The ball thunked solidly into the glass again and rolled out.
"That's right. We've hedged our bets the best we can. Now we'll have to wait and see. But I don't think we have anything to worry about."
"Uh-huh," MacDonald grumbled. "It works out nice in theory, but I wonder how it'll be in practice."
VIII
Phyllis let the deceleration press her into the cot and tried to relax. In ten minutes they would be disembarking in Landing City. Landing City, with its wide, paved streets and modern buildings, the neatly laid-out farms and the modern rocket port.
There was a clanging of bells, a sudden feeling of nausea, and she knew they had landed. In the excited buzz of conversation from the others, she got her small suitcase and filed toward the hatch.
They took her name and gave her the emigration bonus, and then she was on the ramp going down, smelling the cool fresh air and feeling a damp breeze against her face.
She looked down....
The modern rocket port was a scorched expanse of dirty ground, with a rusting shed at one end that she guessed was the office. Landing City was a collection of rundown shacks and corrugated huts with mud streets and wooden sidewalks running between them.