X. Ostrow (Continued) We were down. We’d landed on Altair-4. We were ready for anything—but it didn’t seem to be happening. Like some huge impossible mushroom growth, the ship squatted on her landing gear. With the turquoise-tinted light gleaming on her hull, she seemed to loom even bigger and sleeker than she had on the day, ten Earth-years and countless millions of miles ago, when I’d caught my first sight of her at the launching base. Inside her, men were stationed at her blast and disintegrator guns, the open gun-ports making black holes in her glittering flanks. Outside, the rest of the hands, all armed, were spread in a protective circle. Some little way beyond the circle were the Officers—and, much to my delighted surprise, I was with them. I’d been afraid that, as we were still on Alert-A and ready for trouble, I was going to be ordered to stay aboard, in the Surgery. But I hadn’t been, thank God.
