ch the wastelands away from any of the
shuttle ports. They had no aspirators, however, and they couldn't cover
much territory in the spacesuits they would have to use. It meant he'd
have to land close to a village where he was known.

He jockeyed the ship around by trial and error, studying the manual that
was lying prominently on the control panel. According to the booklet,
the ship was simple to operate. It was self-leveling in an atmosphere,
and automatic flare computers were supposed to make it possible for an
amateur to judge the rate of descent near the surface. It looked
reassuring--and was probably written with that in mind.

Finally he reached for the control, hoping he'd figured his landing
orbit reasonably well by simple logic. He smoothed it out in the
following hours as he watched the markings on Mars. When they were near
turnover point, he began cranking the little gyroscope to swing the
ship. It saved fuel to turn without power, and he wasn't sure he could
have turned accurately by blasting.

He was gaining some proficiency, however, he felt. But now he had to
waste fuel and ruin his orbit again. There was no way to practice
maneuvering without actually doing so.

In the end, he compromised, leaving a small margin for a bad landing
that would require a second attempt, but with less practice than he
wanted.

He had located Jake's village through the little telescope when he
finally reached for the main blast control. The thin haze of Mars'
atmosphere came rushing up, while the blast lashed out. Then they were
in the outer fringes of the sky and the blast was beginning to show a
corona that ruined visibility.

He turned to the flare computer and back to what he could see through
the quartz viewport. He was going to land about half a mile from the
village, as nearly as he could judge.

The computer seemed to work as it should. The speed was within
acceptable limits. He gave up trying to see the ground and was forced to
trust the machinery designed for amateur pilots. The flare bloomed, and
he yanked down on the little lever.

It could have been worse. They hit the ground, bounced twice, and turned
over. The ship was a mess when Feldman freed himself from the elastic
straps of the seat. Chris had shrieked as they hit, but she was
unbuckling herself now.

He threw her her spacesuit and one of the emergency bottles of oxygen
from the rack. "Hurry up with that. We've sprung a leak and the
pressure's