Their sameness struck Jason for the first time. Not that they looked alike or did the same things. It was the way they moved and reacted that caused the striking similarity. They were like great, stalking cats. Walking fast, tense and ready to spring at all times, their eyes never still for an instant.

Jason tried to talk to Meta after the meeting, but she was almost a stranger. She answered in monosyllables and her eyes never met his, just brushed over them and went on. There was nothing he could really say, so she moved to leave. He started to put his hand out to stop her- then thought better of it. There would be other times to talk.

Kerk was the only one who took any notice of him-and then only to order him to an acceleration couch.

Meta’s landings were infinitely worse than her takeoffs. At least when she landed on Pyrrus. There were sudden acceleration surges in every direction. At one point there was a free fall that seemed endless. There were loud thuds against the hull that shook the framework of the ship. It was more like a battle than a landing and Jason wondered how much truth there was in that.

When the ship finally landed, Jason didn’t even know it. The constant two-G’s felt like deceleration. Only the descending moan of the ship’s engines convinced him they were down. Unbuckling the straps and sitting up was an effort.

Two-G’s don’t seem that bad. At first. Walking required the same exertion as would carrying a man of his own weight on his shoulders. When Jason lifted his arm to unlatch the door it was as heavy as two arms. He shuffled slowly toward the main lock.

They were all there ahead of him, two of the men rolling transparent cylinders from a nearby room. From their obvious weight and the way they clanged when they bumped, Jason knew they were made of transparent metal. He couldn’t conceive any possible use for them. Empty cylinders a meter in diameter, longer than a man. One end solid, the other hinged and sealed. It wasn’t until Kerk spun the sealing wheel and opened one of them that their use became apparent.

“Get in,” Kerk said. “When you’re locked inside, you’ll be carried out of the ship.”

“Thank you, no,” Jason told him. “I have no particular desire to make a spectacular landing on your planet sealed up like a packaged sausage.”

“Don’t be a fool,” was Kerk’s snapped answer. “We’re all going out in these tubes. We’ve been away too long to risk the surface without reorientation.”.