"Yes, he's dead. He must have died the instant of the explosion...."
"You mean you don't know?"
"I wasn't there at the time it happened, no."
"Then who was?"
* * * * *
Major Briarton spread his hands helplessly. "Nobody was. Your father was
alone. From what we could tell later, he'd left the _Scavenger_ to land
on one of his claims, using the ship's scooter for the landing. He was
on the way back to the _Scavenger_ when the rear tank exploded. There
wasn't enough left of it to tell what went wrong ... but it was an
accident, there was no evidence to suggest anything else."