The only moment of excitement had come early in the voyage; just after breakway from Earth’s sun, when there had been a guided tour of the ship for everyone who wasn’t still struggling with acceleration sickness. Larry had been fascinated by the crew’s quarters, by the high navigation deck with its rooms full of silent, brooding computers, the robots which handled, behind leaded-glass shields, any needed repairs on the drive units. He’d even seen into the drive rooms themselves, by television. They were, of course, radioactive, and even crew members could enter there, only in the gravest emergencies. Most exciting of all had been the single glimpse from the Captain’s bridge—the tiny glass dome with its sudden panorama of a hundred million twinkling stars. Larry, pressing himself for his brief turn against the glass, felt suddenly very lost, very small and alone in this wilderness of giant, blazing suns and worlds spinning forever against the endless dark. When he moved away he was dazed and his eyes blurred.
But the rest of the trip had been a bore. More and more he had lost himself in daydreams about the new world at the end of the journey. The very name, Darkover, had its curious magic. He envisioned a giant red sun lowering in a lurid sky, four moons in strange colors; his mind invented fantastic and impossible shapes for the mysterious nonhumans who would crowd around the spaceship’s landing. By the time they were sent to their staterooms to strap down for the long deceleration, he was simmering with wild excitement.
He had watched the landing on TV; their approach to the planet in its veil of swirling sunset-orange clouds that had thinned into the darkness of the night side as they came near; he’d felt the shudder and surge of new gravity, the tingle of strangeness when one of the small iridescent moons swam across the camera field. He wondered which of the moons it was. Probably Kyrrdis, he thought, with its blue-green shimmer, like a peacock’s wing. The names of the moons were a siren song of enchantment; Kyrrdis, Idriel, Liriel, Mormallor. We’re here, he thought, we’re really here.
He waited, impatient but well-disciplined, for the loudspeaker announcement which permitted passengers to unfasten their straps, collect their belongings and gather in the discharge entrance. His father was silent at his side, and his face gave away nothing; Larry wondered how anyone could be so impassive, but not wanting to seem childishly eager, Larry kept silence too. He kept his eyes on the metal door which would open on the strange world. When the crewman in his black leather began undogging the seals, Larry was almost literally shaking with excitement. A strange pinkish glow filtered around the first crack of the door. The red sun? The strange sky?
But the door swung open on night, and the pink glow was only the fiery light of welding torches from a pit nearby, where workmen in hoods were working on the metal hull of another great ship. Larry, stepping out on to the ramp, felt the cold touch of disappointment. It was just another spaceport, just like Earth!
Behind him on the ramp, his father touched his shoulder and said, in a gently rallying tone, “Don’t stand there staring, son; your new planet won’t run away. I know how excited you must be, but let’s move on down.”
Heaving a deep sigh, Larry began to walk down the ramp. He should have know it would turn out to be a gyp. Things you built up in your mind usually were a let-down.
Later, he was to remember his sense of disillusion that morning, and laugh at himself but at the moment, the flat disappointment was so keen be could almost taste it. The concrete felt hard and strange after weeks of uncertain gravity in the spaceship. He swayed a little to get his balance, watching the small buzzing cargo dollies that were whirring around the field, the men in black or grayish leather uniforms with the insignia of the Terran Empire, on which the hard blue arclights reflected coldly. Beyond the lights was a dark line of tall buildings.
“The Terran Trade City,” his father pointed them out. “We’ll have rooms in the Quarters buildings. Come on, we’d better get checked through the lines, there’s a lot of red tape.”