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But just before sunset, Hoddan saw three tiny bright lights flash across the sky from west to east. They moved in formation and at identical speeds. Hoddan knew a spaceship in orbit when he saw one. He bristled, and muttered under his breath. "What's that?" asked Thal. "What did you say?" "I said," said Hoddan dourly, "that I've got to do something about Walden.
Once, in the south, we got caught in one, and it was so bad we had to blast off. And it took all the power we had to do it!" The three cadets stood transfixed as they gazed through the crystal port at the oncoming storm. The tremendous black cloud rolled toward the spaceship in huge folds that billowed upward and back in three-thousand-foot waves.
The faster-than-light angle came from the fact that it worked like a donkey trotting after a carrot held in front of him by a stick. The ship moving into the stressed area moved the stress. The force fields of a landing grid were similar. A tuning principle was involved, but basically a landing grid clamped an area of stress around a spaceship, and the ship couldn't move out of it.
Joe saw the other man in the room, the man at the radar screens, shake his head. He got up and fumbled his way along the wall to the door. Sanford shouted after him angrily. Joe went out, found the four-foot tunnel, and floated not down but along it back to the unloading lock. Wordlessly, he set to work to get the cargo out of the cargo hold of the spaceship.
"If your part of the world threatened the other part of the world and put a halo around the 'or else'. What would the other part of the world do when the first news of the spaceship leaked out, as it would do immediately?" "O. K. I guess you know as well as I do."
Now, as dawn began to creep pink and gray over the eastern horizon, they made their last-minute search through the cavernous spaceship for any doubtful connections. Satisfied there were none, the three weary cadets assembled on the control deck and sipped the hot tea that Manning had thoughtfully prepared.
"If I should appear to be losing control of myself when addressing Cadet Higgins, you have my official permission to restrain me. Use force if necessary!" Tom bit his lip to keep from laughing and managed to mumble "Yes, sir." He turned quickly to the control board and began focusing on the planet lying dead ahead of the decelerating spaceship.
Somehow, confusion developed and the spacemen, including the officers, later reported that the squadron had instructed them to land on the sun side of Mercury, which would have destroyed the spaceship and its crew, or so they believed at the time. The commanding officer of the squadron denied issuing such an order.
"There's only one spaceship here a month," he observed politely, "so I'll be around. If you want to get in touch with me, ask Don Loris. I'm going to visit him while I look over professional opportunities on Darth." He went out once more. Somehow he felt more cheerful than a half-hour since, when he'd landed as the only passenger from the space liner.
"Spaceship bearing 098 full thrust! Range now four twenty-five!" "By the craters of Luna," shouted Tom, "why didn't you pick her up sooner, Roger?" "Never mind that. Contact that guy and tell him to change course! He can't brake in time now!" "All right! Sign off!" Without waiting for a reply, Tom cut Roger off and switched to a standard space band.
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