“Somebody decided a braking ellipse or two was in order. What about line of sight?”
“No sweat. The GCA jockey—and I’d bet it’s Delafield himself—pushes a button that hooks him into the high-power dish at every rocket field on Halsey’s. It’s been all thought out. There’s a potential fortune aboard that longliner and Fields Administration wants its percentage for servicing and accommodating.”
“Wonder what they have?”
“I already asked that one, Ross.”
“So you did.”
They lapsed into silence until the rocket boomed in again from the east, high and slow. The big dish swiveled abruptly and began tracking again.
“He’ll try to bring her down this time. Yes! There go fore and stabilizing jets.”
Flame jutted from the silvery speck high in the blue; its apparent speed slowed to a crawl. It vanished for a second as steering jets turned her slowly endwise. They caught sight of the stern jets when they blasted for the descent.
It was uneventful—just the landing of a very, very big rocket. When a landing is successful it is like every other successful landing ever made.
But the action that the field whirled into immediately following the landing was far from routine. The bullhorns roared that all traders, wipers, rubbernecks, and visitors were to get behind the ready lines and stay there. All Class-Three-and-higher Field personnel were to take stations for longliner clearance. The weapons and decontamination parties were to take their stations immediately. Captain Delafield would issue all future orders and don’t let any of the traders talk you out of it, men. Captain Delafield would issue all future orders.