Screed heard the words over the intercom. For a moment a sense of confusion, of uncertainty of purpose touched with dizzying, empty fear, swept over him. Abruptly it was gone. Confidence, more certain and invincible than ever, flooded back. He knew what he must do. And he knew that he would surely do it.
A thrill of anticipatory triumph brought a little twisted smile to his thin lips but, half turning his head toward Viola and Garten, all he said was, peremptorily, "Come."
They stood, three small figures, on the surface of Nirva, the dream planet, beside the space ship.
They were edged away from it by a discomforting mental pressure as the ship's force field snapped back on. Nirva. It seemed nothing so much. Pleasant enough, perhaps, but in a shockingly disordered, unimproved sort of way. Much the sort of thing Screed had expected.
There was a bright sun overhead with a slight rosy-pink tint to it, low green hills and some sort of town or settlement in the near distance. The sky was a deep blue, almost purple, dotted with feathery, pinkish clouds. All right. Probably it was quite suitable for exploitation as an agricultural planet. Not too much quick profit in it, perhaps, but well worth salvage.
Screed, Viola and Garten were standing near the center of a cleared field, possibly a bungled excuse for a space port. Across it, a ramshackle building leaned tiredly to one side. As the space ship rose silently behind them, some sort of wheeled vehicle started toward them from the building, raising a small cloud of pinkish-white dust as it came.
"How awful," said Viola, echoing Screed's thoughts. "It's so shamefully run-down and neglected looking."
"A Galactic disgrace," agreed Garten from the other side.
"So," said Secad Screed, the leader. "You see?"