blastoff
from Doorsha. He went over his landing and security plans again, and
found no probable emergency unprepared for. Dard wandered about the
ship, talking to groups of his colonists, and found morale even better
than he had hoped. He spent hours staring into the forward visiscreens,
watching the disc of Tareesh, the planet of his destination, grow larger
and plainer ahead.

Now, with the voyage almost over, he was in the cargo-hold just aft of
the Number Seven bulkhead, with six girls to help him, checking
construction material which would be needed immediately after landing.
The stuff had all been checked two or three times before, but there was
no harm in going over it again. It furnished an occupation to fill in
the time; it gave Kalvar Dard an excuse for surrounding himself with
half a dozen charming girls, and the girls seemed to enjoy being with
him. There was tall blonde Olva, the electromagnetician; pert little
Varnis, the machinist's helper; Kyna, the surgeon's-aide; dark-haired
Analea; Dorita, the accountant; plump little Eldra, the armament
technician. At the moment, they were all sitting on or around the desk
in the corner of the store-room, going over the inventory when they were
not just gabbling.

"Well, how about the rock-drill bitts?" Dorita was asking earnestly,
trying to stick to business. "Won't we need them almost as soon as we're
off?"

"Yes, we'll have to dig temporary magazines for our explosives,
small-arms and artillery ammunition, and storage-pits for our
fissionables and radioactives," Kalvar Dard replied. "We'll have to have
safe places for that stuff ready before it can be unloaded; and if we
run into hard rock near the surface, we'll have to drill holes for
blasting-shots."

"The drilling machinery goes into one of those prefabricated sheds,"
Eldra considered. "Will there be room in it for all the bitts, too?"

Kalvar Dard shrugged. "Maybe. If not, we'll cut poles and build racks
for them outside. The bitts are nono-steel; they can be stored in the
open."

"If there are poles to cut," Olva added.

"I'm not worrying about that," Kalvar Dard replied. "We have a pretty
fair idea of conditions on Tareesh; our astronomers have been making
telescopic observations for the past fifteen centuries. There's a pretty
big Arctic ice-cap, but it's been receding slowly, with a wide belt of
what's believed to be open grassland to the south of it, and a belt of
what's assumed to be evergreen