nd/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. H