“Christmas?” He looked down at the paper, then up at John. “Oh, Christmas! I see. I like it fine!"

“Don't they still celebrate Christmas back on Earth? I know true Christianity is dead, but I thought the trappings still lingered."

“Oh, we do! But we call it Exmas, and Earth's on a different calendar from Godsworld; it's only October to me. I haven't adjusted to the change yet."

“Oh; here, tomorrow is Christmas Eve, the day after that is Christmas, and the day after that is New Year's Day, the start of Anno Domini Two Thousand Five Hundred and Ninety-Four-that means ‘the year of the Lord'."

“I know that, I'd just forgotten for a moment. On Earth it's October, Twenty-Five Forty-Three, Standard Reckoning."

John nodded. “What do they reckon from?"

“The same thing you do, except that your years are shorter. That's not important. John, this invitation doesn't mention you anywhere."

“Oh?"

“Don't you want to have some say in what happens? I want you to-you promised me a job with ITD, but this Seth Bound-for-Glory never did."

John shrugged. “I'd like to help run things, but I won't insist. If you're worried about your own job, just demand they hire you before you give them the invitation-or at least before you tell them where Savior's Grace is. You just get them to come here, and I'll take care of myself."

“All right,” Kwam? said. “There's a ship going out tomorrow morning; I'll see if I can get on that. I'm due for some vacation time."

That reminded John of something. “Why are they flying their starships by daylight now?” he asked.

“Oh, that's your doing! You made such a big point of telling everyone that we're from Earth that there didn't seem to be any reason to hide it any more; they've been flying in daylight since four days after you left.” He rolled up the invitation and stood. “I should get going; I'll be lucky to get on this flight as it is.” He paused. “I'm not sure whether I should thank you or not."

“Don't worry about it,” John said. “We'll see how things turn out."

“Right. I'll probably be coming back on an ITD ship and landing directly at Savior's Grace, I guess."

“I'll be there waiting for you,” John said; he reached out and shook Kwam?'s hand in farewell.

The Earther flung his cloak about his shoulders and marched out into the snow.

Chapter Twenty

“Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbor's house; lest he be weary of thee, and so hate thee."-Proverbs 25:17

Despite his attempts to earn his keep by shoveling snow, carving nearwood, and breaking up ice for drinking water, it was obvious to John that he was wearing out his welcome in Savior's Grace. Although few said so openly, he doubted that more than a handful of the villagers still believed an ITD ship was coming.

John was not entirely sure he believed it himself. He had hurried back to Isachar, unsure whether the ship might come before he could reach Savior's Grace, but his haste turned out to be completely unnecessary. January and February passed without any sign of a ship, and with the first week of March and the spring thaw he began to wonder if something had gone wrong. Had Bechtel-Rand discovered what Kwam? had in mind, and somehow stopped him? Had ITD refused to cooperate for some reason? Had they thought it was a trick, or dismissed Godsworld as not worth fighting over? Had Bechtel-Rand shot down the ITD ship?

Late in the afternoon of the eighth of March he was working in a nearwood field, carving away the soft red pulp from an unusually large, fine mass, when he glanced at the sky for the thousandth time and saw a distant glittering.

He froze, the machete half-raised, and stared.

The glittering grew brighter; something shiny was falling out of the sky.

He dropped the machete and ran for the meadow, shouting, “The ship! The ship's coming! Clear the field!"

Around him his fellow workers stopped and stared. “Get back here!” the nearwood field's owner called; John ignored him and kept running.

By the time he was past the stone fence he could make out the ship's general contours; it was roughly cylindrical, with several odd lumps and bulges. It was descending rapidly; John had no way of judging its size, but it was obviously enormous.

He charged full-tilt down the hillside toward the meadow chosen for the landing, just barely managing to slow down in time to avoid colliding with the wire surrounding it. The ship, too, slowed as it neared the meadow; its shadow spread across the field.

Others had seen the immense vessel's approach now, and were trickling down toward the fence in twos and threes. Following John's example, none stepped over into the meadow.

The ship was now dropping so slowly that it scarcely seemed to be moving at all, and that, combined with the utter silence of its descent, gave the scene an air of unreality. John wondered for a moment if its arrival were all just a wish-fulfilling dream. He stared up at the ship, now only a few hundred feet from the ground as best he could estimate.

He tried to guess its size, comparing its shadow to the length of the meadow and the villagers who were now crowding the uphill side of the fence, and came up with a diameter of two hundred feet. That seemed unreasonably large-it was certainly far bigger than the ships he had seen in the Citadel of Heaven-but within the bounds of possibility.

The ship seemed to suddenly accelerate, as if it were simply falling the last few yards, and there was a sudden roar of wind accompanying it, followed by an earth-shaking boom as it struck the ground.

That was followed by a long moment of silence as the thing settled into the soil. No one in the watching crowd spoke; all just stared in silent amazement.

Now that the thing was down, John revised his earlier estimate. It was over a hundred feet in diameter, but well short of two hundred. It stood upright on one flat end, and he judged the height at roughly five or six hundred feet. Not the monster he had first thought it, but quite big enough. The sides were gleaming silvery metal, for the most part, with red and white patterning; in addition to the bulges he had seen during the descent he could now make out odd bits of piping, hatchways, and printed messages. The only one large enough for him to read at this distance was also the only one that was neither red nor white; halfway up the side facing him were three immense blue letters, with narrow horizontal yellow stripes across them.

The letters were ITD, removing any possible doubt about the ship's origin.

He glanced away from it at the villagers; it appeared that the entire population of Savior's Grace was lined up along the fence, staring at the cylinder. This was the ideal opportunity to impress them, to convince them once and for all that he was a man due their respect, not just a swindler. He climbed up on the stone baseline and lifted one leg over the wire.

Before he could put his foot down on the other side and swing himself completely over there was a sudden change in the crowd's silence, as if everyone had caught his or her breath at the same instant. John looked over the line of faces, but saw no explanation there; he turned, still straddling the wire, and looked up at the ship.

A hatchway had opened, some fifty feet off the ground, effectively stealing his thunder. Hurriedly he finished crossing the fence and stepped down into the meadow, a hundred yards from the towering vessel's side.

A man was standing in the open hatchway. John looked up and waved.

The man leaned forward, and called, “Hlo, John, is that you? We made it!"

John smiled, and shouted back, “J'sevyu, Kwam?! Welcome to Savior's Grace!” His importance had been neatly established, right at the start.