d the city on the horizon--men had built it; the touch of
our architecture was on every building. I wondered why it had never
occurred to me that this was so. It made the landfall different from all
the others, somehow. It gave a new face to the entire planet.

* * * * *

Mac and I and some of the other crewmen went down on the field to handle
the unloading. Jeks on self-propelled cargo lifts jockeyed among us,
scooping up the loads as we unhooked the slings, bringing cases of
machinery from their own ship. They sat atop their vehicles, lean and
aloof, dashing in, whirling, shooting across the field to their ship
and back like wild horsemen on the plains of Earth, paying us no notice.

We were almost through when Mac suddenly grabbed my arm. "Look!"

The stoker was coming down on one of the cargo slings. He stood upright,
his booted feet planted wide, one arm curled up over his head and around
the hoist cable. He was in his dusty brown Marine uniform, the scarlet
collar tabs bright as blood at his throat, his major's insignia
glittering at his shoulders, the battle stripes on his sleeves.

The Jeks stopped their lifts. They knew that uniform. They sat up in
their saddles and watched him come down. When the sling touched the
ground, he jumped off quietly and walked toward the nearest Jek. They
all followed him with their eyes.

"We've got to stop him," Mac said, and both of us started toward him.
His hands were both in plain sight, one holding his duffelbag, which was
swelled out with the bulk of his airsuit. He wasn't carrying a weapon of
any kind. He was walking casually, taking his time.

Mac and I had almost reached him when a Jek with insignia on his
coveralls suddenly jumped down from his lift and came forward to meet
him. It was an odd thing to see--the stoker, and the Jek, who did not
stand as tall. MacReidie and I stepped back.

The Jek was coal black, his scales glittering in the cold sunlight, his
hatchet-face inscrutable. He stopped when the stoker was a few paces
away. The stoker stopped, too. All the Jeks were watching him and paying
no attention to anything else. The field might as well have been empty
except for those two.

"They'll kill him. They'll kill him right now," MacReidie whispered.

They ought to have. If I'd been a Jek, I would have thought that uniform
was a death warrant. But the Jek spoke to him:

"Are you entitled to wear that?"

"I was at this pl