With the various members of the Carver family busy with their studies and chores, it did not seem long before they came close to Planet Two, and Jon laid down his reelbooks to begin preparing for the landing. He had started down through the atmosphere when Jak suddenly roused.
"Why don't we circle around a bit and look for our townsite from the air?"
"I was going to," Jon said with a disarming grin. "Just wanted to get close enough to see well before I called you in to help me decide."
At about five miles above the surface he leveled off and began circumnavigating the globe. He headed in the direction which—he remembered from their previous visit—would soonest bring them near the great ocean, but zigzagged from north to south as they proceeded eastward.
"Watch for rivers," he said. "A fairly large one that empties into the ocean."
They were about halfway between the north pole and the equator, as they had already decided the climate in that latitude would probably be the most suitably average. In a few minutes of traveling they saw ahead a plain that looked to be just what they wanted.
Quickly Jon maneuvered the ship downward and soon landed. They were just a few miles from the edge of the great ocean, at the mouth of a large river of considerable width and length, and not far from an extensive forest to the south, and a range of considerable mountains to the west.
"Hope the soil here is good," Jon commented as he locked the controls in neutral. "Everything else seems perfect."
"The spec-anal shows minerals fairly close, in those hills to the west." Jak was eagerly peering from the port.
"I know—that's why I chose this spot. Nice flat land here; good river; close to the ocean, mountains less than a hundred miles away, and not too high. Ideal place, I'd say.