out three day-periods from
now. We'll fix the ship, then take off. Soon we'll be home, that is, if
nothing happens. Like being shot down by that--"

"Oh, stop it!" Nasha said impatiently. "Leave him alone. He's right: all
this must be taken back home, sooner or later. We'll have to solve the
problem of the gun. We have no choice."

Dorle nodded. "What's your solution, then? As soon as we leave the
ground we'll be shot down." His face twisted bitterly. "They've guarded
their treasure too well. Instead of being preserved it will lie here
until it rots. It serves them right."

"How?"

"Don't you see? This was the only way they knew, building a gun and
setting it up to shoot anything that came along. They were so certain
that everything was hostile, the enemy, coming to take their possessions
away from them. Well, they can keep them."

Nasha was deep in thought, her mind far away. Suddenly she gasped.
"Dorle," she said. "What's the matter with us? We have no problem. The
gun is no menace at all."

The two men stared at her.

"No menace?" Dorle said. "It's already shot us down once. And as soon as
we take off again--"

"Don't you see?" Nasha began to laugh. "The poor foolish gun, it's
completely harmless. Even I could deal with it alone."

"You?"

Her eyes were flashing. "With a crowbar. With a hammer or a stick of
wood. Let's go back to the ship and load up. Of course we're at its
mercy in the air: that's the way it was made. It can fire into the sky,
shoot down anything that flies. But that's all! Against something on the
ground it has no defenses. Isn't that right?"

Dorle nodded slowly. "The soft underbelly of the dragon. In the legend,
the dragon's armor doesn't cover its stomach." He began to laugh.
"That's right. That's perfectly right."

"Let's go, then," Nasha said. "Let's get back to the ship. We have work
to do here."

* * * * *

It was early the next morning when they reached the ship. During the
night the Captain had died, and the crew had ignited his body, according
to custom. They had stood solemnly around it until the last ember died.
As they were going back to their work the woman and the two men
appeared, dirty and tired, still excited.

And presently, from the ship, a line of people came, each carrying
something in his hands. The line marched across the gray slag, the
eternal expanse of fused metal. When they reached the weapon they all
fell on the gun at