"Okay," said Murph, "Out we go."
The precision door swung open quietly and the three descended to the still-smoking ground. Each set up his rapid fire electro-gun, covering the entrance and then they sat back, waiting. Nothing happened, and Murph broke the tense silence.
"Turn on the radio," he looked at Forsyth. "We can hear it from here. I'll man both guns."
Forsyth grunted and vanished into the ship. Murph heard the crackle as equipment warmed up, and listened to the voice of Sitra. Oddly enough, Jamison tensed as he heard the voice of the present champion, and Forsyth nearly cried as his son's tones came through the metallic speaker. But all the voices said the same thing.
"... subject to unprincipled attack to resist invasion of our homeland. This is the last time this warning will be broadcast." The receiver clicked, then dropped into the monotonous hum of a radio on an unused but still alert wavelength.
Forsyth returned and the three men sat, each back of an electro-gun, alert eyes scanning the alien landscape. From over a slight rise a mile off, a figure approached the ship. Murph blinked, doubting his senses, confused, then his roar broke the silence of the strange world.
"Sitra!" Just one word, but that's all he could do. She looked as she had when he'd left on this expedition, when they had said goodbye. Sparkling with sequins in her dressing room, undulating with feathers in the right places, she walked toward him with the feline grace he'd learned to love.
"Sitra!" he shouted again. Astonished, he deserted his position behind the gun and started running across the plain. Gracefully, daintily, encountering difficulties because of her spiked heels on the rough terrain, she smiled bravely and hurried toward him.
Forsyth saw the approaching figure too. He tensed with disbelief and surprise and then his voice rose excitedly.
"Jimmy, Jimmy!" What was his boy doing here? Reason faded as he watched his nine-year-old son stumbling toward the ship. He unfastened his harness and slipped from behind the gun: his boy on an alien planet, confronting unknown dangers! He must—must—get him back to the ship and the little ring of certainty behind the guns. Forsyth started across the level space, grateful that the towering hulk of Murph had recognized his boy and would, on this unknown world, help bring the kid back to comparative safety. In six hours, now, the fleet would be here. The boy could be sent home on one of the capital ships....