The Galaxy Primes | Page 7

is populated
by creatures exactly like us? Arpalones?"
"Exactly, except they aren't 'creatures'. They are humanoids, and very
fine people."
"You'd think so, of course ... correction accepted. Well, let's take
advantage of their extraordinarily hospitable invitation and go down.
Cut the rope, Jim."
The airport was very large, and was divided into several sections, each
of which was equipped with runways and/or other landing facilities to
suit one class of craft--propellor jobs, jets, or helicopters. There were
even a few structures that looked like rocket pits.
"Where are you going to sit down, Jim? With the 'copters or over by the
blast-pits?"
"With the 'copters, I think. Since I can place her to within a couple of
inches. I'll put her squarely into that far corner, where she'll be out of
everybody's way."
"No concrete out there," Garlock said. "But the ground seems good and
solid."
"We'd better not land on concrete," James grinned. "Unless it's terrific
stuff we'd smash it. On bare ground, the worst we can do is sink in a
foot or so, and that won't hurt anything."
"Check. A few tons to the square foot, is all. Shall we strap down and
hang onto our teeth?"

"Who do you think you're kidding, boss? Even though I've got to do
this on manual, I won't tip over a half-piece standing on edge."
James stopped talking, pulled out his scanner, stuck his face into it. The
immense starship settled downward toward the selected corner. There
was no noise, no blast, no flame, no slightest visible or detectable sign
of whatever force it was that was braking the thousands of tons of the
vessel's mass in its miles-long, almost-vertical plunge to ground.
When the Pleiades struck ground the impact was scarcely to be felt.
When she came to rest, after settling into the ground her allotted "foot
or so," there was no jar at all.
"Atmosphere, temperature, and so on, approximately Earth-normal,"
Garlock said. "Just as our friend said it would be."
James scanned the city and the field. "Our visit is kicking up a lot of
excitement. Shall we go out?"
"Not yet!" Belle exclaimed. "I want to see how the women are dressed,
first."
"So do I," Lola added, "and some other things besides."
Both women--Lola through her Operator's scanner; Belle by
manipulating the ship's tremendous Operator Field by the sheer power
of her Prime Operator's mind--stared eagerly at the crowd of people
now beginning to stream across the field.
"As an anthropologist," Lola announced, "I'm not only surprised. I am
shocked, annoyed, and disgruntled. Why, they're exactly like white
Tellurian human beings!"
"But look at their clothes!" Belle insisted. "They're wearing anything
and everything, from bikinis to coveralls!"
"Yes, but notice." This was the anthropological scientist speaking now.
"Breasts and loins, covered. Faces, uncovered. Heads and feet and

hands, either bare or covered. Ditto for legs up to there, backs, arms,
necks and shoulders down to here, and torsos clear down to there. We'll
not violate any conventions by going out as we are. Not even you,
Belle. You first, Chief. Yours the high honor of setting first foot--the
biggest foot we've got, too--on alien soil."
"To hell with that. We'll go out together."
"Wait a minute," Lola went on. "There's a funny-looking automobile
just coming through the gate. The Press. Three men and two women.
Two cameras, one walkie-talkie, and two microphones. The photog in
the purple shirt is really a sharpie at lepping. Class Three, at
least--possibly a Two."
"How about screens down enough to lep, boss?" Belle suggested.
"Faster. We may need it."
"Check. I'm too busy to record, anyway--I'll log this stuff up tonight,"
and thoughts flew.
"Check me, Jim," Garlock flashed. "Telepathy, very good. On Gunther,
the guy was right--no signs at all of any First activity, and very few
Seconds."
"Check," James agreed.
"And Lola, those 'Guardians' out there. I thought they were the same as
the Arpalone we talked to. They aren't. Not even telepathic. Same color
scheme, is all."
"Right. Much more brutish. Much flatter cranium. Long, tearing canine
teeth. Carnivorous. I'll call them just 'guardians' until we find out what
they really are."
The press car arrived and the Tellurians disembarked--and, accidentally
or not, it was Belle's green slipper that first touched ground. There was
a terrific babel of thought, worse, even, than voices in similar case, in
being so much faster. The reporters, all of them, wanted to know

everything at once. How, what, where, when, and why. Also who. And
all about Tellus and the Tellurian solar system. How did the visitors
like Hodell? And all about Belle's green hair. And the photographers
were prodigal of film, shooting everything from all possible angles.
"Hold it!" Garlock loosed a blast of thought that "silenced" almost the
whole field.