He bellowed above the
outside tumult, "Bell! See anything alive down below?"
Bell shook his head. He stayed at the camera aimed out a blister-port,
storing up film-tape for later use. There was the feel of gravitation,
now. Actually, it was the fact that the ship slowed swiftly in its
descent.
Cochrane went to a port. The ship continued its descent.
"Living creature? Where?"
Jamison shrugged. He had used it as a sign-off line. An extrapolation
from the fact that there was vegetation below. He looked somehow
distastefully out the port at a swiftly rising green ground below. He
was a city man. He had literally never before seen what looked like
habitable territory of such vast extent, with no houses on it. In a
valley easily ten miles long and two wide, there was not a square inch
of concrete or of glass. There was not a man made object in view. The
sky was blue and there were clouds, but to Jamison the sight of
vegetation implied rooftops. There ought to be parapets where roofs
ended to let light down to windows and streets below. He had never
before seen grass save on elevated recreation-areas, nor bushes not
arranged as landscaping, and certainly not trees other than the
domesticated growths which can grow on the tops of buildings.
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