"Take that stuff," ordered the general, "and carry it well away from the ship."
A noncom ran to get the bucket. It might be nitric or it might be hydrazine. He carried it away a hundred yards or so. The lone man by the ship now stripped off his plastic coverall, including the gloves. He walked twenty yards from the ship, put on a fresh outfit, and went back to the ship. Presently he came away with another small bucket.
"Get that out of the way, too," commanded the general. He turned to McCauley. "Now, McCauley, it's all yours."
"I'd like," said McCauley, "to give the engine a one-second run. Just to make sure. I'd like everybody else away."
The general nodded. McCauley lumbered clumsily across the several hundred yards between the general and the ship. Furness started to follow, but the general said briskly:
"McCauley's right, Furness. Only one man's needed. Come along."
The general and the others moved to a position less directly in line with the body of the ship. It was a completely sensible thing to do. If he did not notice that the small buckets of bled-away fuel were closer to him and the other officers than they'd been before, he could be excused for it.
McCauley reached the ship and climbed up. He carefully inspected the instruments. Then he set the rocket timer for a one-second blast, threw off the safety, and pressed the firing button.
There was an instant, horrible bellow of a thousand dragons. The ship stirred, rolled forward—and the timer cut off the fuel supply to the rocket engine. The engine died. The ship rolled, crunching, to a stop. McCauley nodded tensely to himself. He waited.
His ears were a bit numbed by the sound, but after a time he turned to look back under the belly of the ship. There was confusion back there; the group of officers seemed agitated. There was a vast upsweep of yellow dust. And there was a hole, a crater, in the sun-baked plain. The dust was thicker and yellower above it.