Captain Allison Parker's new world began with the sound of tearing metal.

For several seconds she just perceived and reacted, not trying to explain anything to herself. The hull was breached. Quiller was trying to crawl back toward her. There was blood on his face. Through rents in the hull she could see trees and pale sky. Trees?

Her mind locked out the wonder, and she struggled from her harness. She snapped the disk pack to her side and pulled down the light helmet with its ten-minute air supply. Without thinking, she was following the hull-breach proce-dures that had been drilled into all of them so many times. If she had thought about it she might have left off the helmet - there were sounds of birds and wind-rustled trees - and she would have died.

Allison pulled Quiller away from the panel and saw why the harness had not protected him: The front of the shuttle was caved in toward the pilot. Another few centimeters and he would have been crushed. A harsh, crackling sound came clearly through the thin shell of her helmet. She slipped Quiller's in place and turned on the oxygen feed. She recog-nized the smell that still hung in her helmet: The tracer stench that tagged their landing fuel.

Angus Quiller straightened out of her grasp. He looked around dazedly. "Fred?" he shouted.

Outside, the improbable trees were beginning to flare. God only knew how long the forward hull would keep the fire in the nose tanks from breaking into the crew area.

Allison and Quiller pulled themselves forward... and saw what had happened to Fred Torres. The terrible sound that had begun this nightmare had been the left front of the vehicle coming down into the flight deck.