Hugh got the vessel down into the stratosphere and straightened it triumphantly into a course that would with certainty kill them all.
The autopilots took over.
Hugh stormed and swore, producing some words which diverted Alan’s attention and admiration from the view out of the port. But nothing he could do would cause the craft to respond. It settled in its own way and leveled off at a thousand feet, an altitude which it maintained regardless of changing contour.
“Hugh, the stars are gone!”
“I know it.”
“But Jordan! Hugh, what happened to them?”
Hugh glared at Alan. “I don’t know and I don’t care! You get aft with the women and stop asking silly questions.”
Alan departed reluctantly with a backward look at the surface of the planet and the bright sky; It interested him, but he did not marvel much at it; his ability to marvel had been overstrained.
It was some hours before Hugh discovered that a hitherto ignored group of control lights set in motion a chain of events whereby the autopilot would ground the Ship. Since he found this out experimentally he did not exactly choose the place of landing. But the unwinking stereo-eyes of the autopilot fed its data to the ‘brain’; the submolar mechanism selected and rejected; the Ship grounded gently on a rolling high prairie near a clump of vegetation.
Ertz came forward. “What’s happened, Hugh?”
Hugh waved at the view port. “We’re there.” He was too tired to make much of it, too tired and too emotionally exhausted. His weeks of fighting a fight he understood but poorly, hunger, and lately thirst, years of feeding on a consuming ambition, these left him with little ability to enjoy his goal when it arrived.
But they had landed, they had finished Jordan’s Trip. He was not unhappy, at peace rather, and very tired. Ertz stared out. “Jordan!” he muttered. Then, “Let’s go out.”
“All right.”
Alan came forward, as they were opening the air-lock, and the women pressed after him. “Are we there, Captain?”
“Shut up,” said Hugh.
The women crowded up to the deserted view port; Alan explained to them, importantly and incorrectly, the scene outside. Ertz got the last door open.
They sniffed at the air. “It’s cold,” said Ertz. In fact the temperature was perhaps five degrees less than the steady monotony of the Ship’s temperature, but Ertz was experiencing weather for the first time.
“Nonsense,” said Hugh, faintly annoyed that any fault should be found with _his_ planet. “It’s just your imagination.”
“Maybe,” Ertz conceded. He paused uneasily. “Going out?” he added.
“Of course.” Mastering his own reluctance, Hugh pushed him aside and dropped five feet to the ground “Come on; it’s fine.”
Ertz joined him, and stood close to him. Both of them remained close to the Ship. “It’s big, isn’t it?” Ertz said in a hushed voice.
“Well, we knew it would be,” Hugh snapped, annoyed with himself for having the same lost feeling.
“Hi!” Alan peered cautiously out of the door. “Can I comedown? Is it alright?”
“Come ahead.”
Alan eased himself gingerly over the edge and joined them. He looked around and whistled. “Gosh!”
Their first sortie took them all of fifty feet from the Ship. They huddled close together for silent comfort, and watched their feet to keep from stumbling on this strange uneven deck. They made it without incident until Alan looked up from the ground and found himself for the first time in his life with nothing close to him. He was hit by vertigo and acute agoraphobia; he moaned, closed his eyes and fell.
“What in the Ship?” demanded Ertz, looking around. Then it hit him.
Hugh fought against it. It pulled him to his knees, but be fought it, steadying himself with one hand on the ground. However, he had the advantage of having stared out through the view port for endless time; neither Alan nor Ertz were cowards.
“Alan!” his wife shrilled from the open door. “Alan! Come back here!” Alan opened one eye, managed to get it focused on the Ship, and started inching back on his belly.
“Man!” commanded Hugh. “Stop that! Situp.”
Alan did so, with the air of a man pushed too far. “Open your eyes!” Alan obeyed cautiously, reclosed them hastily.