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He crawled, a centimeter at a time, and wondered whether he had the strength to reach the alien spaceship before it left this dusty, dead planet.

Captain Jensen of the spaceship Southern Cross was bored sick with Mars. He and his men had been here for ten days. They had found no important archeological specimens, no tantalizing hints of ancient cities such as the Polaris expedition had discovered at the South Pole. Here there was nothing but sand, a few weary shrubs, and a rolling hill or two. Their biggest find so far had been three pottery shards.

Jensen readjusted his oxygen booster. Over the rise of a hill he saw his two men returning.

“Anything interesting?” he asked.

“Just this,” said engineer Vayne, holding up an inch of corroded blade without a handle.

“Better than nothing,” Jensen said. “How about you, Wilks?”

The navigator shrugged his shoulders. “Just photographs of the landscape.”

“OK,” Jensen said. “Dump everything into the sterilizer and let’s get going.”

Wilks looked mournful. “Captain, one quick sweep to the north might turn up something really—”