As Angelina stops screaming and people begin settling down again, the earth begins to shake. To everyone's horror, a huge chunk of rock about fifty yards away tilts up and falls into the gallery below, and the shaking continues. Everyone grabs what camels they can and starts to run out of the basin. Gavin grabs Angelina, and Uriel makes sure that Orchid runs. Specifically saved is the camel with the thirty three gold books. Esteban saves one camel by making it love him and it chases after him as he runs. When everyone stops, he has an embarrassing moment as it attempts to climb on top of him before losing interest. Luckily, everyone else but Uriel is too distracted to notice.
As they watch, the basin continues to cave in and shake, throwing small rocks everywhere. One hits Thielo on the back of his head, making a large dent. Though still breathing and blinking, he is insensible. Luckily, Alexandra doesn't notice the dent, and Xerxes and others tell her that Thielo is probably okay but lightly stunned. What to do about Thielo continues to be a worry for the rest of the trip.
As they stand around catching their breath, Esteban notes that the horizon - in every direction - has changed from a clear blue to an ominous yellow-brow, and that the blue sky above is slowly being closed in by the brown clouds. They start moving back to the landing site, but only make it about half way before they have to hunker down by the camels and wait out the sand storm. During this time, one camel is turned into a mouse when one of the canteens full of water from the sacred pool springs a pinhole leak. They leave the canteen (and the mouse) behind.
Also before they have to stop moving, Sam gets a call from one of his people telling him that a small comet passing near the earth has suddenly broken apart and a piece of it is going to hit the Arabian peninsula. Luckily, they are some miles from the basin when the fragment hits, and it's only a comet instead of an asteroid. Still, hot glass fragments rain down in the middle of the sandstorm, and they are able to see and feel the impact despite the sandstorm.
The next day, they slog to the landing site, only to discover that the dry river bed is covered in sand and no longer a suitable landing site. Uriel is able to find the cache, so they aren't worried about starving or dying of thirst. Sam calls his people and the plane finds another site... forty miles further away. The first day, starting in the afternoon, they only make about eight miles, and Esteban sprains his ankle. The auto-med-kit from Alexandra's bag helps tape it up, luckily.
During the next day of travel, they find a minefield. Or rather, Angelina does, and is nearly killed by a mine. In startlement, Alexandra runs towards her to help and has her leg broken by a near-miss blast. The med-kit uses itself up patching Angelina a little and splinting Alexandra's leg. They find their way through the minefield with Uriel and then Sam in the lead. Sam is blown up once, but has purchased enough extra lives that he gets up again.
The next day Gavin is bitten by some sort of snake at midday, and Angelina is bitten as well while trying to find out why he has fallen over. Luckily Sam's packed first aid kit has some antivenin in it for typical local snakes (of which there aren't that many) and neither comes to lasting harm. That night, a couple hours after sundown, the haggard team makes it to the landing site and flies back to the capital, where they quickly are transferred to a chartered jet to the states. Dr. Staadler is there and performs some quick first aid as well as looking at Thielo. She and Gavin confer on him a bit but decide to wait until they're back at the Ranch to do anything. Once there (and with Alexandra drugged into insensibility for her leg) they cut out the dented portion of Thielo's skull and Gavin, working under the principle that sometimes things just need a bit of jiggling, manages to get the gears in Thielo's head running again. He soon comes to.
The next day Alex Abel arrives to get a complete account of what happened, and is suitably impressed. Despite Angelina's report that she wasn't satisfied with the journey, Orchid says that they definitely got their money's worth, and Alex is satisfied. Lifted by the success of this amazing deal, Sam Chessex dissolves into millions of points of light... and then reforms into an unconscious Sam again. Orchid declares that he has ascended, but that the previous Merchant probably is now in his body. The check that Alex had written for Sam has turned to solid gold, and when Sam wakes up again he doesn't know who or where he is.