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All volunteers and the first four squads of enlisted guardsmen and second detachment of Space Marines return to the spaceport and prepare to abandon Titan. Give all the aid to the officer in charge that you can. Again, I want to thank you for your help." As the group of men broke up and began drifting away, Walters hurried over to Strong and Kit Barnard.
Fieschi; he says he knows this is an emergency, but there's a strict company directive against using the spaceport area for storage of anything but cargo that has either just come in or is being shipped out on the next ship." "What's this all about?" Murell asked. "Fieschi, at the spaceport, won't let us store this wax in the spaceport area," Joe said.
They walked through the pointed glass gate, and stood for a moment, by mutual consent, looking down over the vast expanse of the Lhari spaceport. This had once been a great desert.
Strong noted the irony of the situation. The people of Titan were not out to greet a hero of space, but were waiting for the next evacuation rocket ship. The ramps were cleared and within minutes the two ships reappeared over the horizon, nosing upward over the spaceport in an arc, their braking rockets blasting loudly as they prepared to land.
There was an atmosphere of innocent enjoyment all about as the police tenderly loaded this large box on the second truck they'd sent for, and festooned themselves about it as it trundled away. Strangely, it did not head directly for the spaceport. The police carefully explained this to each other in loud voices. Then some of them were afraid the box hadn't heard, so they knocked on it.
And hurry!" There was silence as men came from the spaceport building. They pushed a tank on wheels before them. It had a hose and a nozzle attached to it. They began to use the hose to make a thick, foglike, heavy mist which clung to the ground and lingered there. The spray had the biting smell of phenol. "What's going on here?" demanded Calhoun angrily. "Damnation! What's going on here?"
Astro didn't move or turn away from the blinding light of the torch as he cut into the section of the chamber where the portal locks would be. He did not notice that the Good Company and the emergency fleet had returned to the spaceport, nor that Sid was now beside him with Kit. An hour passed.
Suddenly Vidac became aware of the jet cars streaming into the spaceport. He stopped and turned to look at them. Then, sensing something was wrong, he turned back to dash into the Polaris. The second his back was turned was sufficient time for Tom to grab the gun and fire. Vidac was stopped cold, his bright eyes burning with hate, unable to move.
They're better organized than we thought, if they picked up your landing request! There's an emergency, all right! It's the devil of an emergency it looks like devils! But this is the spaceport. Will you come in?" "Naturally," said Calhoun. "What's the emergency?" "You'll find out...." That was the professional voice. The other snapped angrily, "Cut your signal!"
The days went by, and the green disk of Earth appeared in the viewscreen. Late on the sixth day the Cavour sliced into Earth's atmosphere, and Alan threw it into the landing orbit he had computed that afternoon. The ship swung in great spirals around Earth, drawing ever closer, and finally began to home in on the spaceport.
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