At last the seemingly interminable forest ended and the girl sank wearily down on an upended suitcase. Kirk, perspiring freely under the folds of his topcoat, halted in the shelter of a tree bole, and waited.
Beyond where the girl sat was a large natural clearing covered with a fringe of winter grass. The silence was close to being absolute; only the faint keening of a chill wind and the restless creak of barren branches kept it from becoming unbearable.
Gradually his eyes became more and more accustomed to the absence of light worthy of the name, and he began to identify objects as something more than formless shadows. Alma Dakin appeared to be much closer to him than he had realized. He eyed her slim back malevolently, and when she lighted a cigarette, the wind bringing the odor of tobacco to his nostrils, he could cheerfully have strangled her for adding to his torture.
Time crawled by. An hour by reckoning was ten minutes by the illuminated dial of his wristwatch. His leg muscles began to twitch under the strain of holding the same position. Twice he managed to hold at bay explosive sneezes; he worried at being able to do so again.
The last five minutes before 12:30 was like being broken on the rack. He caught himself straining his ears for the sound of a motor, of a faint humming—of anything to indicate Orin was arriving. Nothing—and at 12:30 still nothing.
Martin Kirk had had all he could take. He was through standing out on a windy hill like some goddam—
Something seemed to flicker in the night air above the clearing—and he was staring slackjawed at a circular structure the size of a small house standing in the center of the clearing as though it had been there for years.
Before the Lieutenant could get his jaw off his necktie, Alma Dakin had uttered a cry of relief and was racing toward the nearest edge of the gleaming vessel. A panel in its side slid noiselessly back and the tall figure of a man was outlined in the opening.
"Alma!" he shouted and sprang to the ground to meet her.
They came together almost violently midway between the clearing's edge and the ship. She clung to him as he bent his head to meet her lips.