"The lack of a message," said the Commander, "there's your only message. A slap in our faces and a kick in our teeth!" His jaw tightened. "Even if it means our finish, we've got to go down there and find out what we can. Council will be receiving all our information on the fastest hyperspace beam unless and until Nodar cuts us off. Now let's get the job done!"
Stern was the first to applaud and every man there followed suit. They had spent a gruelling three months at speeds far beyond that of light and were impatient to be finished with the assignment. Their eyes gleamed with barely-suppressed anger as Linder started calling Nodar. "We are from Supreme Council. We wish to land. Our mission is charity but we insist on the right to land."
He had just begun to repeat the message when the prompt response came through, ungarbled. "Land any time. You have been out there one week, three hours, eighteen minutes, three seconds and never bothered to call us! You could have come in at any time."
"They have known all along!" There was a great outburst of indignation. "Those meatheads making fun of us!"
Linder held down the local sender at OFF while he turned to Stern. "A good sign for our safety, though, heh?"
"Yes," Stern agreed emphatically. "If they wanted to pull us into a trap they wouldn't be annoying us at this stage. They probably won't throw any obstacles in our way when we leave."
Linder nodded and pointed at Barnes. "Your team will keep communications open and we'll get data back to Terra as long as we can."
The stubby man saluted smartly and left with his five aides for Message Center.
"Go down to 18,000, sir?" Crawford asked. "18.9 should give us the best descent trajectory."
"First I'll notify them. We're dealing with a touchy bunch. An unannounced hyperdrive boom might send them into some nasty defense scramble." He spoke into his wrist microphone. "Hello, Nodar. Hello, Nodar. This is Commander Linder speaking, Linder of the Probe. We are coming down within the next two hours. This will necessitate a brief return to hyperspace and there—."