The men stood around waiting and smoking. They didn't know yet about the crash out there. Nibley felt a great sorrow rise in himself for them. That ship meant a great deal to them and now it had crashed. Perhaps their lives had crashed with it. A loud speaker on the outer area of the landing tarmac opened out with a voice: "Attention, crew of the Terra. The repair ship just radioed in a report that it has been fired upon from somewhere over the dead seas. It crashed a minute ago." The report was so sudden and quiet and matter-of-fact that the standing smoking men did not for a moment understand it. Then, each in his own way, they reacted to it. Some of them ran for the radio building to verify the report. Others sat down and put their hands over their faces. Still more of them stood staring at the sky as if staring might put the repair ship back together again and get it here safe and intact. Instinctively, at last, all of them looked up at the sky. Jupiter was there, with its coterie of moons, bright and far away. Part of their lives lived on Jupiter. Most of them had children and wives there and certain duties to perform to insure the longevity of said children and wives. Now, with the speaking of a few words over a loudspeaker, the distance to Jupiter was suddenly an immense impossibility. The captain of the Rocket Terra walked across the field slowly. He stopped several times to try and light a cigarette, but the night wind blew it out. He stood in the rocket shadow and looked up at Jupiter and swore quietly, again and again and finally threw down his cigarette and heeled it with his shoe. Nibley walked up and stood beside the captain. "Captain Kroll...." Kroll turned. "Oh, hello, Grandpa--" "Tough luck." "Yeah. Yeah. I guess that's what you'd call it. Tough luck." "You're going to take off anyway, Captain?" "Sure," said Kroll quietly, looking at the sky. "Sure." "How's the protective computator on board your ship?" "Not so hot. Bad, in fact. It might conk out before we get half way through the asteroids." "That's not good," said Nibley. "It's lousy. I feel sick. I need a drink. I wish I was dead. I wish we'd never started this damned business of being damned pioneers. My family's up there!" He jerked his hand half way to Jupiter, violently. He settled down and tried to light another cigarette. No go. He threw it down after the other. "Can't get through the asteroids without an asteroid computator to protect you, without that old radar set-up, captain," said Nibley, blinking wetly. He shuffled his small feet around in the red dust. "We had an auxiliary computator on that repair ship coming from Earth," said Kroll, standing there. "And it had to crash." "The Martians shoot it down, you think?"