He looked up at the sky and at all the stars that he couldn't see and he cursed them all and cursed time itself and then, bitterly, his own fatuous stupidity.
The people came out of the ship and walked about on the graveled plain, alone or in small groups. They had stopped talking. They seemed too numbed by what they had found to even think, for a while.
Shock, Hugh McCann thought grimly. First hysteria and tears and loud unbelief, and now shock. Anything could come next.
e stood with the warm wind blowing in his face and watched the people. In the bitter mood that gripped him he was amused by their reactions. Some of them walked around aimlessly, but most, those who were active in the various departments, soon started about the routine business of running tests on planetary conditions. They seemed to work without thinking, by force of habit, their faces dazed and uncaring.
Conditioning, Hugh thought. Starting their reports. The reports that they know perfectly well no one will ever read.
He wandered over to where several of the young men were sending up an atmosphere balloon and jotting down the atmospheric constituents as recorded by the instruments.
"How's it going?" he said.
"Earth-norm. Naturally—" The young man flushed.