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They took over the landing-grid's operation, driving the Darian operators away. For the first time in history the operators of a landing-grid wore make-up to look like they did have blue pigment in their skins. They didn't. The Wealdian landing-party tested the grid's operation. They brought down another giant ship. Then another. And another.
The man in the purple cloak obeyed, shaking. Hoddan completed the recovery of all his belongings. He turned. The man in the purple cloak winced and closed his eyes. "Hm-m-m," said Hoddan. He needed information. He wasn't likely to get it from the men in the grid's control room. He would hardly be popular with any of these, either.
He was changing to other clothing when he heard the muttering report, picked up by a ship-receiver tuned to planetary police wave length. It reported affrightedly that the Med Ship could not be entered, and the grid's control building was dark and empty and sprayed as if to destroy contagion. The operator was gone. Another voice snapped orders in reply.
When it touched ground and the grid's force fields cut off, it looked very modern and very crisp and strictly businesslike. Actually, the capture of this particular liner was a bit of luck, for Hoddan. It was not one of the giant inter-cluster ships which make runs of thousands of light-years and deign to stop only at very major planets.
There was confusion, as if the request were so unusual that the answers were not ready. The grid, too, was on the planet's night side. Presently the ship was locked onto by the grid's force-fields. It went downward. Calhoun saw that Maril sat tensely, twisting her fingers within each other, until the ship actually touched ground.
"Grid's squshy manner would get him anywhere he wanted with the skirts, even if he didn't have the looks to back it up," commented Mr. Watts, with inward dryness, of the meeting. "I've been watching you for some time, Miss Worthington," was Mr. Bennet's flattering opening to the conversation, "and I was planning an introduction to you just as soon as dinner was over."
Police stood uneasy guard about the Med Ship because they could not enter it. Some of their number who had entered the control building now stood shivering outside it, unable to force themselves inside again. There was a vast, detached stillness about the spaceport. It seemed the more unearthly because of the thin music of wind in the landing grid's upper levels.
There was confusion, as if the request were so unusual that the answers were not ready. The grid, too, was on the planet's night side. Presently the ship was locked onto by the grid's force-fields. It went downward without incident. Calhoun saw that Maril sat tensely, twisting her fingers within each other, until the ship actually touched ground.
The Wealdian landing-party tested the grid's operation. They brought down another giant ship. Then another. And another. Parties in the shiny sag-suits spread through the city. There were the huge stock-piles of precious metals, brought in readiness to be surrendered and carried away. Some men set to work to load these into the holds to be sterilized later.
He saw slums and gracious public buildings, and went back to the spaceport and the liner which then rose upon the landing grid's force fields until Krim was a great round ball below it. Then there was again a jockeying for line, and the liner winked out of sight and was again journeying at thirty times the speed of light. Again time passed.
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