ight up. It surged
horribly across the top of the forest, leaving a vast flash of flaming
vegetation behind it. Then it steadied, and aimed skyward and
climbed....

Then it was not. Obviously the Dabney field booster had been flashed on
to get the ship out to space. The ship had vanished into emptiness.

The Dabney field had flicked it some hundred and seventy-odd light-years
from Earth's moon in the flicker of a heart-beat. It might have gone
that far again. Whoever was in it had had no choice but to take off, and
no way to take off without suicidal use of fuel in any other way.

Cochrane looked at where the ship had vanished. Seconds passed. There
came the thunderclap of air closing the vacuum the ship's disappearance
had left.

There were squealings behind the pair on the hilltop. Eight of the huge
yellow beasts were out in the open, now. Tiny, furry biped animals
waddled desperately to get out of their way. Smaller creatures scuttled
here and there. A sinuous creature with fur but no apparent legs writhed
its way upward. But all the creatures were frightened. They observed an
absolute truce, under the overmastering greater fear of nature.

Far away, the volcano on the skyline boomed and flashed and emitted
monstrous clouds of smoke. The shining, incandescent lava on its flanks
glared across the glaciers.

Babs gasped suddenly. She realized the situation in which she and
Cochrane had been left.

Shivering, she pressed close to him as the distant black smoke-cloud
spread toward the center of the sky.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Before sunset, they reached the area of ashes where the ship had stood.
Cochrane was sure that if anybody else had been left behind besides
themselves, the landing-place was an inevitable rendezvous. Only three
members of the ship's company had been inside when Babs and Cochrane
left to stroll for the two hours astronomers on Earth had set as a
waiting-period. Jones had been in the ship, and Holden, and Alicia
Simms. Everybody else had been exploring. Their attitude had been
exactly that of sight-seers and tourists. But they could have gotten
back before the take-off.

Apparently they had. Nobody seemed to have returned to the burned-over
space since the ship's departure. The blast of the rockets had erased
all previous tracks, but still there was a thin layer of ash resettled
over the clearing. Footprints would have been visible in it. Anybody
remaining would have come here. Nobody ha