Jones adjusted something on the new set of controls he had
established for the extra Dabney field. Jones was not wholly normal in
some ways. He was absorbed in technical matters even more fully than
Cochrane in his own commercial enterprises.
Cochrane pushed to a port to see.
The ship had landed in a small glade. There were trees nearby. The trees
had extremely long, lanceolate leaves, roughly the shape of grass-blades
stretched out even longer. In the gentle breeze that blew outside, they
waved extravagantly. There were hills in the distance, and nearby
out-croppings of gray rocks. This sky was blue like the sky of Earth. It
was, of course, inevitable that any colorless atmosphere with
dust-particles suspended in it would establish a blue sky.
Holden was visible below, moving toward a patch of reed-like vegetation
rising some seven or eight feet from the rolling soil. He had hopped
quickly over the scorched area immediately outside the ship. It was much
smaller than that made by the first landing on the other planet, but
even so he had probably damaged his footwear to excess. But he now stood
a hundred yards from the ship.
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