ASSAULT ON THE GODS
The road, if such it could be called, was a simple track along which the local equivalent of horses—six-legged beasts called daryeks—could pull rickety wooden carts. The ruts worn by wagon wheels were several centimeters deep in water, while the rest of the road was mud. With no traffic at night, Ardeva Korrell had the trail entirely to herself. The planet Dascham had no moon and the overcast sky blocked out the stars, so her universe was a darkness broken only by the light of the small electric lantern she carried as she trudged along on foot.
“In the ideal world,” she mused to no one in particular, “a spaceship captain would not have to serve as her own shore patrol as well.” And she sighed. Dascham was about as far from the ideal world as she ever hoped to get. She
