Norman started to jump back through the hole in the glass. But that would be suicide; while Swart guarded the door, Sade could pick them off from above in the ship. Then an idea whispered in Norman's mind. If he could lure Swart from the protection of the glass into Keren's sights in the the tower--if he could trust Keren--but there was nothing else to do. He ducked into the enclosure beside Dorothy. Swart laughed. Norman could hear it inside the glass. Quickly, Swart stepped to the edge of the hole, his pistol covering their exit, smiling at them through the wall. "You ain't very bright, Norman." It was the last breath that ever passed his lips, for a long, thin line of flame suddenly stretched from the tower to the small of his back. Swart dropped without a sound, surprise on his dead face. But Sade's ship was already in the air. "He'll come and strafe us!" Norman shouted to Dorothy above the roar of the rockets. He took her hand, dragged her out of the cage past Swart's body. They had to get to the cruiser; their only hope was a fight with Sade in the air. But the sound of Sade's rockets stopped Norman in his tracks as he started to dash for the cruiser. Sade's ship was skimming the field, twenty feet off the ground, his rockets sputtering like a gasoline engine with a broken piston. The ship was headed directly toward the house, apparently unable to rise. Then Norman saw what had happened. Keren's rifle had hit the rise rocket tube. The heavily repaired solder work had burned through. Unable to gain altitude, the ship hurtled into the house like a freight plane gone wild. The plastic walls ripped like tinfoil as the ship's heavy nose plowed into the building just below the tower. There was no explosion. The impact killed the rockets. Dust plumed up like a geyser, disappeared swiftly in the wind, leaving the ship hanging there tail out, stuck in the building like an arrow. Norman and Dorothy were at the door before the debris stopped falling. The front room was choked with dust and bits of torn plastic rained from the ceiling as they ran down the shadowy corridor. The door leading to the tower stairs hung on its hinges, admitting a beam of sunlight from the demolished upper story. They ran up the broken stairs, swaying precariously. The cracked hull of the ship lay in the debris of what remained of the tower. The wall had been sheared off level with the floor on one side and swaying out from the foundation below a misty rainbow sparkled its colors in the sunlight, hissing softly as the red fluid escaped from a pipe hidden in the wreckage. Sade's well around which the house was built had split in the crash. Leaving Dorothy at the top of the stairs, Norman climbed over the chunks of plastic into the tower room. Then he realized his foolhardiness. Too late. A chill tingled the back of his neck as he saw the ship's port hanging open. He heard Dorothy's warning cry behind him as he turned around slowly.