Everything else ready, he watched anxiously, then admiringly, as Jon started the tubes firing, balanced them and took them off with the throwing of his one switch. In his visiplate the elder man watched with intense interest the scenery over which they were passing—Jon had set course so they would go completely around this world of Two until they came to that desert. Mr. Carver made many enthusiastic comments about this splendid planet that now bore his wife's name.
"Yes, and Three's just as nice, only colder," Jon reported eagerly. "Folks who like cold weather can live there without too much trouble at all."
"It's funny, though," Jak declared with a frown, "that there's no protoplasmic life there at all. That we could find," he hastened to add.
"Lots of vegetation, though," Jon added. "That means the soil will be good for growing things, doesn't it?"
"It certainly sounds like it." His father smiled. "The colonists may have to adapt their Earth-seeds to fit, and probably bring their own worms and bees and so on. But they should be able to farm there. From your surveys, it appears there are plenty of minerals so they can start mines and factories of all kinds right away. Yes, this looks like a pretty good solar system."
"You bet, Pop. You sure picked a winner in this one," Jon's eyes gleamed with satisfaction.
"I had an idea, from the spectroscopic examinations we made 'way back there near Sirius, that we'd find it fairly good here. But, to be honest, I didn't dare hope it would be this good. To tell the truth, I was really more interested in that line which seemed to indicate that fuel-stuff, than I was in new planets for colonization, although we needed those, too, to make the trip pay off."
Before long they came above the beginning of that well-remembered desert, and Jon slowed and circled, preparatory to landing.
Jon kept his eyes upon his instruments, and when he saw they were close to the actual latitude and longitude, he killed the speed to their slowest cruising range, and their height to a few hundred yards. When he knew he was almost at the exact spot, he stared intently into his pilot's magnifying visiplate, at the same time keeping his fingers tautly on the landing switch.
Soon, in his plate, he saw the top of that cache cover in the nearing distance. He circled until he judged he could land close to it, then closed the switch.