"When we gonna land, Skipper?" Alex Baranov asked me. It was a gross breach of discipline, but I forgave him. Alex was the second engineer, an eager kid on his first flight out from Earth. Like most youngsters, he thought there was romance in space, but right now he was landsick. Even worse than most of us. And, like most kids, he'd leap where angels'd dread to walk on tiptoe.
"We'll land," I assured him. "You'll be down there pretty soon."
He hurried off to tell the others.
We set the ship down in the middle of one of the continental land masses in an open plain surrounded by forest and ran a few more tests before we stepped out, planted the flag, and claimed the place for the Confederation. After that we had an impromptu celebration to thoroughly enjoy the solid feel of ground under our feet and open sky overhead. It lasted all of five minutes before we came to our senses and posted a guard.
It was five minutes too long. Alex Baranov had a chance to get out of sight and go exploring, and, like a kid, he took it. We didn't miss him for nearly ten minutes more, and in fifteen minutes a man can cover quite a bit of territory.
"Anyone see where he went?" I asked.
"He was wearing a menticom," one of the crew offered. "Said he wanted to look around."
"The idiot!" I snapped. "He had no business going off like that."
"Nobody told him not to," Dan Warren said. Dan was my executive officer, and a good hand in case of trouble, but he left the command decisions to me, and of course I figured that everybody knew the cardinal rule of first landings. The net result was that Alex had disappeared.
I went back into the ship and broke out another menticom.