"No buts!"
He was right overhead now. Just one ordinary-type gun would solve the whole problem, he thought. But Postal Ships didn't get guns. They weren't supposed to need them.
He centered the ship as well as he could on the Dome below and threw it into automatic pilot. Jumping from the control panel, he ran back toward the gun turret and slammed shut the plexilite screen. Its outer wall opened and the fuel-tank went tumbling outward and down. He returned to his control-panel seat and looked at the viewscreen. He smiled.
The fuel-tank was lying near the Dome—right in the middle of the nest of iceworms. The fuel was leaking from the puncture.
The iceworms writhed in from all sides.
"Now!" Preston said grimly.
The ship roared down, jets blasting. The fire licked out, heated the ground, melted snow—ignited the fuel-tank! A gigantic flame blazed up, reflected harshly off the snows of Ganymede.
And the mindless iceworms came, marching toward the fire, being consumed, as still others devoured the bodies of the dead and dying.
Preston looked away and concentrated on the business of finding a place to land the ship.