"It's not our only objection," said Myra, but Peachy went on inexorably.
"—you will be glad to know that we are already in the atmosphere of my planet."
"Don't be silly," said Steve. Then, uncertainly, "We couldn't be."
"You shall see," said Peachy. He dropped his wire and glided to his own ship. He returned in a moment and with a grandiloquent motion of his hand, indicated the opaque, glass-like bubble.
As they watched, it wavered and grew transparent, then disappeared.
The Horn's space-launch and the meteor ship of the Siykulan were drifting a scant ten miles above an alien planet from which immense buildings, for as far as they could see, reached up to them like greedy fingers.
Steve Horn flicked cigarette ashes onto the floor of what seemed to be the room of a Siykulan hotel.
"I don't like it one little bit," he said. "It isn't the delay so much as the affront to our intelligence."
"Yes, darling," soothed Myra. "We should have shown them our diplomas and degrees. Or challenged them to a spelling bee!"