Now Mac touched a switch, and the CW whistle gave us a tight audio beam to follow to the source of the signal. Larson switched to the micro landing controls to ride in like a jet liner on the Frisco-Shanghai run. We slanted gently down until the forest became trees, and the little blue-green splotches were lush, grassy meadows.
And there was the tower, and the low buildings—and the spaceship!
Something happened to me inside when I saw that. It was a kind of tremolo feeling, like a note in a new symphony, a note that springs free and alone, wavering uncertainly, and you don't know which way it will turn.
In seconds that seemed like hours, we were on the ground, the ramp was jammed out and Larson was blundering down it crying like a baby.
I stood in the port breathing the warm air redolent with exotic new scents and yawped like an idiot, trying to make sense of the huge banner strung a hundred yards across one whole side of the little village. The banner read:
WELCOME, HANS!
WELCOME ALBERT E.
WE KNEW YOU WERE COMING,
SO—
And near the center of the banner was the largest chocolate cake, or facsimile thereof, in all creation. It must have been ten feet high and twenty feet in diameter.
But Hans Larson wasn't amused by the cosmic gag. He galloped off that gang-plank like a love-sick gorilla. And I'm a comet's uncle if Tina wasn't there, racing out to meet him, Larson had guessed the truth, and no wonder he hadn't had the guts to test it beforehand!
By the time I got down, out and over to where they were all wrapped up mingling tears, I had it pretty well doped out myself.