It rose behind him, this time--from the cabin's other end, the hatchway to the landing ladder. Boone spun, ran towards the ladder. From the bottom of the narrow shaft, a white-faced crewman beckoned in a frenzy. "Out--! Get out!" He vanished through the exit port. Boone dropped the axe and, sliding, plummeted down the ladder. In seconds he, too, was stumbling through the port. The crewman who'd shouted crouched on the ground in the shadow of the ramping fins beside one of his fellows, the man who'd lain unconscious since they landed. "Look!" His whole arm shook as he pointed. Boone veered, then froze. If what had gone before were nightmare, surely this was utter madness! For from beyond the circling hills, a hand was stretching towards them--a hand vast beyond all human concept! Like living columns carved in flesh, the fingers reached out, nails glittering in the filtered sunlight of the ice-shell. With a mighty effort, Boone forced himself to motion. Lunging back through the port, he tore a long-range blaster from its wall-clip, then leaped to the ground once more and raced away, off to one side where there was space clear of the ship for him to use the weapon. His action seemed to break the paralysis of the crouching crewman. Jumping up, the fellow disappeared for a moment into the carrier, then rushed out again with a second blaster and darted after Boone. The giant hand's shadow fell upon the ship. The circling fingers closed about it. Boone stumbled to a halt. Twisting, he swung round the blaster ... triggered a bolt at the clutching hand. For the barest instant the hand stopped short. Then, in one savage, spasmodic motion, the great fingers clamped down on the carrier, clenching. * * * * * There was a clash and crash of rending metal; a roar of compressor tanks exploding. Flame spurted out between the crushing fingers. Wrist-muscles bulging, the hand whipped high into the air, then down again with earth-shaking force. The fingers opened ... spilled out the crumpled mass of wreckage that had been the ship. ... Wreckage, and the pitiful, broken bodies of the two crewmen who had been trapped inside. A hoarse cry burst from the throat of their comrade, the man who'd followed Boone. Whipping up his blaster, he blazed bolt after bolt into the hand. As a human might slap at a mosquito, the hand smashed down and crushed him, then started towards Boone. Shock-rocked, quaking, he dived into the closest flower-clump's cover ... rolled and writhed through the foliage, flat against the earth. Overhead the hand paused, searching. Then, bare yards from him, suddenly, it fell. But not in a blow. No. This was different. For it fell limp and sagging, as if the muscles all at once had lost their power. Boone lay like a statue--frozen, waiting. Nothing happened. The tension in him grew moment by moment, till he could hold it down no longer. He surged to his feet, blaster at the ready.