"I almost wish the medical clearance hadn't come through after all," said Roger moodily.
"How so?"
"Then we'd be still quarantined up there. We wouldn't be able to come down and get another look at the kind of place this really is."
"I don't know which is worse—to be cooped up in quarantine or to go wandering around a dismal hole like the Enclave." Alan stood up, stretched, and took a deep breath. "Phew! Get a lungful of that sweet, fresh, allegedly pure Terran air! I'll take ship atmosphere, stale as it is, any time over this smoggy soup."
"I'll go along with that. Say, look—a strange face!"
Alan turned and saw a young starman of about his own age coming toward them. He wore a red uniform with gray trim instead of the orange-and-blue of the Valhalla.
"Welcome, newcomers. I suppose you're from that ship that just put down? The Valhalla?"
"Right. Name's Alan Donnell, and this is Roger Bond. Yours?"
"I'm Kevin Quantrell." He was short and stocky, heavily tanned, with a square jaw and a confident look about him. "I'm out of the starship Encounter, just back from the Aldebaran system. Been in the Enclave two weeks now—with a lot more ahead of me."
Alan whistled. "Aldebaran! That's—let's see, 109 years round trip. You must be a real old-timer, Quantrell!"