"At the take-off point?" Jennings asked. "Can you land it there?"
"Close to it," Major Eddy answered. "As close as I can."
Now the ship was in visual sight again, and they watched its nose turn in the air, turn from a bullet hurtling earthward to a ship settling to the ground on its belly. Major Eddy was playing his instrument bank as if he were the soloist in a vast orchestra at the height of a crescendo forte.
Jennings grabbed up the phone again.
"Already dispatched, sir," the operator at the other end responded.
Through the periscope slit, Jennings watched the ship settle lightly downward to the ground, as though it were a breezeborne feather instead of its tons of metal. It seemed to settle itself, still, and become inanimate again. Major Eddy dropped his hands away from his instrument bank, an exhausted virtuoso.
"My congratulations!" the senator included all three men in his sweeping glance. "It was remarkable how you all had control at every instance. My progress report will certainly bear that notation."
The three men looked at him, and realized there was no irony in his words, no sarcasm, no realization at all of what had truly happened.
"I can see a va-a-ast fleet of no-o-ble ships...." the senator began to orate.