About eleven o'clock, earth-time, however, I awoke with a start from my day-dreaming. A light ... a lurid flickering light ... was dancing through the big glassex window. I leaped to my feet, gripping the flame gun, and peered out. A sleek, silvery little space-ship was settling down on the plain outside!
As I watched the ship ride in to land on its columns of fire, a vague uneasiness filled me. Vessels weren't accustomed to put in at the Cerean Mining field; especially swift little craft that were neither slovenly freighters nor stately liners. Gun in hand, I stepped to the door of the administration building.
The ship had landed as lightly as a snowflake on the barren plain, switched off her rockets. The air-lock clanged open and two bulky figures in asbestoid jumpers swung down; so hot was the rock from the rocket exhausts that their lead-soled gravity shoes left silvery patches as they strode toward the administration building. One of the men, to judge from his build, was a Jovian, huge, squat, mighty-thewed; the other, a slender earthman, his face hidden by the hood that protected him from the cold. I waited until they were within twenty feet of me, then raised the flame-gun.
"Stop where you are!" I said curtly. "This is private property ... the property of the Cerean Mining Company. What do you want?"
The earthman paused, studying me as I stood there in the light that streamed from the doorway.
"So big," I heard him mutter as though to himself. "Who'd have thought it! Eleven years! It's passed quickly ... for some."
This didn't make much sense, but it wasn't the meaning of his words that struck me. It was his voice. There was something about the voice that sounded a familiar chord in the back of my mind. For a moment I tried to puzzle out the disturbing memories but without much success. Then, shaking off the strange uneasiness, I raised the gun once more.
"Stay where you are! Another step and I'll shoot!"
The earthman continued to move toward me, the big Jovian in his wake.