Sand Doom

Bordman, a senior Colonial Survey officer who lives by specifications, comes to the desert mining world of Xosa II expecting a routine final inspection. Instead his ship cannot land. A sandstorm has buried the colony's half-built landing grid, and all its steel, under hundreds of feet of sand, and the freighter Warlock is stuck in orbit with the supplies.

Set down by boat with Aletha Redfeather, Bordman finds five hundred colonists calmly preparing to die. Food, water and power will all run out within six months, and every attempt to stretch one drains another. Ralph Redfeather's steel crews and Dr. Chuka's miners have accepted it. Bordman, who cannot even step outdoors without a heat-suit, refuses to.