Cut to
computers back on Earth. Back to the control-room of the starship.
Pictures of the local sun, and comments on its differentness from the
sun that had nourished the human race since time began.
Then the cameras--Bell worked them--panned down through the ship's
blister-ports. There was a planet below. The ship descended toward it.
It swelled visibly as the space-ship approached. Cochrane stood out of
camera-range and acted as director as well as producer of the opus. He
used even Johnny Simms as an offstage voice repeating stern commands. It
was corny. There was no doubt about it. It had a large content of ham.
But it happened to be authentic. The ship had reached another planet,
with vast ice-caps and what appeared to be no more than a
twenty-degree-wide equatorial belt where there was less than complete
glaciation. The rockets roared and boomed as the ship let down into the
cloud-layers.
Television audiences back on Earth viewed the new planet nearly as soon
as did those in the ship. The time-lag was roughly three seconds for a
distance of 203.7 light-years.
The surface of the planet was wild and dramatic beyond belief.
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