"I think we'd all better go," Lasseux suggested. "The station can operate without us for a while. And we'll never agree on who's to go, eh?"
Five figures in spacesuits clustered about the alien ship. At close range its iridescent skin looked other-worldly and vaguely frightening, gleaming purple and green and dull-bronze by moonlight. A quartz window gave a view of the ship's interior.
"I don't see anyone in there," said Gregson. "You?"
"Looks empty to me," commented Beveridge.
"Empty! Impossible!" said Lasseux vehemently. "Empty spaceships do not pilot themselves across the void to Earth. Empty spaceships do not complicatedly moor themselves outside a space satellite's airlock. Empty spaceships...."
"That's enough, Lasseux," growled the Russian. "Whether it makes sense or no, that spaceship's empty."
"Let's find the hatch," suggested Lal. "Perhaps there's someone injured inside, out of the line of sight."
The five Earthmen covered the surface of the ship, looking for an exterior hatch control. Beveridge found it first—a narrow lever extruding a few inches from the skin of the alien vessel. He called to the others, then yanked down on the lever. The hatch pivoted back, opening into an airlock.
There was the usual moment of Alphonse-Gaston as the five crewmen jockeyed for position, none willing to let any of the others get ahead of him on anything. Then Lasseux slipped through and into the alien spaceship, followed by Gregson and Beveridge almost simultaneously, and then Golovunoff and Lal.