me when I landed. Those
infernal savages--" Mike seethed. "They got my clothes off and they had
me smeared all over with butter and forty-'leven necklaces around my
neck and flowers in my hair! They thought I was some kind of heathen
god! Hanuman, somebody told me. The Hindu monkey-god!" He raged. "And
those two big apes think it's funny! Joe, I never knew I _knew_ all the
words for the cussings I gave those heathen before our fellas found me!
And Haney and the Chief will drive me crazy if I can't slap 'em down!
Powder metallurgy does the trick, from what you told me. That's okay,
then."

He stood up and stalked toward the front of the plane. Joe roused
himself with an effort. He turned to look about him. Haney lay slumped
in a reclining chair, on the other side of the plane cabin. His eyes
were closed. The Chief lay limply in another chair. He smiled faintly at
Joe, but he didn't try to talk. He was too tired. The return to normal
gravity bothered him, as it did Joe.

Joe looked out the window. In neat, geometric spacing on either side of
the transport there were fighter jets. There was another flight above
and farther away. Joe saw, suddenly, a peeling-off of planes from the
farther formation. They dived down through the clouds. He never knew
what they went to look for or what they found. He went groggily back to
his bunk in a strange and embarrassing weakness.

He woke when the plane landed. He didn't know where it might be. It was,
he knew, an island. He could see the wide, sun-baked white of the
runways. He could see sea-birds in clouds over at the edge. The plane
trundled and lurched slowly to a stop. A service-truck came growling
up, and somebody led cables from it up into the engines. Somebody
watched dials, and waved a hand.

There was silence. There was stillness. Joe heard voices and footsteps.
Presently he heard the dull booming of surf.

The plane seemed to wait for a very long time. Then there was a faint,
faint distant whine of jets, and a plane came from the east. It was
first a dot and then a vague shape, and then an infinitely graceful dark
object which swooped down and landed at the other end of the strip. It
came taxiing up alongside the transport ship and stopped.

An officer in uniform climbed out, waved his hand, and walked over to
the transport. He climbed up the ladder and the pilot and co-pilot
followed him. They took their places. The door closed. One by one, the
jets chugged, then roar