A steel building thirty stories high with a pink cloud near the top. And, separated by a hedge, a brown tent with a barbeque pit before it, smoke rising in a rigid ribbon from the chimney.
Mr. Chitterwick blinked and squinted his eyes. "What do you see?"
Distant and near, houses of stone and brick and wood, painted all colors, small, large; and further, golden fields of wheat, each blown by a different breeze in a different direction.
"I don't believe it," said Captain Webber. "It's a park—millions of miles away from where a park could possibly be."
"Strange but familiar," said Lieutenant Peterson, picking up a rock.
Captain Webber looked in all directions. "We were lost. Then we see a city where no city should be, on an asteroid not shown on any chart, and we manage to land. And now we're in the middle of a place that belongs in history-records. We may be crazy; we may all be wandering around in space and dreaming."
The little man with the thin hair who had just stepped briskly from a treeclump said, "Well, well," and the men jumped.
The little man smiled. "Aren't you a trifle late or early or something?"
Captain Webber turned and his mouth dropped open.