“This is crazy — I’m not going to try putting us down in somebody’s back yard,” Braunek announced.

“Find a good strip outside of town and we’ll land in sequence the way we’d already planned,” Garamond told him. He sat back in his seat and buckled his safety straps. The plane lost altitude, completed two low-level orbits and landed, with a short jolting run on its skids, in an expanse of meadow. Braunek steered it off to one side and they watched as the six other ships of the fleet touched down on the same tracks and formed an untidy line. Their propellers gradually stopped turning and canopies were pushed upwards like the wing casings of insects.

Green-scented air flooded in around Garamond and he relaxed for a moment, enjoying the sensation of being at rest. The luxuriousness of his body’s response to the silence awakened memories of what it had been like arriving home for a brief spell after a long mission. Ecstasy-living was a phenomenon well known to S.E.A. personnel, as were its attendant dangers. Rigid self-control was always required during home leave, to prevent the ecstasy getting out of control and causing a fierce negative reaction at the beginning of the next mission. But in this instance, as he breathed the cool heavy air, Garamond realized he had been tricked into lowering his guard…

I can’t possibly take another two years of flying night and day, the thought came. Nobody could.

“Come on, Vance — stretch the legs,” Braunek called as he leapt down on to the grass. He was followed in close succession by Delia Liggett, Ralston and Pierre Tarque, the young medic who completed the crew of No 1. Garamond waved to them and made himself busy with his straps.

Two whole years to go — at least! — and what would it achieve?

The sound of laughter and cheerful voices came from outside as the crews of the seven aircraft met and mingled. He could hear friendly punches being swapped, and derisive whoops which probably signified an overlong kiss being exchanged.

Even if I get near enough to the President to kill her, which is most unlikely, what would that achieve? It’s too late to do anything for Aileen and Chris. Would they want me to get myself executed?

Garamond stood up, filled with guilty excitement, and climbed out of the glasshouse. From the slight elevation, the alien settlement looked like a dreamy garden village. He glanced around, taking in all the lime-green immensities, and dropped to the ground where Cliff Napier and Denise Serra were waiting for him. Denise greeted him with a warm, direct gaze. She was wearing regulation-issue black trousers, but topped with a tangerine blouse in place of a tunic, and he suddenly appreciated that she was beautiful. They were joined almost at once by O’Hagan and Sammy Yamoto, both of whom looked greyer and older than Garamond had expected. O’Hagan wasted no time on pleasantries.

“We’re at a big decision point, Vance,” he began. “Five of our ships have sub-standard propeller bearings and if we can’t get them upgraded there’s no point in continuing with the flight.” He tilted his head and assumed the set expression with which he always heard arguments.

“I have to agree.” Garamond nodded, rediscovering the fact that looking at Denise produced a genuine sensation of pleasure in his eyes.

O’Hagan twitched his brows in surprise. “All right, then. The first thing we have to do when we meet these aliens is to assess their engineering capabilities.”

“They can’t be at the level of gyromagnetic power or magnetic bearings — you saw their aircraft.”

“That’s true, but I think I’m right in saying a magnelube bearing can be considerably upgraded by enclosing it within another bearing, even one as primitive as a ball race. All we would have to do is commission the aliens to manufacture twenty or so large conventional bearings which we can wrap around our magnelubes.”

“They’d need to be of a standard size.”

O’Hagan sniffed loudly. “That goes without saying.”

“I think you’ll find…” Garamond broke off as an abrupt silence fell over the assembled crews. He turned and saw a fantastic cavalcade approaching the aircraft from the direction of the city. The aliens were humanoid — from a distance surprisingly so — and shared the human predilection for covering their bodies with clothes. Predominant hues were yellows and browns which toned in with sand-coloured skin, making it difficult to determine precise details of their anatomies. Some of the aliens were on foot, some on bicycles, some on tricycles, some on motor-cycles, some in a variety of open cars and saloons including a two-wheeled gyro car, some were perched on the outside of an erratic air-cushion vehicle. They approached to within twenty metres of the parked aircraft and came to a halt. As the heterogenous mixture of engines associated with their transport coughed, clanked and spluttered into silence, Garamond became aware that the aliens were producing a soft humming noise of their own. It was a blend of many different notes, continuously inflecting, and he tentatively concluded that it was their mode of speech. The aliens were hairless but had identifiable equivalents of eyes, ears and mouths agreeably positioned on their heads. Garamond was unable to decide what anatomical features their flimsy garments were meant to cover, or to see any evidence of sexual differentiation. He felt curiously indifferent to the aliens in spite of the fact that this first contact looked infinitely more propitious than the wordless futility of his encounter with the Clowns. No adventure in the outside universe held much significance compared to the voyage of discovery he was making within himself.

“Do you want to try speaking with them?” O’Hagan said.

Garamond shook his head. “It’s your turn to get your name in the history books, Dennis. Be my guest.”

O’Hagan looked gratified. “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done scientifically.” He advanced on the nearest of the aliens, who seemed to regard him with interest, and the movement of his shoulders showed he was trying to communicate with his hands.

“There’s no need,” Garamond said in a low voice. Yamoto turned his head. “What did you say?”

“Nothing, Sammy. I was talking to myself.”

“You should be careful who you’re seen speaking to.”

Garamond nodded abstractedly. The thing Dennis O’Hagan doesn’t realize about these people is that they’ll never do what he wants. He has missed all the signs.

All right — assuming we can’t get them to make the bearings, is there any point in continuing with the flight? Answer: no. This isn’t just a personal reaction. The computers agreed that two airplanes of the type available would not constitute a sufficiently flexible and resourceful transport system. Therefore, I simply can’t get back to Beachhead City. It’s as clear-cut as that. It always was too late to do anything for Aileen and Chris, and now there’s nothing I can even attempt to do.

I’ve been born again.

The aliens stayed for more than an hour and then, gradually but without stragglers, moved away in the direction of their city. They reminded Garamond of children who had been enjoying an afternoon at a funfair and had become so hungry they could not bear to miss the meal waiting at home. When the last brightly painted vehicle disappeared behind the trees there was a moment of utter silence in the meadow, followed by an explosive release of tension among the plane crews. Bottles of synthetic liqueur were produced and a party set off to swim in a nearby lake.

“That was weird,” Joe Braunek said, shaking his head. “We stood in two lines and looked at each other like farm boys and girls at a village dance on Terranova.”

“It went all right,” Garamond assured him. “There’s no protocol — what are you supposed to do?”