The afternoon passed. Night fell, and dinner was a session of learned discussion of different subjects, always vehemently argued. Later Terry took the yacht's wheel, Deirdre sat comfortably nearby, and they discussed matters suitable to their more mature status. They were much less intellectual than the crew-cuts. In a few days they developed an interest in each other, but each of them believed this was just a very pleasant friendship.
Eventually, the moon rose. It was close to midnight when Nick bobbed belowdecks and came up with a report that they'd been picked up by the Thrawn Island radar and were proceeding exactly on course. Half an hour later a tiny light appeared at the edge of the sea. The Esperance headed for it, and presently there were breakers to port and starboard, the engine rumbled, down below, and the yacht lifted and fell more violently than ordinary. Then once more she was in glassy-smooth water; the air was very heavy with the smell of green vegetation. Certain rectangles of light became visible. They were the windows of the Thrawn Island satellite-tracking installation.
The Esperance's sails were lowered and she moved toward the lights on engine power only. There was no movement ashore, though Nick had talked with the island on short-wave.
After a little while the searchlight was put in operation and began to reach out like a pencil of brilliant white light. It darted here and there and found a wharf reaching out from the shore to deep water. The Esperance floated toward it, her engine barely turning over. There was still no sign of activity, except for the lighted windows.
The engine stopped, then reversed, and the yacht drifted gently until it contacted the wharfs snubber-pilings. Jug and Tony jumped ashore with lines to fasten the yacht. Still no sign of life.
"Queer," said Davis, staring ashore. "They knew we were coming!"
A moving light suddenly appeared in the sky. A fireball, which is an unusually lurid type of shooting star. It came over the tree-tops and crossed the zenith, leaving a trail of light behind it. It went on and on, seemingly slowing down, which meant that it was descending from a very high altitude. Its brilliance became more and more intense, then it dimmed. At this point the fireball seemed to plunge downward. Then its flame went out and only a faint, dull-red speck in motion could be seen.
It plunged down beyond the trees on the far side of the lagoon. Or so it seemed. Actually, it might have plunged into the sea, miles away. Then there was a faint noise which was something between a rumble and a hiss. The sound went back across the sky along the path the fireball had followed. It died away.
There was silence. Shooting stars as bright as this one are rare. Most meteors are very small, but they are visible because of the attrition produced by their falling bodies in the atmosphere that sets them on fire. They usually appear at around a seventy-mile height, but frequently they are vaporized before they have descended more than thirty miles. Sometimes they explode in mid-air and strew the earth with fragments. Sometimes they strike ground, leaving monstrous craters where they have fallen. Most meteors fall in the sea. But a meteor has to be at least down to twenty miles from sea level before its sound can be heard.
Someone came out of a building and moved toward the wharf, an electric lantern bobbing in his hand. Halfway out to the yacht he called, "Davis?"