Keren's eyes raised to him with an unexpected softness as she stood up. "I'm sorry I acted like an idiot," she said coolly. "You saved my life and you won't regret it." She shook her sleek hair and turned to the galley. "Get out of my way, brat!" she snapped at Dorothy and left the pilot room.
Norman grinned at Dorothy. "You wield a wicked wrench," he said. "I'm glad you're on my side."
The fifteen year old fugitive from a high school journalism class grinned back, wrinkling her freckled nose. "You wield a wicked heart attack," she said. "Miss Vaun's on your side now if not on mine."
He turned back to the controls. They were but a few minutes from the unexplored planet. There was nothing he could do now but take the girls along with him. A junior miss and a Venusian beauty queen, landing on an unknown world.
As they approached, Vulcan filled their window, a great smooth curve, its blue color lightening to green. Norman switched off the counteractive and cut in the landing rockets.
When Keren's exotic perfume entered the room again, the land below was a map of verdant plains, rolling mountains and glassy seas. Quickly it swelled to jungle and flashing water and, with a champagne tingle in his blood, Norman dropped toward an open well of meadow in the trees.
His excitement, however, was tinged with sadness. Johnny should be here now. They had dropped upon a score of unknown worlds together. Now he landed without his partner, in a last-hope venture to save that partner's life.
The green vegetation was a colorful contrast against the bright yellow of dead grass. They would have to be careful about fire, Norman knew. He'd seen that thick grass on other Sun-tropical worlds; it burned fast as gunpowder.
This close to the Sun, Vulcan probably had a constant wind. The gravity seemed approximately the same as Earth's. He plugged in the spectroscope to test the air and as he glanced out the window at the intake valve a slow chill trickled down his back.
It wasn't only the wind moving the grass outside. The grass was growing.