Twice the relief boat shot low over the runway, sweeping round in a gigantic circle. Then it changed course and climbed steeply into the stratosphere. They watched it disappear out of sight—the last link with the world they knew.
In the center of the landing strip, a dense column of smoke billowed up from a pile of smoldering moss—a warning that no pilot could fail to observe. In the stillness, it rose in a tall spiral, twisting and turning, signaling to the winds.
"You should've let it land." Walter Pellinger was almost in tears; he blinked miserably.
Delman had never pictured him like this, small, myopic, with fair hair and sloping shoulders. The structure of his eyes had changed during the intervening weeks and the contact lenses he'd worn until recently were quite useless to him. Now, at twenty-one, he was half-blind and of little practical help to them.
"They didn't stand a chance," the lawyer replied.
"Oh, but they did! On the Law of Probability, they had one in sixty-seven—and our lives are worth a thousand of theirs."
"Yes, I know. Our lives are essential to humanity. You've said it all before and I still disagree with you."
"Have I? I don't remember."
"You have. But it doesn't matter. Come on back. We've got to clear those stones. There aren't many left."