Harris returned to his cabin while the voice repeated the statement in other languages. Earth still spoke more than a dozen major tongues, which surprised him; Darruu had reached linguistic homogeneity three thousand years or more ago. Minutes ticked by; at last came the word that the _Lucky Lady_ had ended its ion-drive cruise and was tethered to the orbital satellite. Harris left his cabin for the last time and headed downramp to the designated room on D Deck where outgoing passengers were assembling. "Your baggage will be shipped across. You don't have to worry about that." Harris nodded. His baggage was important. More than three hundred of the passengers were leaving ship here. Harris was herded along with the others through an airlock. Several dozen ungainly little ferries hovered just outside, linked to the huge starliner by connecting tubes. Harris entered a swaying tube, crossed over, and found a seat in the ferry. Minutes later, he was repeating the process in the other direction, as the ferry unloaded its passengers into the main airlock of Orbiting Station Number One. Another voice boomed, "_Lucky Lady_ passengers continuing on to Earth report to Routing Channel Four. _Lucky Lady_ passengers continuing on to Earth report to Routing Channel Four. Passengers transhipping to other starlines should go to the nearest routing desk at once." At Routing Channel Four, Harris was called upon to produce his papers. He handed over the little fabrikoid portfolio; a spaceport official riffled sleepily through it and handed it back without a word. As he boarded the Earth-Orbiter shuttle, an attractive stewardess handed him a multigraphed sheet of paper which contained information of a sort a tourist was likely to want to know. Harris scanned it quickly. "_The Orbiting Station is located eighty thousand miles from Earth. It is locked in a twenty-four hour orbit that keeps it hovering approximately above Quito, Ecuador, South America. During a year the Orbiting Station serves an average of 8,500,000 travellers_--" He finished reading the sheet and put it down. He eyed his fellow passengers in the Earthbound shuttle. There were about fifty of them. For all he knew, five were disguised Darruui like himself. Or they might be enemies--Medlins--likewise in disguise. Perhaps he was surrounded by agents of Earth's own intelligence corps who had already penetrated his disguise. Trouble lay on every hand. Inwardly Major Harris felt calm, though there was the faint twinge of homesickness for Darruu that he knew he would never be able entirely to erase. The shuttle banked into a steep deceleration curve. Artificial grav aboard the ship remained constant, of course. Earth drew near. Landing came. * * * * *