"--Isn't gibberish!" Boone finished for him fiercely. "You thought this was to be a prospecting expedition, Captain. But that's not so; not really. Because I've been down on Hyperion before--and underneath the surface ice is a warm world with at least one big Helgae city! All we have to do is set up a base, start processing mekronal, and claim the whole satellite for Associated Independents!" The captain's eyes distended. "Boone, do you mean it?" "Of course I mean it! I was aboard a sphere that crashed after monsters hit it. That's why we've got to work fast. Martin Krobis knows about it. Unless we hurry, the Cartel may beat us to it with a unit." But the captain was no longer listening. Face flushed, brow furrowed, he was studying the microreel-projected wall-chart. "I can pass the word to headquarters to send out a sphere-load of equipment. And I've got enough mekronal aboard to give maybe half-a-dozen men protection without a bubble; Terral bribed some Cartel hand to steal a little for him...." He swung to the com-box, then; snapped orders. The quiet of the chart-room dissolved into seething bedlam. While Boone stood by, warheads were fitted to two carriers. With five mekronal-treated men, he crowded aboard a third. Then, on the visiscreen, bleak Hyperion was looming. Boone waited, taut and strain-straught, hand on the carrier-release lever. Now, slowly, the mountain peaks so far away began to form a pattern ... a distortion and projection of the same pattern Boone had seen before, looking up at the crags that pierced the ice-shell. For a moment he almost thought that in a prick of black he was seeing the rift made by the fallen Cartel sphere-ship. Not that it mattered; enough that he had a mark to shoot at. The captain's voice rasped from the com-box: "Boone! You'd better hurry. Our detectors show Federation ships approaching!" * * * * * The last lingering fragments of Boone's hesitation vanished. He pressed the button set to trigger the first carrier. Like a scarlet lance, the sleek craft shot from its cradle--speeding out from the sphere; hurtling down towards the ice-shell, faster and faster. Boone pressed the second button. Another explosive-laden carrier speared through the void upon its mission. Boone turned in his seat. "Hatches--?" "Secured and sealed," a brawny, blond-haired giant behind him grunted. For the fraction of a second Boone stared at the rocky face, the grim-set jaw. The others, too: four stone-featured crewmen, each waiting in silence despite the tension. A tightness came to Boone's throat. Only then, once again, the sphere-ship captain's voice was rasping: "Boone, those blips are coming closer!" Tight-lipped, Boone pressed the third button ... the button that triggered this final carrier. He jarred back, then, as the pressure of the craft's swift acceleration hit him.