World Of Ptavvs   ::   Нивен Ларри

One day Smoky was rounding the Moon nose down with a load of tourists, when he felt a sudden, compelling urge to turn nose out and keep driving until all the stars were behind him. He fought it down, and landed in Death Valley that evening as he had landed seven-thousand-odd times before. That night, as he approached his apartment through the usual swirling mob, Smoky realized that he hated every city in the world.

He had saved enough to buy his own mining ship. Under the circumstances the Belt was glad to have him. He learned caution before the Belt killed him, and he earned enough to keep his ship in repair and himself in food and tobacco.

Now he was the only man in the fleet who could recognize Lucas Garner's voice. When the radio burst to life he listened carefully to the message, then called Lew to report that it really was Garner.

For Smoky, the broadcast removed all doubt. It was Garner himself. The old man was not above a judicious lie, but he was not prone to risk his life. If he was near Neptune in a leaky terran Navy crate, he must have an outstanding reason to be there.

Thoughtfully Old Smoky checked through his arsenal of two radar missiles, one heat seeker, and a short-range laser "cannon." The war of the worlds was here at last!

Kzanol was baffled. After six hours of searching, the slave Masney had covered the entire planet. The suit wasn't there!

He let the slave begin his second search, for the sake of thoroughness. He took his own ship to Triton. The Brain could not compute the course of moons; one of them may have gotten in the way of the ship as it speared toward Neptune. Very likely it had been Triton. That moon was not only closer than Nereid, it was far bigger: 2500 miles thick as compared to 200.

A nerve-wracking hour later, an hour of flying upside down over Triton's surface with the jet firing outward and the lightly pitted moon showing flat overhead, Kzanol admitted defeat. No white flash had shown itself on the radar screen, though Neptune itself had glowed through the transparent image of the larger moon. He turned his attention to the small moon.

"So that's it!" Anderson's face glowed. "They thought it was on the surface and it wasn't. Now they don't know where it is!" He frowned in thought. "Shouldn't we get out of here? The honeymooner's aiming itself at Nereid, and we're too close for comfort."

"Right," said Garner. "But first we turn the missile loose. The one that's homed on the alien. We can worry about Greenberg later."

"I hate to do it. There're two other people on the Golden Circle." A moment passed. Lengthened. "I can't move," said Anderson.