al order.

Place a Senior E under arrest?

Certainly, a Senior E. It was one thing to allow these birds to wander
around, free as air to do as they please. It was one thing to let them
get away with making such statements as "The police attitude toward the
people is the major cause of crime." It was something else, and time the
E's found it out, for them to make any overt move to interfere with the
police in their performance of duty.

Personally, he hoped the old E would be fool enough to resist. It would
strengthen his case.

The police captain obeyed the first of the orders without a hitch. He
proceeded to the scene of the crime.

He obeyed the second order. He ignored the command of E McGinnis,
received over the ship's communicator when they arrived at the scene of
the crime, to stand clear of the planet. What policeman moving in to
make an arrest for an illegal act--and certainly running around stark
naked, posing in lewd and indecent postures in full view of the public,
was an illegal act--would pay any attention to the request of an
onlooker which amounted to "Aw, let 'em alone, copper"?

There was no communication at all from the Junior E on the planet's
surface, so the third order did not apply.

It was in trying to execute the fourth order that he ran into trouble.

He passed inside the orbits of the three other ships now circling the
planet, the police observer ship, the E McGinnis ship, the E.H.Q.
floating laboratory. He gave orders to lower his ship into Eden's
atmosphere.

The proper buttons were pushed, the proper levers pulled.

And nothing happened.

It was as if some invisible shield held him back. He could not lower the
ship into the atmosphere gently, taking the normal precautions against
crashing. Very well then, not so gently. Full power. And nothing
happened. They lowered not another inch.

A thrust. A thrust at tangent to the surface. Once past whatever this
barrier was, they could skim the surface and come back to land on the
proper site. They backed the ship farther out into space. They made
their thrust with full speed and momentum.

There was no sensation when they hit the barrier, but they did not
penetrate it. It was as if a flat stone had been skipped across slick
ice, and they shot back out into space again. The tangent penetration
would not do.

Very well, then. A direct thrust, full power, straight down. Be prepared
to put braking forces into immediate power, lest they