at the edge of the mesa, balanced neatly, and decided to stay there.
Inside the ship, the lights were gone. For a few seconds there was a crashing of furniture, then silence.
"Lance!" Hawthorne's voice trembled slightly. "Are you killed? I h-hope—"
But the catch in his throat indicated he meant differently. From the darkness came O'Dea's answering drawl: