Haarland stood up. “All right,” he said. “Sorry I snapped at you. Come on; I’ll go up to the ship with you.”
And that was the way it happened. Ross found himself in the longliner, then with Haarland in the tiny, ancient, faster-than-light ship which had once been tender to the ship that colonized Halsey’s Planet. He found himself shaking hands with a red-eyed, suddenly-old Haarland, watching him crawl through the coupling to the longliner, watching the longliner blast away.
He found himself setting up the F-T-L course and throwing in the drive.
..... 5
ROSS was lucky. The second listed inhabited planet was still inhabited.
He had not quite stopped shuddering from the first when the approach radar caught him. The first planet was given in the master charts as “Ragansworld. Pop. 900,000
