I heard his instructions clearly over the small panel set. "About three miles up now." I let the _Eagle_ down slowly. Two miles. One. Hold. Three thousand feet. Two. One. Hold. Five hundred feet. Hold. Mojave Desert right under us. Baldy off to the right. Lancaster about twenty miles north. Down easy.... The tail-flare was splashing against the desert beneath now, turning the clinging mist into a ruddy shroud. A glance at the chronometer showed about three minutes fuel. "Let ... her ... down ... slow." Bat's voice was fading fast as the terrific heat seared him and the radiation burned deep. The fuel should be gone now. No time left. Two hundred feet, one hundred, fifty, thirty.... I heard Bat's voice sob just once through the radio. "Oh ... dear God...!" And that was all. No time. No fuel. Silence! The thunder of the jets stopped abruptly, leaving a frightening void. The _Eagle_ slewed about sickeningly and dropped the remaining thirty feet like so much lead. There was a rending crash as her tail section crumpled, battered plates sinking into the sand, and then she settled wearily to a halt amid the bubbling magma of atomized earth.... * * * * * So the pilot-shipment of weather-plant got here all right, and it exceeded the Holcomb Foundation's fondest hopes. It brought fertility where there had been only barrenness. Long rows of it still bring richness and life to the soil and the danger of famine is gone forever. Just remember now, the next time you take the Pacific stratojet. Look under you at that garden of plenty. See the rows upon rows of richly bearing plants. Look too at the interstices where a tiny Venusian moss called "weather-plant" makes it all possible. Bat Kendo? He died. He died doing what he wanted to do, and that's something. The others maybe weren't so lucky. Of course you never heard of Bat, or of the _Eagle_ for that matter. All this happened a long, long time ago, and the old memories tarnish. Now people take their lives pretty much as they find it, and they never wonder about the guys who made it what it is. Yes, humans are a strange breed. Like I say ... forgetful. Very forgetful.