THE MIRACLE HE HAD not counted on came late one afternoon as he sat, cross-legged, sorting out his latest haul of priceless diamonds.
The great black ship came in from the east across the rolling hills. It whistled down across the ridges and settled to the ground a short distance from Sherwood’s crippled ship and his patched-together shack.
It was no patrol vessel, although in his position, Sherwood would have welcomed even one of these. It was a kind of ship he’d never seen before. It was globular and black and it had no identifying marks on it.
He leaped to his feet and ran toward the ship. He waved his arms in welcome and whooped with his delight. He stopped a hundred feet away when he felt the first whiff of the heat that had been picked up by the vessel’s hull in its plunge through
