Part 3 (1/2)
The men breakfasted, bathed, shaved, smoked, sat, twisted their fingers, looked out the ports. They were silent men, with dark shadows about their eyes and with tight, white-lipped mouths.
Frequently, the clouds near them were cut by swift, dark shapes swooping downward. The shapes were indistinct in the cotton-like whiteness, but obviously they were huge, like a dozen _Wanderers_ made into one.
”Those s.h.i.+ps are big,” someone murmured, without enthusiasm.
”It's a busy s.p.a.ceport,” grumbled Captain Wiley.
Thoughts, words, movements came so slowly it was like walking under water. Enthusiasm was dead. The men were automatons, sitting, waiting, eating, sitting, waiting.
A day pa.s.sed, and a night.
”Maybe they've forgotten us,” said Fong.
No one answered. The thought had been voiced before, a hundred times.
Then, at last, the droning words:
”To those in the vessel from the planet Earth: You will now land. We will carry you directly over the field. Then you will descend straight down. The atmosphere is suitable to your type of life and is free of germs. You will not need protection.”
The men stared at one another.
”Hey,” Doyle said, ”did you hear that? He says we can go down.”
The men blinked. Captain Wiley swallowed hard. He rose with a stiff, slow, nervous hesitancy.
”We're going down,” he mumbled, as if repeating the words over and over in his mind and trying to believe them.
The men stirred as realization sprouted and grew. They stirred like lethargic animals aroused from the long, dreamless sleep of hibernation.
”We're going to land,” breathed Parker, unbelievingly.
The _Wanderer_ moved as though caught in the grip of a giant, invisible hand.
The voice said:
”You may now descend.”
Captain Wiley moved to the jet-control panel. ”Lieutenant!” he snapped.
”Wake up. Let's go!”
The s.h.i.+p sank downward through the thick sea of clouds. The men walked to the ports. A tenseness, an excitement grew in their faces, like dying flame being fanned into its former brilliancy.
Out of the clouds loomed monstrous, s.h.i.+ning, silver spires and towers, Cyclopean bridges, gigantic lake-like mirrors, immense golden spheres.
It was a nightmare world, a jungle of fantastic shape and color.
The men gasped, whispered, murmured, the flame of their excitement growing, growing.
”The whole planet is a city!” breathed Parker.