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crash landing, but, to his surprise, he didn’t seem seriously injured. An energy parachute had deployed about a kilometer from the ground, tilting the little vessel into this rugged landscape of rolling gray desert and purple plateaus. But there was no possibility of returning to orbit in the crumpled wreck of the DropCraft. He’d barely gotten out before it had burst into flame.
    And maybe there was no starship to return to. He’d seen a white flash in the sky, just before hitting the ground. Was that the
Homeworld Bound
—blowing up?
    If so, had Marla and Cal gotten to the Study Station? Or had someone sabotaged the station too? Was his family alive?
    Zac shook his head miserably, muttering, “I’m an idiot.” He should never have transmitted the coordinates to Marla. Whoever was trying to stop him from getting to the area of the alien craft wouldn’t want Marla to have the coordinates either. He knew from experience how ruthless the corporate powers could be. If there was truly major profit to be had, they’d sacrifice a starship full of people. He could imagine the cover-up.
Interstellar Transport
Homeworld Bound
was destroyed in a tragic accident when malfunctioning security drones damaged its …
    A sob racked him and he thumped his own forehead with his fists. “Idiot!”
    But, on the other hand … there was no proof the
Homeworld Bound
had been destroyed. Even if it had been, he had no idea if Marla and Cal were dead. His wife was a smart, resourceful woman. She’d get the two of them to safety in the Study Station. She’d make the station engineers look for him. Maybe the DropCraft had sent an automatic mayday. Maybe a landing craft was looking for him right now. Could be they’d spot the smoke of his burning craft …
    He stood up, wincing with pain, and looked at the sky. He scanned the horizon, shading his eyes against the sun, turning all the way around.
    He saw only rolling hills, a few crests of stony ground, indistinct scrub plants, swaths of clouds in the pale blue sky. But there—something
was
moving in the sky, quite a ways off. A rescue craft? He squinted at it, and watched closely.
    He made out several spots moving in the sky. They swooped about randomly, it seemed to him—like vultures.After a moment he was sure they were flying animals of some kind, not rescue craft.
    Zac suddenly wondered if he had come down anywhere near the alien crash site. He looked around for a volcanic cone, and the terrain Rans had described. He saw nothing of that sort. No surprise—the DropCraft had gone out of control, had spun way off course. He might be thousands of klicks from his original destination.
    He was lost on Pandora.
    If only he could call someone. He reached into his pocket—and felt a surge of hope. His uni was there.
    He tugged it out—and groaned. It was smashed. He’d been knocked around too much in the crash. He tried to activate it, but there was no response.
    Zac sighed, tossed away the broken uniceiver, and looked back at the DropCraft. Rans—that son of a bitch!—had claimed there was a gun in the DropCraft, but Zac hadn’t seen one. Now that the DropCraft was just a half-buried teardrop of flame and greasy smoke, it wasn’t likely to render up usable weapons. He had no food, no water, no transportation, no working communicator. Nothing but his coveralls and a thin jacket.
    “Come on,” he muttered. “You’re alive. You’re okay.
Survive!
”
    He had to assume his family was all right. He
had
to believe it.
    He heard a distant snarfing sound, a growling that sent chills up his spine, and turned to see a four-legged beast, clearly a pack predator, coming toward him across a basin of sand about forty meters away—then another, and two more, trailing after it, sniffing the ground. Four of them,seeming intent on investigating the smoke from the crash. They had armored, scaly, bone-slabbed hides, and spiky ruffs. One of them opened its mouthparts in a shrieking roar—and he saw