He centered the shoreline of the bay and put on maximum magnification. Then he pointed a stubby forefinger. A singular, perfectly straight streak of black appeared, beginning a little distance inland from the bay and running up into what appeared to be higher ground. The streak ended not far from a serpentine arm of the sea which almost cut the island in half. "That'll be it," said Sergeant Madden, rumbling. "The _Cerberus_ had to land on her rockets. She had some ground speed. She burned a ten-mile streak on the ground, coming down." He growled. "Commercial skippers! Should've matched velocity aloft! Take her down." The squad ship drove for ground. Patrolman Willis steadied the ship no more than a few thousand feet high, above the streak of scorched ground and ashes. "It was heading inland, all right," rumbled Sergeant Madden. "Lucky! If it'd been heading the other way, it could've gone out and landed in the sea. That would ha' been a mess! But where is it?" The squad ship descended farther. It followed the lane of carbonized soil. That marking narrowed--the _Cerberus_ had plainly been descending. Then the streak came to an end. It pinched out to nothing. The _Cerberus_ should have been at its end. It wasn't. There was no ship down on Procyron III. * * * * * The matter ceased to be routine. If the liner's drive conked out where Procyron III was the nearest refuge planet, it should have landed here at least six days ago. Some ship had landed here recently. "Set down," grunted Sergeant Madden. Patrolman Willis obeyed. The squad ship came to rest in a minor valley, a few hundred yards from the end of the rocket-blast trail. Sergeant Madden got out. Patrolman Willis followed him. This was a duly surveyed and recommended refuge planet. There was no need to check the air or take precautions against inimical animal or vegetable life. The planet was safe. They clambered over small rocky obstacles until they came to the end of the scorched line. They surveyed the state of things in silence. A ship had landed here recently. Its blue-white rocket flames had melted gulleys in the soil, turned it to slag, and then flung silky, gossamer threads of slag-wool over the rocks nearby. At the end of the melted-away hollows, twin slag-lined holes went down deep into the ground. They were take-off holes. Rockets had burned them deeply as they gathered force to lift the ship away again. Sergeant Madden scrambled to the edge of the nearest blast-well. He put his hand on the now-solidified, glassy slag. It wasn't warm, but it wasn't cold. The glass-lined hole a rocket leaves takes a long time to cool down. "She landed here, all right," he grunted. "But she took off again before the torp arrived to tell us about it." Willis protested: "But, sergeant! She only had one set of rockets! She couldn't have taken off again! She didn't have the rockets to do it with!" "I know she couldn't," growled the sergeant. "But she did."