“Poisoned! I poisoned it!”
“Be glad that you did,” snapped Kimber. “You’re in luck. These weren’t!” He kicked up the gravel below the vines with the toe of his boot and plowed up brittle bones and small skulls.
The pilot as he treated Dard’s slight wounds was emphatic:
“Hereafter we stay together. It worked out all right this time. But again it might not. Stick together and distrust everything unless you have already seen it in action!”
But they were all together and apparently in no danger when disaster struck them a back-handed blow that same day. They had been using the sleepy stream as a guide back into a range of hills and by midmorning had sighted in the northeast what could only be a chain of mountains, purple-blue against the sky. These ran from north to south as far as those in the sled could see.
Perhaps if the Terrans had not been so intent upon those distant peaks they might have seen something below which would have warned them. Probably not. Man, when he goes to war, displays the deepest depths of cunning.
Their first intimation of danger arrived simultaneously with the blow that smashed them out of the sky. A sharp burst of sound and the sled bucked-as if batted by a giant club. The craft fluttered into a falling twirl while Kimber fought the controls, trying to pull out of the spin. If the passengers had not been strapped in they would have plunged earthward in the first three seconds of that wild descent.
While Dard was trying to understand what had happened a burst of brilliant light temporarily blinded him. More sound, bracketing them, and someone cried out in pain. Then he knew that they were failing out of control, and by some instinct he flung up his arms to shield his head just before they struck and he blacked out.
He couldn’t have been unconscious long, because when he raised his head Cully was still dazedly fumbling to flee himself from the safety straps. Dard spat to clear a full month and saw a blob of blood and a tooth strike the ground. He loosened the belt and lurched out of the sled after Cully. In front Santee bent over a limp Kimber on whose face blood trickled from a cut just below the hair line.
“What happened?” Dard wiped his chin and took away a bloody hand. His lips hurt and his jaw ached.