hills and the horizon. Cloud shadows drifted across the fields, and the
shadow of the ship reached out to meet them.

Trina rubbed her eyes in wonder.

"It _is_ like the world," she said. "Just like it."

For a moment she was sure that they were back on the world again, in
some momentarily unrecognized pasture, or perhaps on one of the sister
worlds. Then, looking along the row of hills to where they dropped away
into an extension of the plain, she saw that the horizon was a little
too far, and that the light shimmered differently, somehow, than on her
home. But it was such a little difference.

"Come on outside," Max Cramer said. "You'll be all right now."

She stood up and followed him. Elias was already at the airlock, moving
unsteadily and a little blankly, also still partly under the influence
of the narcotic.

The lock opened. Captain Bernard stepped out and went down the ladder to
the ground. The others followed him. Within a few minutes the ship stood
empty.

* * * * *

Trina breathed the open air of the planet and felt the warmth on her
face and smelled the scent of grass and the elusive fragrance of alien
flowers. She heard the song of some strange, infinitely sweet throated
bird.

"It's--it's Earth," she whispered.

Voices, eager, calling voices, sang out in the distance. Then, little
cars rolled toward them through the field, mowing down the grass,
cutting themselves a path to the ship. People, men and women and
children, were calling greetings.

"This is where we landed before," Max said. "We told them we'd be back."

They were sunbronzed, country people, and except for their strange
clothing they might have been from any of the worlds. Even their
language was the same, though accented differently, with some of the
old, unused words, like those in the legends.

"You've brought your people?" the tall man who stood in the forefront
said to Captain Bernard.

"They're up there." Bernard pointed up at the sky, and the people looked
up. Trina looked up too. One of the planet's moons was almost full
overhead. But the world was invisible, shut off by the sky and the
clouds and the light of the earthlike sun.

"They'd like some of you to come visit their world," Bernard said. "If
any of you are willing."

The tall man nodded. "Everyone will want to go," he said. "Very few
ships ever land here. Until you came, it had been years."

"You'd go out in space?" Trina s