You Can't Buy Eternity!

Behind them, sand heaved at the base of the rock pillar that had been their first goal. A figure pushed up out of the drifted grit. It was the man from the carrier. Shooting quick glances to right and left, he rose cat-like, then paused momentarily while he tapped sand from his breather-mask's filter. He looked better now than he had before his brief respite, and both his nose and the head-gash had stopped bleeding. Close-knit, of medium height, and obviously under thirty, he moved with lithe coordination. Cool intelligence glinted in the grey eyes. His face, though hardly handsome, combined an intriguingly paradoxical mixture of recklessness and control.