"Entering the atmosphere, ought to be landing in five or ten minutes,"
Nathen told them.
A ripple of heightened excitement ran through the room. Cameramen began
adjusting the lens angles again, turning on the mike and checking it,
turning on the floodlights. The scientists rose and stood near the
window, still talking. The reporters trooped in from the hall and went
to the windows to watch for the great event. The three linguists came
in, trundling a large wheeled box that was the mechanical translator,
supervising while it was hitched into the sound broadcasting system.
"Landing where?" the _Times_ asked Nathen brutally. "Why don't you do
something?"
"Tell me what to do and I'll do it," Nathen said quietly, not moving.
It was not sarcasm. Jacob Luke of the _Times_ looked sidewise at the
strained whiteness of his face, and moderated his tone. "Can't you
contact them?"
"Not while they're landing."
"What now?" The _Times_ took out a pack of cigarettes, remembered the
rule against smoking, and put it back.
"We just wait." Nathen leaned his elbow on one knee and his chin in his
hand.
They waited.
* * * * *
All the people in the room were waiting. There was no more
conversation. A bald man of the scientist group was automatically
buffing his fingernails over and over and inspecting them without
seeing them, another absently polished his glasses, held them up to
the light, put them on, and then a moment later took them off and began
polishing again. The television crew concentrated on their jobs, moving
quietly and efficiently, with perfectionist care, minutely arranging
things which did not need to be arranged, checking things that had
already been checked.
This was to be one of the great moments of human history, and they were
all trying to forget that fact and remain impassive and wrapped up in
the problems of their jobs as good specialists should.
After an interminable age the _Times_ consulted his watch. Three
minutes had passed. He tried holding his breath a moment, listening for
a distant approaching thunder of jets. There was no sound.
The sun came out from behind the clouds and lit up the field like a
great spotlight on an empty stage.
Abruptly the green light shone on the set again, indicating that a
squawk message had been received. The recorder recorded it, slowed it
and fed it back to the speaker. It clicked and the sound was very loud
in the still, tense room.
The screen remained gray, but Bud's voice spoke a few words in the
alien language. He stopped, the speaker clicked and the light went out.
When it was plain that nothing more would occur and no announcement was
to be made of what was said, the people in the room turned back to the
windows, talk picked up again.
Somebody told a joke and laughed alone.
One of the linguists remained turned toward the loudspeaker, then
looked at the widening patches of blue sky showing out the window, his
expression puzzled. He had understood.
"It's dark," the thin Intelligence Department decoder translated,
low-voiced, to the man from the _Times_. "Your atmosphere is _thick_.
That's precisely what Bud said."
Another three minutes. The _Times_ caught himself about to light a
cigarette and swore silently, blowing the match out and putting the
cigarette back into its package. He listened for the sound of the
rocket jets. It was time for the landing, yet he heard no blasts.
The green light came on in the transceiver.
Message in.
Instinctively he came to his feet. Nathen abruptly was standing beside
him. Then the message came in the voice he was coming to think of as
Bud. It spoke and paused. Suddenly the _Times_ knew.
"We've landed." Nathen whispered the words.
The wind blew across the open spaces of white concrete and damp soil
that was the empty airfield, swaying the wet, shiny grass. The people
in the room looked out, listening for the roar of jets, looking for the
silver bulk of a spaceship in the sky.
Nathen moved, seating himself at the transmitter, switching it on to
warm up, checking and balancing dials. Jacob Luke of the _Times_ moved
softly to stand behind his right shoulder, hoping he could be useful.
Nathen made a half motion of his head, as if to glance back at him,
unhooked two of the earphone sets hanging on the side of the tall
streamlined box that was the automatic translator, plugged them in and
handed one back over his shoulder to the _Times_ man.
The voice began to come from the speaker again.
Hastily, Jacob Luke fitted the earphones over his ears. He fancied he
could hear Bud's voice tremble. For a moment it was just Bud's voice
speaking the alien language, and then, very distant and clear in his
earphones, he heard the recorded voice of the linguist say an English
word, then a mechanical click and another clear word in the voice of
one of the other translators, then another as the alien's voice flowed
from the loudspeaker, the cool single words barely audible, overlapping
and blending with it like translating thought, skipping unfamiliar
words, yet quite astonishingly clear.
"Radar shows no buildings or civilization near. The atmosphere around
us registers as thick as glue. Tremendous gas pressure, low gravity,
no light at all. You didn't describe it like this. Where are you, Joe?
This isn't some kind of trick, is it?" Bud hesitated, was prompted by a
deeper official voice and jerked out the words.
"If it is a trick, we are ready to repel attack."
* * * * *
The linguist stood listening. He whitened slowly and beckoned the other
linguists over to him and whispered to them.
Joseph Nathen looked at them with unwarranted bitter hostility while
he picked up the hand-mike, plugging it into the translator. "Joe
calling," he said quietly into it in clear, slow English. "No trick. We
don't know where you are. I am trying to get a direction fix from your
signal. Describe your surroundings to us if at all possible."
Nearby, the floodlights blazed steadily on the television platform,
ready for the official welcome of the aliens to Earth. The television
channels of the world had been alerted to set aside their scheduled
programs for an unscheduled great event. In the long room the people
waited, listening for the swelling sound of rocket jets.
This time, after the light came on, there was a long delay. The speaker
sputtered, and sputtered again, building to a steady scratching they
could barely sense as a dim voice. It came through in a few tinny words
and then wavered back to inaudibility. The machine translated in their
earphones.
"Tried ... seemed ... repair...." Suddenly it came in clearly. "Can't
tell if the auxiliary blew, too. Will try it. We might pick you up
clearly on the next try. I have the volume down. Where is the landing
port? Repeat. Where is the landing port? Where are you?"
Nathen put down the hand-mike and carefully set a dial on the recording
box, and flipped a switch, speaking over his shoulder. "This sets it to
repeat what I said the last time. It keeps repeating." Then he sat with
unnatural stillness, his head still half turned, as if he had suddenly
caught a glimpse of answer and was trying with no success whatever to
grasp it.
The green warning light cut in, the recording clicked and the playback
of Bud's face and voice appeared on the screen.
"We heard a few words, Joe, and then the receiver blew again. We're
adjusting a viewing screen to pick up the long waves that go through
the murk and convert them to visible light. We'll be able to see
out soon. The engineer says that something is wrong with the stern
jets, and the captain has had me broadcast a help call to our nearest
space base." He made the mouth O of a grin. "The message won't
reach it for some years. I trust you, Joe, but get us out of here,
will you?--They're buzzing that the screen is finally ready. Hold
everything."
* * * * *
The screen went gray, and the green light went off.
The _Times_ considered the lag required for the help call, the speaking
and recording of the message just received, the time needed to
reconvert a viewing screen.
"They work fast." He shifted uneasily, and added at random, "Something
wrong with the time factor. All wrong. They work _too_ fast."
The green light came on again immediately. Nathen half turned to him,
sliding his words hastily into the gap of time as the message was
recorded and slowed. "They're close enough for our transmission power
to blow their receiver."
If it was on Earth, why the darkness around the ship? "Maybe they see
in the high ultra-violet--the atmosphere is opaque to that band," the
_Times_ suggested hastily as the speaker began to talk in the young
extraterrestrial's voice.