The effect of anabolic steroids and acclimatization drugs taken after landing; was also over, and the invisible pressure of the Earth's gravity came over every cell of his body, which after three months of flight has become unaccustomed to gravity.

All at once the body was in agony, bruises and abrasions received in orbital collisions burned like fire, the sun burnt skin was stinging, and his head was aching.

Woozy from nonhuman overloads his brain filled with blurred colored pictures of the past: he is going to see "Star Boy" with his first girlfriend at 24th Avenue, then he is taking a test at the Academy and does not know how to calculate the RC characteristics, then he is playing tennis with Mackliff, ten dollars a game…

The wind force increased.

Heavy flies crawling on the face of a man as if he was already dead have been carried away by its blow; large grains of sand rattled like rain on the cloth of the overalls and the dunes started their invisible movement.

Whitehouse did not feel any heat or pain, or sandy rain on his skin, only the whistling and howling of a storm still penetrated his consciousness.

But something has subtly changed in a voice of the Great Desert, a faint vibrating sound, approaching and then moving away, mingled with the roar of the wind.

No, the desert could not make such sounds.

There, in a snowstorm, something was moving, and this something was mechanical.

Could that be people?

The SAU commandos might have finally tracked them down.

Whitehouse slowly pulled up a worn "Viking Combat" Colt to his chest, the only thing he had not thrown out on the road.

The sound was nearing.

An engine.

It was a sound of a car engine, strenuously wailing on the rise.

So be it – two clips of exploding 38 caliber bullets – it is all that was left for a dying crew of "Independence."

So be it, let them come…

An antique "Jeep" with faded canvas top came out of the dusty mist. It was gnashing, jarring and dangling.

Battered hood jumped at every road-bump. A broken wiper was hanging at the windshield, clearing the view for a driver, the right wing was aloof, the left wing was missing; the shabby sides were painted with intricate ornament.

Whitehouse thought that this monster was a plot of his imagination; and that it was actually a patrol vehicle of the SAU commandos.

He pulled the gun from the sand installed the handle by the cheek and then realized that he could not even push the fuse.

His fingers did not move.

Meanwhile the jeep stopped not turning off the engine, but it did not hold on the crest of the dunes and slid down.

Two stocky men fell out of it: both wore wide-brimmed straw hats, shapeless shirts and pants of indefinite color and sandals without socks.

– There are just the two of them – the astronaut tried to get the fuse with his teeth.

His turban fell from his head and rolled, unfolding in the wind.

The teeth clenched the icy metal of barrel housing.

It was useless.

The strange people stopped holding their hats, which immediately flew over and hung on the back straps, and began loading the still astronauts in the car.

When it came to Whitehouse, they effortlessly tried to take the gun from his hand, but they did not succeed.

The astronaut was holding it tightly.

Muttering some curses they took out the clip, and dragged Whitehouse to the car…

He tried to oppose them, but it was a pathetic attempt. Astronaut found himself on a pile of smelly, oily rags, lying near von Conrad and Dybal.

A minute later Mackliff and Aydem were laid over them.

They covered the astronauts with pieces of parachute fabric, slammed the flimsy doors and the "Jeep" disappeared in the dark.