"One of the other Earthmen has just instructed me to get lost and switched his unit off," ZORAC said. "I could only do that by taking the Shapieron away into space and I #146;m certain that he didn #146;t intend that. What did he mean?"
Hunt grinned to himself as he allowed his head to sink back into the pillow while he contemplated the ceiling. He had been back on board Jupiter Five for several hours and was relaxing in his cabin after a strenuous day while experimenting further with his Ganymean communications kit.
"It #146;s an Earth saying," he replied. "It doesn #146;t mean what the words mean literally. It #146;s what people sometimes say when they #146;re not interested in listening to somebody. Probably he was tired and needed to sleep. But don #146;t you say it when you talk to Earthmen. It conveys irritation and is a little insulting."
"I see. Okay. Is there a word or phrase for a saying that doesn #146;t mean what it says literally?"
Hunt sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. Suddenly he had nothing but admiration for the patience of school teachers.
"I suppose we #146;d call it a figure of speech," he said.
"But surely speech is formed from words, not figures, or have I made a mistake somewhere?"
"No, you #146;re right. That #146;s just another saying."
"A figure of speech is a figure of speech then. Right?"
"Yes. ZORAC, I #146;m getting tired too. Could you save any more questions about English until I #146;m ready for it again? There are some questions I #146;d still like to ask you."
"Otherwise you #146;ll instruct me to get lost and switch off?"
"Correct."
"Okay. What are your questions?"
Hunt hoisted his shoulders up against the end of his bunk and clasped his hands behind his head. After a moment #146;s reflection, he was ready. "I #146;m interested in the star that your ship came from. You said that it had a system of several planets."
"Yes."
"Your ship came from one of those planets?"
"Yes."
"Did all the Ganymean people move from Minerva and go live on that planet a long time ago?"
"No. Only three large ships went and their carried-ships. Also there were three very large machines that propelled themselves like spaceships. The Ganymeans went there to test a scientific idea. They did not go there to live. All came back in the Shapieron but many have died."
"When you went to the star, where did you travel from?"
"From Minerva."
"Where were the rest of the Ganymean people #151;the ones who didn #146;t go with you to the star?"
"They remained on Minerva, naturally. The work to be done at the star needed only a small number of scientific people."
Hunt #146;s incredulity could no longer be contained. The thing that he had been beginning to suspect for some time was really true.
"How long ago was it when you left the star?" he asked, his voice catching slightly as he formed the words.
"Approximately twenty-five million Earth years ago," ZORAC informed him.
For a long time Hunt said nothing. He just lay there, his mind struggling to comprehend the enormity of what he had learned. Just a few hours before he had been standing face to face with beings who had been alive long before the species called Homo sapiens had ever begun to emerge. And they were still alive now, and had been through the unimaginable epochs between. The very thought of it was stupefying.
He did not imagine for one moment that this could represent anything like a normal Ganymean life span and he guessed it to be the result of relativistic time-dilation. But to produce an effect of such magnitude they must have sustained a phenomenal velocity for an incredible length of time. What could possibly have induced the Ganymeans to journey the vast distance that this implied? And, equally strange, why should they willingly inflict upon themselves what they must have known would be a permanent forfeiture of their world, their way of life and all the things that were familiar to them? What significance could their expedition have had, since nothing they could have achieved at their destination could possibly have affected their civilization in any way whatsoever #151;not with that discrepancy in time scales? But hadn #146;t Garuth said something about everything not having gone according to plan?
Having sorted his thoughts into something resembling order once more, Hunt had another question. "How far from the Sun was this star?"
"The distance that light would travel in nine point three Earth years," ZORAC answered.
The situation was getting crazy. Allowing for the speed that would have been necessary to produce the time-dilation, such a journey should have taken hardly any time at all . . . astronomically speaking.
"Did the Ganymeans know that they would return after twenty-five million years?" Hunt asked, determined to get to the bottom of it.
"When they left the star, they knew. But when they left Minerva to go to the star, they did not know. They did not have a reason to believe that the journey from the star would be longer than the journey to the star."
"How long did it take them to get there?"
"Measured from the Sun, twelve point one years."
"And the journey back again took twenty-five million?"
"Yes. They could not avoid traveling very fast. I believe that the results of this are familiar to you. They orbited the Sun far away many times."
Hunt replied with the obvious question. "Why didn #146;t they just slow down?"
"They could not."
"Why?"
ZORAC seemed to hesitate for a fraction of a second.
"The electrical machines could not be operated. The points-that-destroy-all-things and move in circles could not be stopped. The space-and-time-joining blendings could not be unbent."
"I don #146;t understand that," Hunt said, frowning.
"I can #146;t be more clear without asking more questions about English," ZORAC warned him.
"Leave it for now." Hunt remembered the stir caused by speculations about the propulsion system of the Ganymean ship beneath Pithead, which dated from about the same period as the Shapieron. Although the UNSA scientists and engineers could not be certain, many of them suspected that motion had been produced not by reactive thrust, but by an artificially induced zone of localized space-time distortion into which the vessel "fell" continuously. Hunt felt that such a principle could allow the kind of sustained acceleration needed for the Shapieron to attain the speeds implied by ZORAC #146;s account. No doubt other scientists were putting similar questions to ZORAC; he would discuss the matter with them tomorrow, he decided, and not press the matter further for the time being.
"Do you remember that time," he asked casually. "Twenty-five million years ago, when your ship left Minerva?"
"Twenty-five million years by Earth time," ZORAC pointed out. "It has been less than twenty years by Shapieron time. Yes. I remember all things."
"What kind of world did you leave?"
"I don #146;t fully understand. What kind of kind do you mean?"
"Well, for example, what was the place on Minerva like that you departed from? Was the land flat? Was there water? Were there structures that the Ganymean people had built? Can you describe a picture of it?"
"I can show a picture," ZORAC offered. "Please observe the screen."
Intrigued, Hunt reached out to pick up the wrist unit from where he had placed it on the top of the bedside locker. As he turned it over in his hand the screen came to life with a scene that immediately drew an involuntary whistle of amazement from his lips. He was looking down on the Shapieron , or at least on a vessel that was indistinguishable from it, but this was not the scarred and pitted hulk that he had seen from the bus a few hours before; it was a clean, gleaming, majestic tower of flawless mirror-silver, standing proudly on its tail in a vast open space that was occupied by strange constructions #151;buildings, cylinders, tubular structures, domes, masts and curves, all interconnected and fused into a single, continuous synthetic landscape. Two other ships were standing there on either side of the first, both just as grand, but somewhat smaller.
The air above the spaceport #151;for that was what the picture suggested #151;was alive with all manner of flying vehicles ranging from the very large to the very small, the majority of which moved in well-defined lanes like processions of disciplined skywalking ants.
Behind it all, soaring up for what must have been miles to dominate the skyline, was the city. It was nothing like any city that Hunt had ever seen, but there was nothing else that it could have been. Tier upon tier, level after level, the skyscrapers, terraces, sweeping ramps, and flying bridges clung together in a fantastic composite pattern that seemed to leap into the sky in a series of joyous bounds that defied gravity. The whole construction might have been sculpted by some infinitely skillful cosmic artist from a single monolith of gleaming marble, and yet there were parts of it that seemed to float detached like ivory islands in the sky. Only a knowledge that transcended Man #146;s could have conceived such a feat; it had to be yet another instance of a Ganymean science that remained to be stumbled upon by the scientists of Earth.
"That is the Shapieron as it was before it left Minerva," ZORAC informed him. "The other two ships that traveled with it are there too. The place behind was called Gromos. I don #146;t know what the word is for a place constructed for many Ganymeans to live in."
"A city," Hunt supplied, at the same time feeling an acute inadequacy in the description. "Were the Ganymeans fond of their city?"
"Sorry?"
"Did they like their city? Did they wish very much to be home again?"
"Very much. The Ganymeans were fond of all things on Minerva. They were fond of their home." ZORAC seemed to possess a well-developed ability to sense when further information was needed. "When they left the star, they knew then that their journey home would take a long time. They did not expect all things to be not changed. But they did not expect to find that their home did no longer exist. They are very sad." Hunt had already seen enough to know this. Before he could ask another question, ZORAC spoke up. "Is it okay if I ask questions that are not about English?"
"Yes, all right," Hunt answered. "What do you want to know?"
"The Ganymeans are very unhappy. They believe that the Earthmen destroyed Minerva. Is this true, and if it is, why did they destroy it?"
"No!" Hunt reacted instinctively, with a start. "No. That #146;s not true. Minerva was destroyed fifty thousand years ago. There were no men on Earth then. We came later."
"Did the Lunarians destroy Minerva then?" ZORAC asked. Evidently it had broached this same subject with others on Jupiter Five already.
"Yes. How much do you know about them?"
"Twenty-five million years ago, the Ganymeans took kinds of Earth life from Earth to Minerva. In a short time afterward, the Ganymeans and all kinds of life that were of Minerva and lived on land died. The life kinds from Earth did not die. The Lunarians grew from them and looked like Earthmen now. Other scientific people on Jupiter Five have told me this. This is all I know."
This told Hunt something that he hadn #146;t realized before and hadn #146;t really thought about. Prior to the last few hours, it seemed, ZORAC had been completely ignorant of the Ganymeans having imported large numbers of terrestrial animal species to their own planet. Just to be sure, he had one other question. "The Ganymeans had not brought any Earth life to Minerva before you left to go to the star?"
"I don #146;t know."
"Do you know if they intended to?"
"If they did, I was never told."
"Do you know of any reason why they should wish to?"
"No."
"So whatever the problem was, it must have cropped up later."
"Sorry?"
"The reason must have happened after you left Minerva."
"I think the phrase is #145;I suppose so. #146; I can compute no alternative."
Hunt realized with growing excitement that the mystery of what had happened to the Ganymean civilization was one that posed a challenge to both races. Surely, he told himself, their combined knowledge would prove capable of producing the answers. He decided it was time to complete the story of the Lunarians for ZORAC #146;s benefit #151;the story that had uncovered the most astounding revelations of recent years, even, perhaps, of all time. This story involved a change in our understanding of the structure of the Solar System and required a complete rewriting of the very origins of Mankind.
"Yes, you are right," Hunt said, after a while. "The Lunarians grew #151;we would say #145;evolved #146; #151;from the forms of Earth life that were left on Minerva after the Ganymeans and other Minervan kinds died out. It took twenty-five million years for them to evolve. By fifty thousand years ago, they had become an advanced race; they built spaceships, machines and cities. Has anybody told you what happened after that?"
"No. But I was intending to ask."
"Is it true that Minerva possessed a moon?"
"A satellite that orbited the planet?"
"Correct."
"Yes."
Hunt nodded to himself in satisfaction. It was as he and the other scientists of Earth had deduced from their investigations of the Lunarian finds.
"And tell me," he asked as a check. "Did Earth possess a moon twenty-five million years ago?"
"No. Earth had no satellite then." Hunt could have been mistaken, but he was sure that ZORAC was learning to convey emotional colorations by the inflection of its voice. He could have sworn that there was surprise in that response.
"Today, Earth has a moon," he said. "It has had a moon for approximately fifty thousand years."
"Since the time when the Lunarians became an advanced race."
"Exactly."
"I see. A connection is clearly implied. Please explain."
"When the Lunarians destroyed Minerva, the planet exploded broke into pieces. The largest piece now orbits the Sun as its most distant planet, Pluto. The other pieces, or most of them, still orbit the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. I assume you know this, since the Ganymeans were surprised when they found that the Solar System had changed."
"Yes, I know about Pluto and the asteroids," ZORAC confirmed. "I knew that the Solar System had changed and that Minerva was not present. But I did not know about the process by which it had changed."
"Minerva #146;s moon fell toward the Sun. Lunarians were still alive on the moon. It came near to Earth and was captured. It became Earth #146;s moon, and still is now."
"The Lunarians who were alive must have traveled to Earth," ZORAC interrupted. "During the time that followed, they increased their numbers. Earthmen have evolved from Lunarians. That is why they look the same. I can compute no alternative. Am I right?"
"Yes, you #146;re right, ZORAC." Hunt shook his head in admiration. With hardly any data at all to go by, the machine had unerringly arrived at the same conclusion that had taken the scientists of Earth more than two years to piece together, after some of the most vigorous argument and dissent for many decades. "At least, we believe that that is right. We cannot prove it conclusively."
"Sorry. Conclusively?"
"Finally. . . for certain."
"I see. I reason that the Lunarians must have traveled to Earth in spaceships. They must have taken machines and other things. I suggest that Earthmen should look for these things on the surface of the Earth. This would prove what you believe is true. My conclusion is that you haven #146;t tried, or alternatively you have tried but have not succeeded."
Hunt was flabbergasted. Had ZORAC been around two years earlier the whole puzzle would have been solved in a week.
"Have you been talking to an Earthman called Danchekker?" he asked.
"No. I have not met the name. Why?"
"He is a scientist and reasons the same things as you. We have not yet found any traces of things that the Lunarians might have brought with them. Danchekker predicts that such things will be found one day."
"Did the Earthmen not know where they had come from?" ZORAC inquired.
"Not until very recently. Before that it was believed that they evolved only on Earth."
"The life kinds that they evolved from on Minerva had been taken from Earth by the Ganymeans. The same life kinds were left to live on Earth also.
"The Lunarians who did not die and went to Earth were an advanced race. The Earthmen of now did not know of them until recently. Therefore they had forgotten where they came from. I reason that there must have been very few Lunarians who did not die. They became unadvanced and forgot their knowledge. After fifty thousand years they became advanced again, but they had forgotten the Lunarians. As they found new knowledge, they would see remains of life kinds from many years ago everywhere on Earth. They would see the sameness as their own life kind. They would reason that they evolved on Earth. Recently Earthmen have discovered Lunarians and Ganymeans. Now they have deduced the true events. Otherwise they would not be able to explain why Lunarians looked the same as them."
ZORAC had the whole thing figured out. Admittedly the machine had been able to start out with a number of key items of information that had taken Hunt and his colleagues a long time to uncover, but nevertheless it was a staggering piece of logical analysis.
Hunt was still marveling at the achievement when ZORAC spoke again. "I still do not know why the Lunarians destroyed Minerva."
"They didn #146;t intend to," Hunt explained. "There was a war on Minerva. We believe the planet #146;s crust was thin and unstable. The weapons used were very powerful. The planet exploded in the process."
"Sorry. War? Crust? Weapon? Don #146;t follow."
"Oh God. . ." Hunt groaned. He paused to select and light a cigarette from a pack lying on the locker. "The outside of a planet is cold and hard #151;near the surface. That #146;s its crust."
"Like a skin?"
"Yes, but brittle . . . it breaks into pieces easily."
"Okay."
"When many people fight in large groups, that #146;s war."
"Fight?"
"Oh hell . . . violent action between one group of people and another group. When they organize themselves to kill."
"Kill what?"
"The other group of people."
ZORAC gave one distinct impression of confusion. For a second the machine seemed to be having difficulty in believing its microphone.
"Lunarians organized themselves to kill other Lunarians," it said, slowly and carefully as if anxious not to be misunderstood. "They did this deliberately?"
The turn of conversation had caught Hunt somewhat unprepared. He began to feel uneasy and even a little embarrassed, like a child being insistently cross-examined over some transgression that it would sooner forget.
"Yes," was all he could manage.
"Why did they wish to do such a thing?" The emotional inflection was there again, now registering undisguised incredulity.
"They fought because . . . because . . ." Hunt wrestled for something to say. The machine, it seemed, had no comprehension whatsoever of such matters. What way was there to summarize the passions and complexities of millennia of history in a few sentences? "To protect themselves . . . to defend their own group from other groups. . ."
"From other groups who were organized to kill them?"
"Well, the matter is very complicated . . . but yes, you could say that."
"Then logically the same question still applies #151;why did the other groups wish to do such things?"
"When one group made another group angry about something or when two groups both wanted the same thing, or when one group wanted another group #146;s land, maybe . . . sometimes they would fight to decide." What he was saying didn #146;t seem an adequate explanation, Hunt admitted to himself, but it was the best he could do. A short silence ensued; even ZORAC, it seemed, had to think hard about this one.
"Did all the Lunarians have brain problems?" it asked at last, having evidently deduced what it considered the most probable common factor.
"They were naturally a very violent race, we believe," Hunt replied. "But at the time they lived, they faced the prospect of extinction #151;all dying out. Minerva was freezing all over fifty thousand years ago. They wanted to go to a warmer planet to live. We think they wanted to go to Earth. But there were many Lunarians, few resources, and little time. The situation made them afraid and angry. . . and they fought."
"They killed each other to prevent them from dying? They destroyed Minerva to protect it from freezing?"
"They didn #146;t intend to do such a thing," Hunt said again.
"What did they intend?"
"I suppose they intended that the group that was left after the war would go to Earth."
"Why couldn #146;t all groups go? The war must have needed resources that would have been used better for other things. All Lunarians could have used their knowledge. They wanted to live but did everything to make certain that they would not. They had brain problems." The tone of ZORAC #146;s final pronouncement was definite.
"All this was not something they had planned deliberately. They were driven by emotions. When men feel strong emotions, they do not always do the most logical things."
"Men . . . Earthmen . . . ? Earthmen feel strong emotions too, that make them fight like the Lunarians did?"
"Sometimes."
"And Earthmen make wars too?"
"There have been many wars on Earth, but there have been none for a long time."
"Do the Earthmen wish to kill the Ganymeans?"
"No! No . . . of course not. There is no reason . . ." Hunt protested violently.
"There can never be a reason," ZORAC stated. "The Lunarians had no reason. The things that you said are not reasons since they do the opposite to what is wanted #151;so they are not reasonable. The Earthmen must have evolved brain problems from the Lunarians. Very sick."
Danchekker had theorized that the extraordinary aggressiveness and powers of determination exhibited by Man, compared to other terrestrial species, had originated as a mutation among the anthropoids left on Minerva after the decline of the Ganymeans. It had accounted for the startling rapidity of the emergence and development of the Lunarian civilization, which had attained spaceffight while the most advanced species on Earth were represented only by primitive stone-working cultures. As ZORAC had surmised, this formidable Lunarian trait had indeed been passed on to their terrestrial descendants (although becoming somewhat diluted in the process), and had in turn constituted the most potent factor in the subsequent emergence and rise of the human race. Could that trait after all turn out to be the unique aberration that Danchekker had sometimes speculated?
"Were there never wars on Minerva?" Hunt asked. "Even in the early history of the Ganymean people, did groups never fight?"
"No. There can be no reason. Such ideas would never occur."
"Individuals #151;did they never fight? Were they never violent?"
"Sometimes a Ganymean would try to harm another Ganymean, but only if he was very sick. Brain problems did occur. Very sad. On most occasions the doctors could fix the problems. Sometimes one with problems would have to be kept away from other Ganymeans and helped. But very few were like that."
Mercifully, ZORAC did not seem disposed to pass moral judgments, but all the same Hunt was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable, like a Papuan headhunter facing a missionary.
ZORAC quickly made the situation worse. "If all Lunarians were sick and the doctors were sick too, anything could happen. It then becomes computable that they blew the planet up. If Earthmen are all sick and can make machines and come to Ganymede, they can make a war and blow up planets too. I must warn Garuth of the possibility. He might not want to stick around. Other places would be safer than a Solar System full of sick Earthmen."
"There will be no war," Hunt told ZORAC firmly. "Those things happened a long time ago. Earthmen are different now. We do not fight today. The Ganymeans are safe here #151;they are our friends."
"I see." The machine sounded unconvinced. "To compute the probability of the truth of that, I must know more about the Earthmen and how they have evolved. Can I ask more questions?"
"Ask them some other time," Hunt said, suddenly feeling weary of it all. He had much to think about and discuss with others before taking the conversation any further. "I think we #146;ve talked enough for now. I need some sleep."
"I must get lost then?"
"Yes, I #146;m afraid so, ZORAC old pal. I #146;ll talk to you tomorrow."
"Very well. In that case, good afternoon."
"You got that wrong. I #146;m going to bed. It #146;s night now."
"I know. It was a joke."
"Good afternoon." Hunt smiled as he pressed a button on the wrist unit to break the connection. A computer with a sense of humor; now he had seen everything. He carefully arranged the various items that made up the communications kit on top of his locker and settled back to finish his cigarette while he reflected on the astonishing conversation. How ludicrous and tragically comical all their fears and precautions seemed now. The Ganymeans not only had no word for war, they had not the faintest concept of it. He was beginning to feel like something that had lived its whole grubby life beneath a stone that had just been turned over.
He was just about to switch off the light when the chime on the bedside wall panel sounded. Absently he reached out and flipped a switch to accept the call. It was an announcement via the audio channel.
"This is Director Shannon speaking. I just thought you #146;d all like to know that a message was received from Earth at 2340 hours local. After an all-night emergency meeting at UN Headquarters, the decision to allow the Shapieron to land at Ganymede Main Base has been endorsed. The Ganymeans have been informed and preparations are going ahead. That #146;s all. Thank you."
Chapter Eight
And so, the incredible voyage of twenty-five million years came at last to an end.
Hunt was among the observers in the spacious transparent dome of the Operations Control Tower at Ganymede Main who watched in silence as the huge shape of the Shapieron slid slowly down toward the space prepared for it just beyond the edge of the base. It came to rest standing upright on the tips of the four sharply swept fins that formed its tail assembly, with the stern end of the main body of the ship still one hundred feet or more above the ice, dwarfing the platoon of Vegas that stood on one side like a welcoming guard of honor.
The small fleet of vehicles that had been waiting just outside the area at once began crawling forward; the leading three stopped just in front of the nearest supporting fin and disgorged figures clad in standard-issue UNSA spacesuits, while the rest formed up into waiting lines on either side. The figures assembled into straight ranks facing the ship; three stood a short distance ahead of the rest #151;Commander Lawrence Foster, in charge of Main, his deputy, and one of the several senior officers from Jupiter Five who had come down to observe. The diminutive Sun was very low in the sky, accentuating the bleakness of the Ganymedean landscape and painting sinister streaks of bottomless shadow across the frozen crags and the shattered cliffs of ice that had survived unchanging from meteorite impacts as old as time itself.
Then, as they watched, the stern section of the Shapieron detached itself from the main hull of the vessel and began to move vertically downward. After a few seconds they could see that it was still connected by three steadily lengthening bright silver tubes, the tubes clustered tightly around the central axis of the ship. The stern section touched the ice, and stopped; a number of doors slid open all around it and short access ramps extended downward to connect them to the surface. Watching from the dome, Hunt remembered the elevator shaft through which he and his companions had been conveyed after leaving the bus when they had visited the Shapieron. If his estimations were accurate, the shaft had been about as far in from the outer hull of the ship as were the three tubes that were visible now. Presumably then, the shaft extended on inside one of the tubes and each of the tubes was an extension of an identical shaft. That meant that traffic up and down the length of the ship traveled via a three-elevator system that could be extended to ground level when required; the whole tail end of the structure moved down as well to afford a "lobby." Very neat. But his further study of the vessel was interrupted as a stir spread through the dome. The Ganymeans were coming out.
Looking more gigantic than ever in their suits, a party of aliens descended one of the ramps slowly and approached the waiting Earthmen, who immediately snapped into saluting posture. In the next few minutes an exchange of formalities similar to that which Hunt had already witnessed was reenacted. The loudspeaker inside the dome broadcast Foster #146;s welcome to the Ganymeans on behalf of all the governments of Earth and reiterated a desire for friendship between all races for all time. He made reference to the plight of the voyagers and indicated that, though sparse, whatever resources and assistance the Earthmen could offer was theirs.
Garuth, who had elected to lead his people personally from the ship, replied through ZORAC, a channel from which had been linked into the dome #146;s communications circuits. He echoed Foster #146;s sentiments dutifully, though in a way that sounded somehow mechanical and artificial, as if he could not fully comprehend why such sentiments need be voiced. Garuth gave the impression of doing his best to comply with an unfamiliar ritual that served no obvious purpose. Nevertheless his audience appreciated the gesture. He went on to express the gratitude of his people that fate, while taking their brothers from them, had left them new brothers to take their place when they came home. The two races, he concluded, had much to learn from each other.
Then the waiting vehicles moved toward the ramps to transport the Ganymeans to the quarters that had been made ready for them. The vehicles could not manage more than a few Ganymeans at one time, even stripped of seats and removable fittings, so they concentrated primarily on moving the sick and enfeebled, of whom there were many. The rest, guided by the spacesuited pygmy figures now dotting the scene, began a slow trek on foot toward the buildings waiting for them. Before long, a broken procession of huddled groups and stragglers stretched across the ice from the ship to the base proper. Above it all, in the harshness of seminight, the stars stared down in stony-eyed indifference.
The dome had become very quiet. Grim faces looked out over the scene, each one an impenetrable mask preserving the privacy of thoughts that were not for sharing. No video record would ever recapture the feelings of this moment, whatever it might show, however many times it might be seen.
After a while, a sergeant who was standing next to Hunt turned his head a fraction. "Man, I don #146;t know," he muttered quietly. "What a hell of a way to come home."
"What a hell of a home to come home to," Hunt replied.
The accommodations available at Main were not sufficient to hold all the Ganymeans, who numbered more than four hundred, so the majority were obliged to remain in the Shapieron. Nevertheless, just being on a firm surface again, even if it was only the frozen ball of rubble called Ganymede, and among other beings, seemed to provide the aliens with a badly needed psychological tonic. Earthmen showed them the facilities and amenities that were available in their new quarters, pointed out the stocks of supplies and food-stuffs provided for experimentation, and the various other items which, it was hoped, would help to make life reasonably comfortable. Meanwhile other UNSA crews delivered similar loads, hurriedly ferried from one of the orbiting freighters, to the Ganymeans still inside their ship. Then the new arrivals were left in peace and to their own devices.
After a much-needed rest, they announced that they were ready to resume their dialogue with their hosts. Accordingly, an evening conference was arranged between the leaders and certain other individuals of the two races, to be held in the officers #146; mess and to be followed by a formal welcoming dinner. Hunt was among those invited to attend; so was Danchekker.