The earth was a thin crescent in the sky whose light no longer paled the stars. They gleamed, hard and brittle against the purple-black of space, the reds and yellows and brilliant hot blues of suns lying at unimaginable distances in the vast box of the universe. Night still gripped Crater Arzachel with its intolerable cold, but a zodiacal light in the sky whispered of a lunar dawn to come. Measured against the incalculable scale of space distances the rocket had but a relative inch to cross. That inch was almost crossed. The rocket's speed had dropped to a mere crawl before it entered the moon's gravitational field; then it had picked up again, moving ever faster toward its rendezvous with destruction. Now it was storming down into the face of the land. They buried Red Dog. Larkwell had improvised a crude scraper made of metal strips from the interior of Drone Baker to aid in the task. He attached loops of cable to pull it. Crag, Larkwell and Richter wearily dragged the scraper across the plain, heaping the ash into piles, while Nagel handled the easier job of pushing them over the edge of the rill. The unevenness of the plain and occasional rock outcroppings made the work exasperatingly slow. Crag fumed but there was little he could do to rectify the situation. It took the better part of eight hours before the rill was filled level with the plain, with only the extreme end of the tail containing the airlock being left accessible. "Won't do a damn bit of good if anything big comes down," Larkwell observed when they had finished. "There's not much chance of a major hit," Crag conjectured. "It's the small stuff that worries me." "Bandit would be just as safe," Larkwell persisted. "Perhaps." He turned away from the construction boss. Richter was swinging his arms and stamping his feet in an effort to keep warm. Nagel sat dejectedly on a rock, head buried in his arms. Crag felt a momentary pity for him--a pity tinged with resentment. Nagel was the weak link in their armor--a threat to their safety. For all practical purposes two men--he didn't include Richter--were doing the work of three. Yet, he thought, he couldn't exclude the German. The oxygen and supplies he consumed were less than those they had obtained from Bandit and Red Dog. And Richter worked--worked with a calm, relentless purpose--more than made up for Nagel's inability to shoulder his share. Maybe Richter was a blessing in disguise. He smiled grimly at the thought. But we're all shot, he told himself--all damned tired. Someone had to be the first to cave in. So why not Nagel? He looked skyward. The stars reminded him of glittering chunks of ice in some celestial freezebox. He moved his arms vigorously, conscious of the bitter cold gnawing at his bones--sharp needles stabbing his arms and legs. He was cold, yet his body felt clammy. He became conscious of a dull ache at the nape of his neck. Thought of the warhead stirred him to action.