Sealed off was right--the Queen would be amply protected from
investigation. Whether her crew would survive was another matter--whether
she could even make a landing there was also to be considered.
The Big Burn was the horrible scar left by the last of the Atomic Wars--a
section of radiation poisoned land comprising hundreds of square
miles--land which generations had never dared to penetrate. Originally
the survivors of that war had shunned the whole continent which it
disfigured. It had been close to two centuries before men had gone into
the still wholesome land laying to the far west and the south. And
through the years, the avoidance of the Big Burn had become part of their
racial instinct as they shrank from it. It was a symbol of something no
Terran wanted to remember.
But Ali now had only one question to ask. "Can we do it?"
"We'll never know until we try," was Rip's reply.
"The Patrol'll be watching--" that was Weeks. With his Venusian
background he had less respect for the dangers of the Big Burn than he
did for the forces of Law and order which ranged the star lanes.
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