The nurse shuddered a bit. Dusty merely laughed and said, "So now we know where we stand. And now knowing, I'm hungry."
"Of course. We'll all dine at the meeting."
"Oh?"
"Naturally. You're here, aren't you? Marandis is not going to send you back without a chance for you to present your case. There is a joint meeting of the Bureaus of Galactic Navigation and New Colonial Affairs. It will start with a formal breakfast during which no business will be conducted. Then, once you are all acquainted with one another, the business of the day will be discussed and a decision rendered."
She led them to the spacelock and Dusty Britton had his first glimpse of a Marandanian spaceport. There was precious little to see, which made it even more stunning to the senses.
The size of the place was completely obscured by spacecraft which stood like the trunks in a pine forest. Most of the craft were larger than Dusty's and so obscured his vision. Between those nearby (which were rather wide-set) there were others at a little distance, and beyond them there were still others, and behind those others were more and more and more until all that could be seen were the tips of the upthrust noses. The horizon was an irregular pattern of pointed shapes that was somewhat reminiscent of the Greek egg and dart moulding of ancient architecture.
Through some of the more distant lines of sight, the far spacecraft had a haze around it, as though it were miles and miles away.
There was not a building to be seen, only spacecraft.
Dusty gave up trying to penetrate the forest to the edge of the 'port and directed his attention to his nearby surroundings.
A road wound around in a zigzag manner, meeting and dividing around each ship. There was an empty landing block not far from them, and after a bit of puzzled interest—the shape of the block caught Dusty's memory—he decided that the landing block was hexagonal. So were all the rest of the landing blocks. Hexagonal pattern, like the well-known hexagon tile floor; the road was the marker-lines between the hex-shaped landing blocks. Those that were empty showed the effect of heavy masses parked on them; a bit of char now and then; a chip or a crack, probably made by a rough landing; a deep seam repaired with some sort of cement or concrete (or whatever the Marandanians had devised or discovered as a superior material) and at least one place where the edge of the block had been chipped deeply as though the pilot had missed his landing point and come down on the edge of the hexagonal block.