HIS NAME was Terence O'Corcoran. His height was average for a Twenty-first century Earthman. His hair was red, his eyes brown and deepset, his jaw firm. Under his left eye was a faint scar caused by an old 'copter crash. The uniform he wore was gray, trimmed in red and royal blue. On his shoulder was a device which showed a rocket streaking straight up, with a planetary disc in the background.

His patrol ship was programmed to wink back into normal space at 14:07.38 October 20, 2073. O'Corcoran had been awake for three days and had performed a complete systems check on all equipment in the spacecraft. Six years of subjective stasis had left him feeling a bit sluggish at first--technically, he was only nine hundred heartbeats older, although six years had passed. There was no muscular attrition, of course. The laws of stasis didn't allow it. He was still the well-built, muscular twenty-two year old he had been when his molecular slowdown had begun; his reflexes were still razor-sharp; his endurance phenomenal. He felt as if the rigorous pre-leap training had been completed only a few days ago.

It had taken him a full day to review the tissue-thin strip of logging tape which contained pertinent data recorded periodically during the journey through hyperspace. If he could trust the instruments, the tiny craft was now some 43.8 light-years from the point in space where Earth had been when his mission started. Assuming no equipment malfunctions along the way, a yellow Type-C star should appear in his viewplates at the instant of transition.

This was not the sort of speed at which one makes course adjustments manually. The complete maneuver had existed as a subtle variation of electrical charges inside a small bead of germanium since long before the craft left Earth. Only upon the receipt of a signal from the main computer, timed to a microsecond, would the memory unit do anything at all. But the proper signal came, the stage activated, the Thompson warp generator reversed polarity, the drive field collapsed upon itself. The excess energy thus produced was diverted as a fifty kiloerg flash of contraterrene pyrotechnics as the tiny craft slipped into normal time-space, its velocity instantly cut to a fraction of what it had been before. It happened far too quickly for any physical reaction on the part of the astronaut.

The yellow sun was there, dominating two-thirds of the viewscreen. A gong clanged and lights flashed. O'Corcoran reached forward and shut off the alarm. Swinging the control panel to one side, he unstrapped himself, stood up and walked across the compartment to the forward visiport. Adjusting its polarization, he gazed out upon the yellow star, optimistically searching for its planetary system, although he knew his chances of visually picking out any planets were nil. Opaquing the visiport, he stepped to the PPI sphere and thumbed it into operation.

From the nose of the ship came an antenna which unfurled umbrella-like, then began to oscillate in an intricate pattern, beaming radar pulses in all directions. Inside the PPI a point of green light pulsed, then glowed steadily as a violet nimbus slowly grew around it. The surface of the expanding sphere of pale violet light marked the outer edge of the questing radar pulse, its radius lengthening at a little less than an inch per minute. The image, a three dimensional simulation of the yellow star's planetary system, would completely fill the plotting area within a quarter hour.

Three minutes passed. Now a bright blue blob appeared on the expanding violet surface. O'Corcoran looked at it, punched a question into his computer and read the answer. Pursing his lips thoughtfully, he strolled to the visiport and scanned the indicated sector. Now that he knew where to look, he found the planet. Procedures which had been drilled into him six years earlier--or nine hundred heartbeats in the past--kept him busy for several minutes making a spectroscopic survey of the alien world, translating the results into a digital question the computer could handle, converting its answer into terms of temperature, atmospheric content, et cetera. Then he turned back to the PPI.

Another bright blue blob had appeared, more than fifty-five million miles ahead, above and to the left. This one, too, he processed, comparing the results with the first.

The expanding violet nimbus had reached a point near the center of the PPI; a third bright area developed, this one immense by comparison with the others. Terence smiled, punched up the distance and fed it into the computer.

Half an hour later he had a complete picture of the alien solar system. Only one of the four planets warranted closer investigation (i.e.: met minimum Planetary Survey Corps qualifications for sustaining intelligent, carbon based life), so he altered his course accordingly, aiming for a loose elliptical orbit which would allow several close observation passes. Double checking his navigation and finding it error-free, he locked the tape in and strapped himself into the gravcouch.

Between systems, at speeds approximating seven times that of light, the Thompson drive was an ideal vehicle for space travel, but it had one major drawback: no two Thompson leaps were alike--warping into hyperspace tore a hole in space itself, a hole with ragged edges, which caused a unique error in each leap. You had to stay in hyperspace long enough to find the error and correct it, which made the Thompson drive completely useless for the relatively short distances within a planetary system. O'Corcoran was stuck, then, with nearly three hours of high-g course correction. And all he could do was grimace and bear it.

Like everyone else, Terence O'Corcoran had graduated from high school when he was fifteen, earned his liberal arts degree at eighteen and gone on, unlike everyone else, to Space Academy, from which he graduated as a grand old man of twenty. Of interest to any future antagonists would be the fact that he was a middleweight contender in cadet boxing and had earned a brown belt in karate. His fields of academic concentration had been physics and history, in that order, areas of specialization which had been instrumental in getting him his assignment to the Planetary Survey Corps. Despite the rigorous training at the Academy in keeping a cool head, he still retained traces of an Irish temper to match his shock of red hair.

At last the course-correcting maneuver was completed and the rockets were silent. Terence rose from the gravcouch and stretched aching muscles. Then he checked his course with the computer, broke out a meal, dined leisurely and went to sleep, secure in the knowledge that the ship would rouse him in plenty of time to prepare for the survey orbit.

THE ALARM CLANGED and Terence was instantly awake. His eyes swept the massed dials in front of him--all were in order. All were permanently tied to the computer; he punched an address and read the answer. Less than an hour remained before he'd need a 3:22.14 burn to swing the craft into a workable orbit.

He busied himself with an optical study of the planet. The giant telescopic enlargement filled the visiport in full color detail. O'Corcoran was approaching the twilight edge, whether dawn or dusk he could not tell until he could observe the progression of a landmark or so. From here, the entire planet seemed to be covered with water. His spirits fell. If you hoped to evolve an advanced life-form from the primordial ooze, you had to have some dry land for it to crawl up on, and this planet looked as if it had a dire shortage of dry land. He increased the magnification and searched the entire daylit area, still without spotting so much as a coral atoll. It was a pity--the spectroanalysis indicated an atmosphere so close to that of Earth that Terence himself would be able to breathe it with no ill effects. Not that he'd have the opportunity even if a land mass presented itself; PSC procedure was to orbit thoroughly enough for detailed photomapping, monitoring the electromagnetic frequencies and telespying on the inhabitants, if any, but under no conditions was a survey pilot ever to attempt a landing.

If he encountered a race advanced enough to have space flight, a possibility which the upper echelons of PSC thought highly improbable, his orders were to observe from a safe distance and get the hell back to Earth.

As the tiny craft sped closer he spotted the edge of a moon peeking around the sunward side of the planet. Checking the clock, he activated the time-lapse camera, then reset the range on the PPI sphere. The bright blue blobs faded slowly as another violet nimbus grew, far more rapidly than before. The target planet appeared as a billiard-ball-sized blob just off center of the plotting area, its moon showing up as a sliver behind it.

A buzzer alerted him. O'Corcoran returned to the gravcouch, strapped himself in and swung the instrument panel into position. Time seemed to drag as the clock snapped off the seconds to burn-time. Finally he felt the retro rockets fire and for the next 216 seconds his flesh fought the sudden weight of deceleration. Then it was over. The computer clicked happily to inform him that the survey orbit had been entered.

He focused the strip camera and set it on automatic. He activated the RF monitors which would sweep all frequencies and lock on anything which remotely resembled a signal. He trained an altimeter beam on the planet's surface to record topographical elevations, then focused the optical scanner at maximum magnification, getting nothing more promising than a few white-crested waves. Such readings as cosmic ray intensity, gravitational variations and a running spectroanalysis were automatically fed to the computer, but Terence monitored them anyway. Even the temperature checked out as favorable to Earth-type life: a fairly constant 720 Fahrenheit, with forty percent humidity.

All the planet needed was a land mass or so reasonably near the equator and O'Corcoran's twelve year mission might prove highly significant. Despite the probability that the other side of the planet would be exactly as featureless as this one, Terence was anxious to see it. He found himself hoping as desperately for a sight of land as had any shipwrecked sailor centuries ago.

The spacecraft had entered orbit on the dark side of the planet; now Terence watched the sun set and made spectrum readings on the edge-lit atmosphere. There were no traces of light to betray cities, no abrupt variations in elevation to indicate land masses--nothing but the monotonous slickness of the sea. No radio frequencies cluttered the airwaves, the gravitometer reading remained constant, surface temp dropped to 610F, humidity increased an unspectacular ten percent. If life existed it was probably marine life, and to date the dolphin of Earth was the undisputed ruler, by intellectual standards, of all known seas. Even if large marine animals existed, Terence would be fortunate indeed to glimpse them from this altitude, no matter how much magnification he used. He shrugged. Subjectively, he had but a few days in orbit to look forward to, then another nine hundred heartbeats in by hyperspace, and perhaps a week to accomplish splashdown on an Earth which would have aged over a dozen years while he slept in stasis. Not the most exciting assignment in the universe, but vital from an information standpoint, anyway.

He spent five minutes watching the moon rise before realizing that it was too small to be the moon he'd observed earlier. Radar informed him it was only half as far away from the planet as the other one. By the time he had processed the new information both moons were visible; a short time later the smaller one entered the planet's umbra and was spectacularly eclipsed.

O'Corcoran returned to scanning the surface. Nothing had changed. He ate. According to the computer, in less than two hours he would have completed his first orbit. With patience painfully acquired at the Space Academy, he waited for sunrise. It was as impressive as any he had seen while in training orbits around Earth.

Now, with better light, he could examine the surface more efficiently. For several minutes all he could see were spotty areas of clouds hanging over the featureless sea, but then, just beyond the reflected glare of the rising sun he thought he saw an irregularity. He trained the telescope on it. Yes, by Henry! A mountain peak!

His spine tingled. A quick question to the computer showed that he would not pass directly overhead until his next orbit, but he'd come close enough for a good look at it.

It seemed to be resting on the edge of a small continent, about half the size of Australia. Animal life? People? Civilization? His muscles tensed, as if by will power he could close the gap more quickly.

As the land mass rolled closer an alarm clanged in the ship. O'Corcoran's eyes flew to the RF monitor--the needle showed two points above normal, and as he watched he could see it climbing. He flipped the switch for audio but heard nothing more than static. Then he saw what had tripped the alarm. A red light was on under the magnetometer and the needle was pinned! He clicked the ratio selector switch through all five positions without budging the needle. The gravitometer quivered, then it, too, pinned. The alarm stopped abruptly, its hammer stuck tight against the bell. Now the entire ship lurched under him, as if a brief burst of forward power had been applied, followed immediately by a retro burn. Or as if a giant hand had grabbed at the spacecraft and the ship, fishlike, had wriggled free.

A giant hand--or a Magnetic grapple?

O'Corcoran studied the instrument panel again. His accelerometer, gravity gauge, pile intensity indicator, radiation detector--all were stuck in maximum position. He swung to the computer, punched an address, groaned as the figures spun like a slot machine gone haywire. His viewscreens were blank, his PPI sphere dead.

With a sense of urgency approaching panic, Terence pushed buttons to no avail. Nothing worked. The ship obviously was out of control and nothing the astronaut could do would bring it back to normal. Even the legendary luck o' the Irish, O'Corcoran feared, would be no help to him now. The chances of the ship's having stayed in its intended orbit after that lurch were too slim for him to dare to be optimistic.

He said several unseemly things, said them aloud, screamed them until they echoed through the ship, but none of them helped him find his position or plot his course on instruments which would not respond. Whatever it was, it had magnetized every piece of equipment on board.

Terence yawned, suddenly sleepy. A moment later he was gasping for air. Realizing that even the fans which circulated the craft's air supply were silent, he shoved hard against a bulkhead and propelled himself across the cabin, out of the bubble of carbon dioxide which had built up around his head.

He breathed deeply, forcing himself to be calm while his mind raced in search of an answer. He had no control over the ship. He could not even tell how seriously his orbit had been disrupted. And now, in order to breathe, he'd either have to circulate himself into areas of fresh air every minute or so, or find some way to bring the air to him. He located the plastic clipboard which held his check list and used it as a fan. It would help keep him alive as long as he stayed awake--provided the ship didn't crash first.

He cursed himself for seeking the PSC assignment in the first place. A man with good sense would be on Earth now, putting in his five hours a day for some nice, big, paternal corporation, raising hell--or kids and crabgrass--the rest of the time, depending upon his nature, and letting someone else worry about mapping the galaxy.

O'Corcoran toured his ship. He knew its circuitry by heart and could install substitute components with his eyes closed. The duplicate control circuits brought a wry smile to his lips--in case one circuit should fail, another could be switched into use in a matter of seconds. The engineers had thought of everything except a general condition in which neither circuit would work.

Ten minutes went by. He moved to the visiport and looked out. Once again the craft was over water. It seemed, to O'Corcoran's eye, that he was closer to the planet now, but without instruments he couldn't be sure. He stood for a long time, slowly fanning himself, breathing, waiting.

The bright glare of the sun reflected on the waters below moved behind him as the twilight band came into view ahead. He thought about home, his dead parents, the girls he'd never allowed himself to become too involved with because he'd known even then that his destiny was in space. He thought about the men with whom he'd trained, Trimble, Bronstein, Johnstone, Rodriguez, Baronovsky, Fornier, Galt, Lagakos. He thought about Earth, and the trip to Paris he'd postponed until after this mission.

He looked for signs of ships on the surface of the sea, but saw none. That's a lot of ocean to splash down into, Terry boy, and not a soul to pick you up.

Nightside. Both moons shining in the black sky, their reflections skimming the waves below.

If his orbit had been disturbed too much he might soon see a red pinpoint reflected down there, too, as the skin of his ship heated to incandescence. He wondered if some night-strolling native might be looking skywards at that moment, and exclaim quietly, "Look at that! A falling star!" He doubted it.

Nothing matters much, some cynic had once said, and little matters at all.

He walked to a supply cabinet and took out a bottle of oxygen. He lay down on the gravcouch and arranged the oxygen bottle so a trickle of the life-giving gas was directed at his face. He was tired of waving the improvised fan, but he had no urge to hasten his death.

Terence O'Corcoran, age twenty-eight--or twenty-two, depending on how you reckon stasis-time. Terence O'Corcoran, highly trained astronaut. Terence O'Corcoran, fighter, explorer, adventurer.

Terence O'Corcoran went to sleep.

He awoke as the lurching of the ship pulled painfully on the straps holding him in the gravcouch. The spacecraft was spinning crazily and tumbling end over end, as if caught in a giant whirlpool. The dials above his face were jerking madly, their needles flipping from full right to full left, then back again, back and forth. The plastic clipboard slammed from one side of the cabin to the other.

Startled awake, O'Corcoran stabbed at the rocket controls, hit the retrofire button as the needles were in mid-swing.

Immediately he was slammed back into the gravcouch as the rockets fired.

A split second later Terence O'Corcoran was mercifully unconscious.

HE WOKE UP SHIVERING. Every muscle ached. A chill wind was blowing through the cabin. O'Corcoran undid the couch straps and sat up with difficulty, looking around him in amazement. The cabin was a shambles--the computer had torn loose from its moorings and lay smashed and twisted on the deck. The instrument panel was beside it--apparently it had swung away from over the couch and snapped off. Terence tried to turn it over so he could check the readings but the entire assembly seemed welded to the floor.

He reached for the oxygen bottle to turn it off but it had long ago exhausted itself.

The cold was bitter and penetrating. He opened the suit locker and took out a bulky suit and helmet, grinning his thanks to the farsighted brass who ordered PSC pilots never to land anywhere but supplied space suits in case they did. Officially, the suit was there so a man could attempt to correct external malfunctions. There could be no such convenient excuse for the blaster which nestled in a nearby compartment. Terence checked its energy level, found it fully charged, buckled it on and set out to find the source of the chill breeze.

Climbing 'down' to the aft compartment, he discovered a large rent in the wall of the ship itself, the steel plates torn and twisted, the magnesium alloy frame buckled as if by a tremendous blow. Through the hole a wind was blowing snow, adding to the drift already accumulated on deck. Terence stared at the evidence in unbelief. If the ship had crashed with enough impact to do this, his own survival was miraculous! Although his muscles were stiff, there weren't even any broken bones. True, the gravcouch was engineered to cushion the severest shocks its designers could anticipate in space, but--Terence decided to accept his survival as fact and ponder the impossibility of it later.

He stood in the jagged hole for several minutes, looking out at a strange new world, a world of glaring white as far as the eye could see. The snow was the powdery variety, the sort which drifts with every breeze. Inside his suit he was comfortably warm, but he knew, from the chilly minutes he had spent before donning it, that the temperature outside was well below zero. He had no doubt now that he'd crash-landed on the mountaintop--he'd seen no snow anywhere else on the small continent during his earlier orbit. Apparently it was to the snow that he owed his life, for it was layered, several inches of powder, an inch or so of ice, more snow, more ice--a laminated cushion which extended, judging from the depth to which the spaceship was buried, for at least fifty feet down.

He moved gingerly away from the ship. The snow supported him, but it was like walking on marshmallows; Terence was certain that the impact of landing had shattered the crust for a considerable distance around, and although the power pack in his suit was good for twelve hours there was no point in spending his last day waiting to freeze to death because he'd fallen into a hole. His steps cautious, he inched his way further from the wreck.

It seemed to take an unconscionably long time--distances are deceptive when all you can see is snow--but at last he reached the edge of the mountaintop.

Directly below was a sheer drop of about a hundred feet, with jagged spears of ice marring its otherwise slick face. Further on, the snows thinned out, revealing rich purple rock. Further still, at the foot of the mountain, traces of bluegreen vegetation could be seen. The sun was low on the horizon--whether rising or setting he couldn't tell for he had no directional reference. Its rays edge-lit a patchwork of turquoise, aquamarine, blue-greens of all shades which seemed to indicate either farmlands or orchards or both. There was no question but that intelligent beings had made those neat geometrical patterns on the landscape.

Far off on his right a thin, curving strand of glittering, dark blue showed the meandering of a river. Below his vantage point, slightly to his right again, lay a wide road, seemingly mosaicked--with large, varicolored paving blocks. Shielding his eyes against the sun's glare, he followed the road as it dwindled off and blended with the horizon. Where it became almost an invisible thread, flecks of many bright colors showed. Quite possibly a city. But by whom would it be occupied? Or by what?

Eagerly, Terence surveyed the face of the cliff below him, searching for a way down. It would be a long trip on foot to those sparkling dots of civilization. Delay in starting might well be fatal.

As he leaned cautiously over the edge of the cliff there was an ominous cracking sound and the ice shelf trembled under him. Terence threw himself flat on the snow, starfish-like, as the edge broke away and began slipping down the mountain.

He knew it wasn't an accepted heroic reaction, but as there wasn't anyone around to watch, Terence O'Corcoran wailed like a banshee all the way down the avalanche.