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toward the base. It was a standard Boeing 1227 medium-haul, transonic VTOL. --
a model widely used by domestic carriers and UNSA's preferred type for
general-purpose duties. The tension that had been building up around the apron
released itself in a chorus of groans and curses.
Behind Heller and Packard, Caldwell, his face dark with fury, spun around to
confront a bewildered UNSA officer. "I thought this area was supposed to have
been cleared," he snapped.
The officer shook his head helplessly. "It was. I don't understand...Somebo --
"
"Get that idiot out of here!"
Looking flustered, the officer hurried away and disappeared through the open
door of the mess hall. At the same time voices from the control room inside
began pouring out over the loudspeaker, evidently left inadvertently live in
the confusion.
"I can't get anything out of it. It's not responding."
"Use the emergency frequency."
"We've already tried. Nothing."
"For Christ's sake, what's happening in here? Caldwell just chewed my balls
off outside.
Find out from Yellow Six who it is."
"I've got 'em on the line now. They don't know, either. They thought it was
ours."
"Gimme that goddam phone!"
The plane leveled out above the edge of the marshes about a mile away and kept
coming, heedless of the volley of brilliant red warning flare~ fired from the
top of McClusky's control tower. It slowed to a halt above the open area of
concrete in front of the reception party, hung motionless for a moment, and
then started sinking toward the ground. A handful of UNSA officers and
technicians ran forward making frantic crossed-arms signals over their heads
to wave it off, but fell back in disarray as it came on down regardless and
settled. Caldwell strode ahead of the group, gesticulating angrily and
shouting orders at the UNSA figures who were converging around the nose and
making signs up at the cockpit.
"Imbeciles!" Danchekker muttered. "This kind of thing should never happen."
"It looks as if Murphy's back from vacation," Lyn said resignedly in Hunt's
ear. But Hunt only half heard. He was staring hard at the Boeing with a
strange look on his face. There was
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something very odd about that aircraft. It had landed in the mid --
die of a sea of watery snow and slush churned up by the activity of the last
few days, yet its landing jets hadn't thrown up the cloud of spray and vapor
as they should have. So maybe it didn't have any landing jets. If that were so
it might have looked like a 1227, but it certainly wasn't powered like one.
And there didn't seem to be much response from the cockpit to the antics of
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the people below. In fact, unless Hunt's eyes were deceiving him, there wasn't
anybody in the cockpit at all. Suddenly his face broke into a wide grin as the
penny dropped.
"Vie, what is it?" Lyn asked. "What's funny?"
"What's the obvious way to hide something in the middle of an airfield from a
surveillance system?" he asked. He gestured toward the plane, but before he
could say any more a voice that could have belonged to a natural-born American
boomed out across the apron from its direction.
"Greetings from Thurien to Earth, et cetera. Well, we made it. Too bad about
the lousy weather."
All movement around the craft ceased instantly. A total silence fell. One by
one the heads on every side jerked around and gaped at each other speechlessly
as the message percolated through.
This was a starship? The Shapieron had stood nearly half a mile high. It was
like having a little old lady show up at Tycho on a bicycle.
The forward passenger door opened, and a flight of steps unfolded itself to
the ground.
All eyes were riveted to the open doorway. The UNSA people up front drew back
slowly while Hunt and his companions, with Heller and Packard a pace behind,
moved forward to close in behind
Caldwell and then slowed to a halt again uncertainly. Behind them the
expectant cameras focused unwaveringly on the top of the steps.
"You'd better come on in," the voice suggested. "No sense in catching colds
out there."
Heller and Packard exchanged bemused glances; none of their talks and
briefings in
Washington had prepared them for this. "I guess we just ad-lib as we go,"
Packard said in a low voice. He tried to summon up a reassuring grin, but it
died somewhere on its way to his face.
"At least it's not happening in Siberia," Heller murmured.
Danchekker was fixing Hunt with a satisfied look. "If those utterances are not
indicative of Ganymean humor at work, I'll ac cept creationism," he said
triumphantly. The aliens could have warned them about the ship's disguise,
Hunt agreed inwardly, but apparently they had been unable to resist making a
mild joke out of it. And they obviously had little time for pomp and
formality. It sounded like
Ganymeans, all right.
They began moving toward the steps with Caldwell in the lead while the UNSA
people opened up to let them pass through. Hunt was a couple of paces behind
Caidwell as Caldwell was about to step onto the first stair. Caldwell emitted
a startled exclamation and seemed to be lifted off the ground. As the others
froze in their tracks, he was whisked upward over the stairway without any
part of his body seeming to touch it, and deposited on his feet inside the
doorway apparently none the worse for wear. He seemed a trifle shaken when he
turned to look back down at them, but composed himself rapidly. "Well, what
are you waiting for?" he growled. Hunt was obviously next in line. He drew a
long, nil-steady breath, shrugged, and stepped forward.
A strangely pleasant and warm sensation enveloped him, and a force of some
kind drew him onward, carrying his weight off his legs. There was a blurred
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