Part 2 (2/2)

”Hey, look, Captain! There's a streak of red, like a meteor. And there's another!”

Captain Wiley rose, looked out. ”They're rockets. They're going to land.

These people are highly advanced.”

His face became grim. Below them lay a planet, an intelligent race hidden beneath clouds and darkness. What manner of creatures were they?

How great was their civilization? What marvelous secrets had their scientists discovered? What was their food like, their women, their whiskey?

The questions darted endlessly through his mind like teasing needle-points. All these wondrous things lay below them, and here they sat, like starving men, their hands tied, gazing upon a steaming but un.o.btainable dinner. So near and yet so far.

He trembled. The emotion grew within him until it burst out as water bursts through the cracked wall of a dam. He became like Parker.

”Why should we wait?” he yelled. ”Why must we land in their field?

Parker! Prepare to release flares! We're going down! We'll land anywhere-in a street, in the country. We don't have to wait for orders!”

Parker bounced off his couch. Someone called, ”Brown, we're going to land!”

A scurrying of feet, the rush of taut-muscled bodies, the babble of excited voices.

”We're going down!”

”_We're going down!_”

The grumble of the _Wanderer's_ jets loudened, softened, spluttered, loudened again. Vibration filled the s.h.i.+p as it sank downward.

Suddenly it lurched upward, like a child's ball caught in a stream of rising water. The jolt staggered the men. They seized stanchions and bulkhead railings to keep their balance.

”What the h.e.l.l?”

Abruptly, the strange movement ceased. The s.h.i.+p seemed motionless. There was no vibration.

”Captain,” said Lieutenant Gunderson. ”There's no change in alt.i.tude.

We're still at 35,000 feet, no more, no less.”

”We _must_ be going down,” said Captain Wiley, puzzled. ”Kill jets 4 and 6.”

The Lieutenant's hands flicked off two switches. A moment later: ”There's no change, Captain.”

Then came the voice:

”To those in the vessel from the planet Earth: Please do not oppose orders of the Landing Council. You are the first visitors in the history of our world whom we have had to restrain with physical force. You will be notified when landing s.p.a.ce is available.”

Morning.

The warm sunlight streamed into the clouds, was.h.i.+ng away the last shadows and filtering through the portholes.

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