ed against the bulkhead, his
gaze flicking from one to the other of the crew. Occasionally his small
mustache twitched like the antennae of a cat watching a bird.

Barely audible, faint as the blue outline of a distant hill, hungry and
lost as the half-heard cry of a banshee, came the thin sound of high
atmosphere against the ship's hull.

An hour passed.

_Bup-bup-bup-bup ..._

"Shut that damned thing off!"

Ives looked up at the pilot, startled. He turned the gain down to a
whisper. Paresi left the bulkhead and stood behind Johnny. "What's the
matter?" he asked. His voice was feline, too--a sort of purr.

Johnny looked up at him quickly, and grinned. "I can put her down," he
said. "That's what I'm here for. I--like to think maybe I'll get to do
it, that's all. I can't think that with the autopilot blasting out an
'on course'." He punched the veering-jet controls. It served men
perfectly. The ship ignored him, homed on the beam. The ship computed
velocity, altitude, gravity, magnetic polarization, windage; used and
balanced and adjusted for them all. It adjusted for interference from
the manual controls. It served men perfectly. It ignored them utterly.

Johnny turned to look out and downward. Paresi's gaze followed. It was a
beautiful planet, perhaps a shade greener than the blue-green of earth.
It seemed, indefinably, more park-like than wild. It had an air of
controlled lushness and peace.

The braking jets thundered as Johnny depressed a control. Paresi nodded
slightly as he saw the pilot's hand move, for he knew that the autopilot
had done it, and that Johnny's movement was one of trained reflex. The
youngster was intense and alert, hair-trigger schooled, taught to
pretend in such detail that the pretense was reality to him; a precise
pretense that would become reality for all of them if the machine
failed.

But of course the machine would not fail.

Fields fled beneath them, looking like a crazy-quilt in pastel. On them,
nothing moved. Hoskins moved to the viewport and watched them mildly.
"Very pastoral," he said. "Pretty."

"They haven't gotten very far," said Ives.

"Or they've gotten very far indeed," said Captain Anderson.

Johnny snorted. "No factories. No bridges. Cow-tracks and goat paths."

The Captain chuckled. "Some cultures go through an agrarian stage to
reach a technological civilization, and some pass through technology to
reach the pastoral."

"I don't see it," said Johnny sho