pper, drop-shaped, cargo-carrying; I have been
in its hold till now.

There are one or two peculiar points about it, or maybe one or two
hundred, such as the rate at which we are ascending which seems to be
bringing us right into the Stratosphere; but the main thing I notice
is the pilot. He has his back to us but is recognizably Ram Gopal who
graduated in Cultural Engineering last year, Rumor says next to top of
his class.

I ask him what kind of a melodramatic shenanigan is this?

B says We had to leave quietly in a hurry without attracting attention
so she booked us out at the Hotel _hours_ ago and she and Ram have
been hanging around waiting for me ever since.

I point out that the scope-trace of an Unidentified Flying Object will
occasion a lot more remark than a normal departure even at midnight.

At this Ram smiles in an inscrutable Oriental manner and B gets nearly
as cross as I do, seems she has mentioned this point before.

We have not gone into it properly when the cabin suddenly shifts
through a right angle. B and I go sliding down the vertical floor and
end sitting on a window. There is a jolt and a shudder and Ram mutters
things in Hindi and then suddenly Up is nowhere at all.

B and I scramble off the window and grab fixtures so as to stay put.
The stars have gone and we can see nothing except the dim glow over
the instruments; then suddenly lights go on outside.

We look out into the hold of a ship.

Our ten-foot teardrop is sitting next to another one, like two eggs
in a rack. On the other side is a bulkhead; behind, the curve of the
hull; and directly ahead an empty space, then another bulkhead and an
open door, through which after a few seconds a head pokes cautiously.

The head is then followed by a body which kicks off against the wall
and sails slowly towards us. Ram presses a stud and a door slides open
in the hopper; but the new arrival stops himself with a hand on either
side of the frame, his legs trailing any old how behind him. It is
Peter Yeng Sen who graduated the year I did my Field Work.

He says, Gopal, dear fellow, there was no need for the knocking, we
heard the bell all right.

Ram grumbles something about the guide beam being miss-set, and slides
out of his chair. Peter announces that we have only just made it as
the deadline is in seven minutes time; he waves B and me out of the
hopper, through the door and into a corridor where a certain irregular
vibration is coming