He blew a beam of smoke at the spot that moved slowly toward the center of the radar sweep screen.
"He bought the tub he calls the Lorelei at a surplus sale, and spends all his time batting around the odd corners of space that the Survey Patrol hasn't gotten to yet." Joe puffed his cigarette reminiscently for a minute. "I remember the first time I saw him land the Lorelei. Lord, what a sight. No one else has ever had the nerve to try it the way he does it, or at least lived to tell about it. I wonder if he's gotten too old to do it anymore."
The radar man stared at the faint speck that showed above the horizon, then brought it into magnified focus on the tele-screen.
"He's coming in awfully funny," he said.
Joe got up and stood staring out through the sides of the big plastic bubble that formed the walls and roof of the control tower.
"I think he's going to try it. Watch this!"
The stubby ovaloid was angling in towards the Port from a little above horizontal, as though to make a belly landing. Just short of the field, the steering jets gave a tremendous side blast that whipped the ship into a tight upward arc. All the ship's jets winked out, and the ship whistled straight up for over a mile, began to slow, and dropped back in free fall. The ship dropped faster and faster toward the concrete apron, tail first, its jets dead.
Two hundred feet above the ramp Pop Gillette hit the bank of firing buttons and hit it hard. The heavy ship shuddered to a stop five feet above the ramp, cracking the concrete with the fury of its rear jets, spinning like an enormous pin-wheel, its rotator jets gushing fire in hundred-yard sweeps.