So I did, but there was nothing cooking. The circuit was as cold as a divorcee's kiss. And that was bad, because Biggs was growing nervouser and nervouser by the minute. He wanted to get back to Earth so bad he could taste it. But that's Biggs for you. Thorough and painstaking if he undertakes a thing. And he wasn't going to leave Themis until he knew this situation was completely cleared up.
But at last the darkness outside began to lift, and Cap Hanson fidgeted.
"Well, here's what you were waitin' for, boy. Now what?"
"Now," said Biggs, "we see what happens. Are they coming back from their city?"
They were. The Themisites were galloping across the plains toward the Saturn again. They were the romping, roamingest bunch of mavericks I ever saw. "Yup!" I said.
"And—and their attitude?"
"Friendly, of course!" snorted the skipper. "Why shouldn't they be? Didn't we just sign a peace treaty with them? Lanse, I don't know what's ailin' you! You—"
He never finished his denunciation of Biggs. For at that moment the oncoming Themisites hove within hurling distance—and started hurling! Only this time it was not, as it had been a short while before, flowers. This time their expressions of "everlasting peace and affection" were offered with—stones, arrows, and spears!
Well, Hanson's roar of rage threatened to lift the top clean off the control turret.