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His secretary and two technical men and a writer were taking the same rocket. He'd get his instructions from Dr. William Holden on the way. A part of his mind said indignantly, "Wait till I get Hopkins on the phone! It was a mixup! He wouldn't send me off anywhere with the Dikkipatti Hour depending on me! He's not that crazy!" But he was on his way to the space-port, regardless.
For a ship to land on Dara was so remarkable an event that it called practically for a cabinet meeting. And Calhoun noted that they were no better fed than the guards at the space-port. They regarded Calhoun and Maril with oddly burning eyes. It was, of course, because the two of them showed no signs of hunger. They obviously had not been on short rations.
Calhoun took no part in the agitated conferences among the officials and news reporters at the space-port. But he listened to the talk about him. As the investigating small ship drew nearer and nearer to the deathly-still cargo vessel, the guesses about the meaning of its breakout and following silence grew more and more wild.
It hurt to find out that he was just another man, just another expendable. Most people fought against making the discovery, and some succeeded in avoiding it. But Cochrane saw his own self-deceptions with a savage clarity even as he tried to keep them. He did not admire himself at all. The helicab began to slant down toward the space-port buildings. The sky was full of stars.
In the time he had been away as a crewman of the Lancet, the seasons had changed, and the port of Philadelphia lay under the steaming summer sun. As Dal stepped off the shuttle ship to join the hurrying crowds in the great space-port, it seemed almost as though he were coming home.
It spread out in a wide flat disk of intolerable brightness. The sleek hull of the ship which still rode the flame down glinted vividly as it settled into the inferno of its own making. Then the light went out. The glare cut off abruptly. There was only a dim redness where the space-port tarmac had been made incandescent for a little while.
The house of his friend. Night descended suddenly on the outlaw space-port that day the elderly exile waited in vain for his comrade in arms Hawk Carse to show up.
He saw the vertical, stabbing pencil of light plunge earthward. It slowed remarkably as it plunged, with all the flying aircraft above the city harshly lighted by its glare. The space-port itself showed clearly. Cochrane saw the buildings, and the other moon-rockets waiting to take off in half an hour or less. The white flame hit the ground and splashed.
It was from the Ministry of Health. The space-port reported that a ship had just broken out from overdrive within the Wealdian solar system. Its tape-transmitter had automatically signalled its arrival from the mining-planet Orede. But, having sent off its automatic signal, the ship lay dead in space. It did not drive toward Weald. It did not respond to signals.
The cab touched ground. Cochrane stood up and paid the fare. He got out and the cab rose four or five feet and flitted over to the waiting-line. He went into the space-port building. He felt himself growing more bitter still. Then he found Bill Holden Doctor William Holden standing dejectedly against a wall. "I believe you've got some orders for me, Bill," said Cochrane sardonically.
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