Her heart thumped, so loudly that she could almost not hear the Alfavala’s squeals of terror. “A spaceship,” she breathed. “A spaceship, do you know that word? Like the ships my ancestors came in, long ago…Oh, bother! A big aircraft, Huiva. Come on!”

She whipped her hailu back into gallop. The first spaceship to arrive at Vaynamo in, in, how long? More than a hundred years. And it was landing here! At her own Tervola!

The vessel grounded just beyond the village. Its enormous mass settled deeply into the plowland. Housings opened and auxiliary aircraft darted forth, to hover and swoop. They were of a curious design, larger and blunter than the fliers built on Vaynamo. The people, running toward the marvel, surged back as hatches gaped, gangways extruded, armored cars beetled down to the ground.

Elva had not yet reached the village when the strangers opened fire.

* * *

There were no hostile ships, not even an orbital fortress. To depart, the seven craft from Chertkoi simply made rendezvous beyond the atmosphere, held a short gleeful conference by radio, and accelerated outward. Captain Bors Golyev, commanding the flotilla, stood on the bridge of the Askol and watched the others. The light of the yellow sun lay incandescent on their flanks. Beyond reached blackness and the many stars.

His gaze wandered off among constellations which the parallax of fifteen light-years had not much altered. The galaxy was so big, he thought, so unimaginably enormous…Sedes Regis was an L scrawled across heaven. Tradition claimed Old Sol lay in that direction, a thousand parsecs away. But no one on Chertkoi was certain any longer. Golyev shrugged. Who cared?

“Gravitational field suitable for agoric drive, sir,” intoned the pilot.

Golyev looked in the sternward screen. The planet called Vaynamo had dwindled, but remained a vivid shield, barred with cloud and blazoned with continents, the overall color a cool blue-green. He thought of ocherous Chertkoi, and the other planets of its system, which were not even habitable. Vaynamo was the most beautiful color he had ever seen. The two small moons were also visible, like drops of liquid gold.

Automatically, his astronaut’s eye checked the claims of the instruments. Was Vaynamo really far enough away for the ships to go safely into agoric? Not quite, he thought—no, wait, he’d forgotten that the planet had a five percent greater diameter than Chertkoi. “Very good,” he said, and gave the necessary orders to his subordinate captains. A deep hum filled air and metal and bones. There was a momentary sense of falling, as the agoratron went into action. And then the stars began to change color and crawl weirdly across the visual field.

“All’s well, sir,” said the pilot. The chief engineer confirmed it over the intercom.

“Very good,” repeated Golyev. He yawned and stretched elaborately. ‘‘I’m tired! That was quite a little fight we had at that last village, and I’ve gotten no sleep since. I’ll be in my cabin. Call me if anything seems amiss.”