And behind Sam there would be the first officer, Dobermann. Little, wiry German who knew more about languages and semantics than the guy who'd invented them, and the best astro-navigator you could find in this or any other galaxy. Sure, they always gave Nicholas Joel nothing but the best. That was part of it. Part and parcel of the whole damn conspiracy. Dobermann wouldn't say anything when he came in. But there'd be a thorough-going, successful, mission-accomplished look on his handsome face. Dobermann never missed. And Southard.... Still a kid, still wet behind the ears, but a hell of a promising astrophysicist, backed up with plenty of biochemistry and geophysics. It was still a big, romantic adventure to Southard, and he wore the single red, gleaming stripe of ship's second officer on his broad young shoulders as though it was the thick gold circle of a full captaincy. Joel filled the flagon and emptied it a second time. He went back to the windows, the liquor bottle and flagon still in his hands. To most men, he supposed, the panorama that spread for miles from the stern of the up-ended _White Whale_ would be a thing of sheer beauty. It would be hard for them to believe that there existed other planets far beyond the rim of their own hostile Solar System which could equal or exceed the soft beauty of the oasis they called Earth. But there it was--gently-rolling, golden desert beneath a temperate, dark-gold sun, flanked at one gently curving edge by a forest that looked as though it had been scientifically planned and landscaped for beauty. It was a big forest that covered a full third of the planet, and at its opposite edge it gave way to twelve thousand miles of unblemished shoreline which descended into gleaming, azure ocean. And in the forest, on the ocean, even on the wide expanse of desert, there were people. Intelligent, strong, peaceful, quiet people, who might have been natives of Earth's Pacific islands of three centuries ago, save that their flesh was lighter in tone; their sun was not as young as Sol. Farmers, mostly, Carruthers had reported. Some merchants, some travelers and explorers, even some men of a very young science, but, mostly, farmers ... it was the way they lived. A good way, Joel thought. A good way, in a good place. He looked through the fore-waist bridge windows, and what he saw was beautiful. But he filled the flagon again. A buzzer sounded softly from the compact secondary control console which banked a full third of the bridge's fore bulkhead, and deliberately, Joel let it buzz a second and a third time before he fingered the stud that slid the small metal door open behind him. He turned as they came through it. Fatigue and sweat lined Sam's thin face; Dobermann was audibly out of breath. Southard had to duck slightly to get into the room, but when he straightened he seemed as fresh as when the party had left the ship seventeen days before.