On the landing pad, Phoenix I squatted darkly, clumsily. The moon washed its bulbous flanks with cascading light that flowed down the long surfaces of the hull and disappeared into the absorbent blackness without trace. Tiny prickling reflections of stars glinted from the once-polished metal.
At the edges of the Base, where wire meshes stretched up out of the desert dividing the things of the desert from the things of men, nervous patrols paced forlornly in the night.
One of the blockhouses at the inner edge of the landing area presented two yellow rectangles of windows to the night. Inside the blockhouse were two men, talking.
One of the men was in uniform, and his collar held the discreet star-and-comet of a staff officer, SpaServ. He was young for his rank, perhaps in his early forties, with gray eyes that now were harried. He sat on the edge of his desk regarding the other man.
The second of the two was a civilian. He was slumped in an oddly incongruous overstuffed chair, with his legs stretched out straight before him. He held the bowl of an unlit pipe in both hands and sucked morosely on the stem as the SpaServ brigadier talked. He was slightly younger than the other, but his hair was beginning to thin at the temples. He had sharp blue eyes that regarded the tips of his shoes without apparent interest. Colin Meany was his name, and he was a psychiatrist.
Finally General Banning finished his account of the afternoon, raised his hands in a shrug, and said, "That's it. That's all we have."
Colin Meany took his pipe out of his mouth and regarded the tooth-marked bit curiously. He shoved it in his coat pocket and walked over to the window, looking out across the moon-flooded flat to the looming, ominous shape of Phoenix I. He stood with his hands clasped behind him, rocking gently back and forth on his toes.
"Ugly thing," he said casually.
Banning shrugged. The psychiatrist turned away from the window and sat down again. He began to fill his pipe.
"Where is he now?" he asked.