The carrier-wave hum of the communicator died, but immediately there was another electronic noise to fill the cabin—the beep of a GCA radar taking over the sealed landing controls of the craft.
Helena had been listening with very little comprehension. “Who was your friend, Ross?” she asked. “Where are we?”
“I think,” Ross said, “he was my friend. And I think we are—in trouble.”
The ship began to jet tentative bursts of reaction mass, nosing toward the big, gloomy planet.
“That’s all right,” Helena said comfortably. “At least they won’t know I disconnected a Senior Citizen.” She thought a moment. “They won’t, will they? I mean, the Senior Citizens here won’t know about the Senior Citizens there, will they?”
He tried to break it to her gently as the ship picked up speed. “Helena, it’s possible that the old people here won’t be Senior Citizens—not in your planet’s sense. They may just be old people, with no special authority over young people. I think, in fact, that we may find you outranking older people who happen to be males.”
She took it as a joke. “You are funny, Ross. Old means Senior, doesn’t it? And Senior means better, wiser, abler, and in charge, doesn’t it?”
“We’ll see,” he said thoughtfully as the main reaction drive cut in. “We’ll see very shortly.”
The spaceport was bustling, busy, and efficient. Ross marveled at the speed and dexterity with which the anonymous ground operator whipped his ship into a braking orbit and set it down. And he stared enviously at the crawling clamshells on treads, bigger than houses, that cupped around his ship; the ship was completely and hermetically surrounded, and bathed in a mist of germicides and prophylactic rays.