The Gentle Giants of Ganymede

'They are also our hosts,' Garuth broke in sharply. 'And they have saved our lives and offered us their home as our home. I will not have them spoken of in that manner.'

'Sorry, sir,' the crewman mumbled and returned his attention to his console.

'Please forgive the remark, Dr. Hunt,' Garuth said.

'Think nothing of it,' Hunt replied with a shrug. 'I couldn #146;t have put it better myself. . . . It #146;s what keeps us sane, you see,' he added for no particular reason, causing more bewildered looks to be exchanged between his alien companions.

At that moment ZORAC interrupted with an announcement.

'Ground Control is calling from Geneva. Shall I put the call through for Dr. Hunt again?'

Hunt walked over to the communications console from which he had acted as intermediary during previous dialogues. He perched himself up on the huge Ganymean chair and instructed ZORAC to connect him. The face of the controller at Geneva, by now familiar, appeared on the screen.

'Allo again, Dr. #146;unt. #146;Ow are zings going up zere?'

'Well, we #146;re still waiting,' Hunt told him. 'What #146;s the news?'

'Ze Prime Meenister of Australia and ze Chinese Premier #146;ave now arrived at Geneva. Zey weel be at Ganyville eenside ze #146;alf ower. I am now auzorized to clear you for touchdown een seexty meenutes from now. Okay?'

'We #146;re going down one hour from now,' Hunt announced to the expectant room. He looked at Garuth. 'Do I have your approval to confirm that?'

'Please do,' Garuth replied.

Hunt turned back toward the screen. 'Okay,' he informed the controller. 'Sixty minutes from now. We #146;re coming down.'

Within minutes the news had flashed around the globe and the world #146;s excitement rose to fever pitch.

Chapter Eighteen

Hunt stood inside one of the central elevators of the Shapieron , gazing at the blank expanse of the door panel in front of him while the seemingly interminable length of the vessel sped by outside. Behind him, the rest of the UNSA contingent from Ganymede were packed tightly together, every one of them silently absorbed in his own thoughts as the moment of homecoming drew nearer. The Shapieron was now descending stern-first on its final approach. A number of Ganymeans were present in the elevator too, on their way to join the main body of Ganymeans that had been selected to make the first exit out onto the surface of Earth, most of whom were already assembled in the stern section of the ship.

The symbols appearing and disappearing on the face of the indicator panel by the door suddenly stopped changing and became stable. A second later the wide doors slid aside and the company began spilling out of the elevator to find themselves in a vast, circular space that extended all the way around the cylindrical wall of the ship #146;s inner core. Entrances to six huge airlocks were equally spaced around the outer walls and the floor in between was filled with a dense throng of Ganymeans, most of them strangely silent. Hunt spotted Garuth, surrounded by a small group of Ganymeans, standing near one of the airlocks. Shilohin was on one side of him and Monchar on the other; Jassilane was nearby. Like all of the Ganymeans present, they were staring up at an enormous display screen set high on the wall of the central core, dominating the floor from above the elevator doorways. Hunt made his way through the throng of giant figures toward where Garuth #146;s group was standing. He stopped next to Garuth and turned to look back at the screen.

The view being shown was one looking vertically down on the shore of the lake. The picture was bisected into two roughly equal halves, one showing the greens and browns of the hills, the other the reflected blues of the sky. The colors were vivid and obscured in places by scattered puffs of small white clouds. The shadows of the clouds made sharp blotches on the land beneath, indicating the day was bright and sunny. The features in the terrain slowly revealed themselves and began flowing outward toward the edges of the screen as the ship descended.

The clouds blossomed up from flat daubs of paint to become islands of billowing whiteness floating on the landscape; then they were gone from the steadily narrowing and enlarging view.

Dots that were houses were visible now, some standing isolated among the hills and others clustered together along the twisting threads of the roads that were becoming discernible. And precisely in the center of the screen, vertically below the Shapieron #146;s central axis, a speck of whiteness right on the shoreline marked the concrete landing area of Ganyville, with the rows of neatly aligned chalets inside the perimeter now beginning to take shape. A narrow strip of green emphasized the perimeter line, denoting the zone outside the fence that had been kept clear of people. Beyond the cleared zone the land was visibly lighter in hue with the additive effect from thousands upon thousands of upturned faces.

Hunt noticed that Garuth was speaking quietly into his throat microphone and pausing at intervals as if to listen to replies. He assumed that Garuth was updating himself with reports from the flight crew back in the command center, and elected not to interrupt. Instead he activated his own channel via his wrist unit. 'ZORAC, how #146;s it going?'

'Altitude nine thousand six hundred feet, descent speed two hundred feet per second, reducing,' the familiar voice replied. 'We #146;ve locked on to the approach radars. Everything #146;s under control and looking good.'

'Looks like we #146;re in for a hell of a welcome,' Hunt commented.

'You should see the pictures coming in from the probes. The hills are packed for miles around and there are hundreds of small boats on the lake all packed together about a quarter-mile offshore. The air space above and around the landing zone is clear, but the sky #146;s thick with aircars all around. Half your planet must have turned out.'

'How are the Ganymeans taking it?' Hunt asked.

'A bit overawed, I think.'

At that moment Shilohin noticed Hunt and moved across to join him.

'This is incredible,' she said, gesturing upward toward the screen. 'Are we really important enough for all this?'

'They don #146;t get many aliens dropping in from other stars,' Hunt told her cheerfully. 'So they #146;re making the most of the occasion.' He paused as another thought struck him, then said: 'You know, it #146;s a funny thing. . . people on Earth have been claiming that they #146;ve seen UFOs and flying saucers and things like that for hundreds of years, and all the time there #146;s been all kinds of arguing about whether they really existed or not. You #146;d think they #146;d have guessed that when it really happened, it #146;d be unmistakable. Well, they sure know all about it today.'

'Touchdown in twenty seconds,' ZORAC announced. Hunt could sense a wave of emotion rippling through the ranks of Giants all around him.

All that was visible on the screen now was the waffle-iron pattern of the chalets of Ganyville and the white expanse of the concrete landing area. The ship was descending toward the lakeward side of the landing area, which was clear; on the landward side, between the landing area and the edge of the chalets, rows of dots arranged into ordered geometric groups became visible, and resolved themselves rapidly into human figures.

'Ten seconds,' ZORAC recited. The murmuring that had been building up as a vague background subsided abruptly. The only sound was the distant rush of air around the ship and the muted surging of power from its engines.

'Touchdown. We have landed on the planet Earth. Awaiting further instructions.'

'Deploy ship for surface access,' Garuth ordered. 'Proceed with routing shutdown of flight systems and prepare Engineers #146; Report.'

Although there was no sensation of motion, Hunt knew that the whole section of the ship in which they were all standing was now moving smoothly toward the ground as the three elevator tubes telescoped downward from the