"Look, it's almost down—c'mon up on this little hill here. You can see 'em driving big trucks or something out to meet it. What do you suppose it's got?"
"Wonder where it's from? Mars, I bet."
"Hi! Pretty sight, isn't it?" It was the tall boy who led their section. He had his thumbs hooked in his belt just behind where the gold stars were.
"Sure is," Terry said, eyes glued to the towering craft which had just settled perfectly to the ground.
"It's the Mikol VII, and it's the last shipment before the games. Guess there'll be another ten thousand or so guys, and then we can start getting all our equipment issued. They don't give us our stuff until everybody's here. That's to make it so that we all have an absolutely equal amount of training. Watch—they're starting to come out now. Just the way you guys did when you came."
Mike and Terry weren't listening. They watched as a great opening suddenly appeared near the ship's blunt stern, to which an inclined ramp was being towed by a tiny surface-vehicle. Then they started coming out, five abreast, in seemingly unending numbers.
"They're still wearing civvies," the tall boy said. "They'll get their game issue tonight, though, and their equipment, along with us. Trucks drop it off at each barracks, and then it's given out by each section leader. I guess there must be tons of the stuff."
"Where they going now?"
As the youngsters poured from the Mikol VII they were grouped into formations by adults who had come from the huge, golden building.