ked Jason carefully up and down.

"I don't like to say it, but I suppose you are as ready to leave now as
you ever will be. Change the virus filter noseplugs every day. Always
check boots for tears and metalcloth suiting for rips. Medikit supplies
renewed once a week."

"And wipe my nose and wear my galoshes. Anything else?" Jason asked.

Brucco started to say something, then changed his mind. "Nothing that
you shouldn't know well by now. Keep alert. And ... good luck." He
followed up the words with a crushing handshake that was totally
unexpected. As soon as the numbness left Jason's hand, he and Grif went
out through the large entrance lock.

IX.

Real as they had been, the training chambers had not prepared him for
the surface of Pyrrus. There was the basic similarity of course. The
feel of the poison grass underfoot and the erratic flight of a stingwing
in the last instant before Grif blasted it. But these were scarcely
noticeable in the crash of the elements around him.

A heavy rain was falling, more like a sheet of water than individual
drops. Gusts of wind tore at it, hurling the deluge into his face. He
wiped his eyes clear and could barely make out the conical forms of two
volcanoes on the horizon, vomiting out clouds of smoke and flame. The
reflection of this inferno was a sullen redness on the clouds that raced
by in banks above them.

There was a rattle on his hard hat and something bounced off to splash
to the ground. He bent over and picked up a hailstone as thick as his
thumb. A sudden flurry of hail hammered painfully at his back and neck,
he straightened hurriedly.

As quickly as it started the storm was over. The sun burned down,
melting the hailstones and sending curls of steam up from the wet
street. Jason sweated inside his armored clothing. Yet before they had
gone a block it was raining again and he shook with chill.

Grif trudged steadily along, indifferent to the weather or the volcanoes
that rumbled on the horizon and shook the ground beneath their feet.
Jason tried to ignore his discomfort and match the boy's pace.

The walk was a depressing one. The heavy, squat buildings loomed grayly
through the rain, more than half of them in ruins. They walked on a
pedestrian way in the middle of the street. The occasional armored
trucks went by on both sides of them. The midstreet sidewalk puzzled
Jason until Grif blasted something that hurtled out of a ruined building
towards them.