There was a rumble Sheffield couldn’t make out. A hoarse deep voice.
Then Mark again, “It’s true. Why do you suppose all the scientists are aboard?”
Sheffield lifted achingly to his feet and rested against one wall. He put his hand to his head and it came away bloody. His hair was caked and matted with it. Groaning, he staggered toward the coaster’s cabin door. He fumbled for the hook and yanked it inward.
The landing ramp had been lowered. For a moment, he stood there, swaying, afraid to trust his legs.
He had to take in everything by installments. Both suns were high in the sky and a thousand feet away, the giant steel cylinder of the Triple G reared its nose high above the runty trees that ringed it.
Mark was at the foot of the ramp, semicircled by members of the crew. The crewmen were stripped to the waist and browned nearly black in the ultraviolet of Lagrange I. (Thanks only to the thick atmosphere and the heavy ozone coating in the upper reaches for keeping UV down to a livable range.)
The crewman directly before Mark was leaning on a baseball bat. Another tossed a ball in the air and caught it. Many of the rest were wearing gloves.
“Funny,” thought Sheffield, erratically, “Mark landed right in the middle of a ball park.”
Mark looked up and saw him. He screamed, excitedly, “All right, ask him. Go ahead, ask him. Dr. Sheffield, wasn’t there an expedition to this planet once and they all died mysteriously?”
Sheffield tried to say: Mark, what are you doing? He couldn’t. When he opened his mouth only a moan came out.