He would have forgiven her anything for that. And the fact that instead of being dull with sleep, Jenna looked fresh and bright gave the woman an added charm. "Ghastly time to be up and around," she observed with a smile. She handed him one of the cigarettes and glanced at the clock. "Oh-two-hundred," she said idly. "Pacific War Time. Thirteen hundred and twenty-seventh day of. What's up, Ralph?" Lindsay puffed deeply and let the smoke trickle out with his words. "Another one--high-speed job." Jenna nodded. "Roberts?" "He's coming right over." "I've coffee brewing. It hasn't landed yet?" "Not yet, but we're expecting it any minute." "We'll have time for coffee." "We'll _take_ time for coffee," said Ralph. "Roberts will do a better job for a bit of stimulant and something warm." Jenna yawned and laughed at herself. Ralph turned as blue streamers cast flickerings on the walls. Outside in the dark, ships of Terra's fleet were taking off, trailing their flares into the twinkling sky above them. They were getting out of range of the robomb blast; clearing the vast Mojave Spaceport. The marker lights winked off as the last ship left the port, and the sudden roar of the skytrain crescendoed and then died as the personnel of Mojave left in haste. Only the decontamination ship remained on the port. Seconds later, a pale actinic glow suffused the area. The walls of the buildings glowed with it as the wall shields hugged the buildings and anchored them to the solid crust of the planet. In the ship a counting-rate meter climbed up the scale and a radiation identifier winked, indicating that it was very hard gamma that triggered the counter. The internal meter showed no danger inside of the ship; it was far enough from the nearest building on the port. * * * * * The door opened again and Jim Roberts walked in. "Give it to me," he said crisply, nodding cheerfully at Jenna. Ralph's wife nodded back and then left to get the coffee. When she returned, Ralph had explained to Captain Roberts fully. "The devil," muttered Roberts. "Looks rough." "We've been expecting the high-speed stuff, though," said Jenna, pouring coffee into three cups. Lindsay opened his mouth to speak. "You've--" he started, but he was interrupted by a ground-shaking rumble. Out of the dark California sky a juggernaut fell, its braking blast lighting up the area. The shrill of its passage came then, a lowering shrill that started up in the ear-splitting register and running down the scale like a dying siren until it was lost in a moan. The earth shook again as the monster hit the sands of the desert. It sent them high in a mighty impact crater, plowed its short furrow, and then at the bottom of its inverted cone it nuzzled into the ground and--started to tick.