Jupiter blasted the starship off the ground with the jets. He couldn't use the inertialess stellar drive inside Yogol's gravitational field and the Mizar rocked sickeningly as it hurtled above the surface under rocket propulsion.
Lete cowered in the shock absorber where Jupiter had buckled her down against her will. Her yellow eyes were glazed. She was like a wild animal in a trap.
Tabak was pale, but she stared eagerly through the transparent rind of the blister. Jupiter shot her an approving glance. He'd never realized how blue the Caligan girl's eyes were—cerulean blue, alive, dancing like a little girl's with a new doll.
"Take the scanner," he said gruffly. "You should know how it operates."
"May I? I'll be ever so careful."
She found it unhesitatingly, turned it on. The surface of Yogol sprang on the screen in three dimensional reality. Tabak gasped.
"I'm almost afraid I might fall into it!" Then she stiffened. "There they are! There! Look, Jupiter!"
He glanced into the screen. The valley widened out below, and he could see a great army of men camped on the level ground. Thousands of the copper-skinned Nehogan warriors! They stood in excited clusters, staring upward, pointing at the Mizar with its comet tail of flame.
Jupiter could make out the striped tents of the Anolyn in the center of the encampment. He could see pink-skinned Caligans and stolid porters. He turned to the terrified cave girl.