Then it was over. With savage force, the robot hurled the broken ship to the ground ... trompled the shattered hull-sections into the dust. Ylana clung to Jarl--choking, crying, whole body shaking. Tight-lipped, holding her close, he pressed back against the rocks, so hard the ridges gouged his flesh like blunt-edged bayonets. The metal giant was turning, now. Again its great feet clanged and thundered. Back it came once more, along the same road that had brought it to its terrible festival of carnage and destruction. Again, its shadow swept past Jarl and Ylana, not even pausing. Slowly, the thunder of its footsteps faded. The massive hulk grew smaller, smaller, in the distance. Then it was gone. Heavily, Jarl Corvett struggled to his feet. Slowly, grimly, he turned. Ylana's reddened eyes met his. "Jarl--! Where are you going?" He shrugged; made himself ignore the new panic in her voice. "You can guess that, can't you?" "No, Jarl! No--!" Eyes wide, lips quivering and parted, she came up, clutching at his tunic. He pushed her hands away, not daring to let the tenderness he felt show in face or action. His words came raw and harsh, in a voice he could hardly recognize as his own: "What else is there to do? The ships are gone. There's no other way that we can get in touch with Venus, fleet headquarters." "No, Jarl...." "But your father's got a ship." He bit his words off, clipped and hard. "He's got the robots, too, it seems--may the gods of the void protect us all! But if he should die...." He let his voice trail off; stared out across the crags and desert wastes. "Then I'll go, too--" "No." He pushed her back again--grim, unrelenting. "A few of Bor Legat's men didn't get aboard the ship. Some may still live. Go stay with them till I come." And then, bleakly: "_If_ I come...." Turning without a backward glance, he plodded off through the scorching sand, following the course of the giant robot-- The course to _rey_ Gundre and his flagship. CHAPTER X Womar's blazing day--barely half as long as that of Earth--had waned again before Jarl reached his destination. Then, at last, he was crawling through the dusk on hands and knees, up to the shattered hull of the ship from beyond the void. The sun had burned his face to a tortured mask, and his feet were raw, leaden lumps of flesh that left a trail of blood behind him. Breathing hard, staggering weak from hunger and fatigue, he dragged himself up out of the dirt to the broken port. He did not even wonder what he would find within. He didn't care. He only knew that whatever he was to do, he must do quickly, before the last remnants of his draining strength were spent and he fell, to rise no more. And what was he to do? Drunkenly, he laughed. Who was he to say? His world was a blur of star-splotched black, and sometimes--too often--he saw stars that he knew weren't there. The time was past for schemes and planning. At best, below, he'd die tonight.