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It had a just-perceptible disk. Close to it, infinitely small, there was a speck of light which seemed somehow like a star. Cochrane squinted at it. He thought of the great gas-giant world he'd seen out a port on the way here. It had an attendant moon-world which itself had icecaps and seas and continents. He called Jamison. "I think that's the planet," agreed Jamison. "We passed close by it.
One hundred thousand miles apart, the twin worlds Sthor and Asthor rotated about their common center of gravity, eternally facing each other. Ten million miles from their common center of gravity, Teelan rotated in a vast orbit. Sthor and Asthor were capped at each pole now by gigantic white icecaps. Mira was sulking, and as a consequence the planets were freezing.
The oceans, they announced, were drying up, due to the retention of moisture in the soil by the Grass, and added complacently that in a million years or so, assuming the Grass in the meantime covered the earth, there would be no bodies of water left. Climates were equalizing themselves, the polar icecaps were melting and spots previously too cold for Cynodon dactylon were now covered.
It hadn't been done. Calhoun fumed to himself. The world of Weald Three grew brighter and brighter and became a disk. The disk had icecaps and a reasonable proportion of land and water surface. The ship decelerated, voices notifying observation from the surface, and the little ship came to a stop some five planetary diameters out from solidity.
It had icecaps at its poles, and there were seas, and the mottled look of land which had that carefully maintained balance of woodland and cultivated areas which was so effective in climate control. The Med Ship floated free, and Calhoun fretfully monitored all the beacon frequencies known to man. There was relative silence inside the ship. Maril watched Calhoun in a sort of despairing indecision.
Sergeant Madden approved of the job. His son Timmy couldn't have done better. Here was Planet IV before them, a little off to one side, as was proper. They had run no risk of hitting in overdrive. The distance was just about a quarter-million miles, if Krishnamurti's Law predicting the size and distance of planets in a sol-type system was reliable. The world was green and had icecaps.
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