tly rolling world sweeping away into the distance, moving league
after league into dim infinities, appeared before his eyes. No
mountains, no hills, even. Gentle slopes rolling slowly downward into
plains. No large rivers. Small streams winding among trees. Almost
immediately below them was one of the lakes Ron Val had seen through
his telescope. The lake was alive with blue light reflected from
the--No, the light came from Vega, not Sol. They were light years away
from the warming rays of the friendly sun.

Jed lowered the ship until she barely cleared the ground, sent her
slowly forward seeking what he wanted. There was a grove of giant trees
beside the lake. Overhead their foliage closed in an arch that would cut
out the sight of the sky. This was what he wanted. He turned the ship
around.

"Hey!" said Nielson.

"I'm going to back her out of sight among those trees," Hargraves
answered. "I'm hunting a hole to hide in while we lie up and lick our
wounds."

Overhead, boughs crashed as the ship slid out of sight. Gently he
relaxed the controls, let her drop an inch at a time until she rested on
the ground. Then he opened the switches, and grunting with relief, the
giants laid themselves down on their treadmill and promptly went to
sleep. For the first time in months the ship was silent.

"Negatron crews remain at your posts. I'm going to take a look."

The lock hissed as it opened before him. Hargraves, Nielson, Noble,
stepped out, the captain going first. The ground was only a couple of
feet away but he lowered himself to it with the precise caution that a
twenty-foot jump would have necessitated. He was not unaware of the
implications of this moment. His was the first human foot to tread the
soil of a planet circling Vega. The great-grand-children of his
great-grand-children would tell their sons about this.

The soil was springy under his feet, possessing an elasticity that he
had not remembered as natural with turf. Opening his helmet, he sniffed
the air. It was cool and alive with a heady fragrance that came from
growing vegetation, a quality the ship's synthesizers, for all the
ingenuity incorporated in them, could not duplicate. Tasting the air,
the cells of his lungs eagerly shouted for more. He sucked it in, and
the tensions that kept his body all steel springs and whipcord relaxed a
little. A breeze stirred among the trees.

"Sweet Pete!" he gasped.

"That's what I was trying to tell you as we lande