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t of the spaceport, rugged mountains rose steeply. Patches of snow showed here and there, and naked rock reared boldly in spurs and precipices. But there were trees on all the lower slopes, and there was not really a timberline.
The space liner increased in size, descending toward the landing grid. The grid itself was a monstrous lattice of steel, half a mile high and enclosing a circle not less in diameter. It filled much the larger part of the level valley floor, and horned duryas and what Hoddan later learned were horses grazed in it. The animals paid no attention to the deep-toned humming noise the grid made in its operation.
The ship seemed the size of a pea. Presently it was the size of an apple. Then it was the size of a basketball, and then it swelled enormously and put out spidery metal legs with large splay metal feet on them and alighted and settled gently to the ground. The humming stopped.
* * * * *
There were shoutings. Whips cracked. Straining, horn-tossing duryas heaved and dragged something, very deliberately, out from between warehouses under the arches of the grid. There were two dozen of the duryas, and despite the shouts and whip-crackings they moved with a stubborn slowness. It took a long time for the object with the wide-tired wheels to reach a spot below the spacecraft. Then it took longer, seemingly, for brakes to be set on each wheel, and then for the draught animals to be arranged to pull as two teams against each other.
More shoutings and whip-crackings. A long, slanting, ladderlike arm arose. It teetered, and a man with a lurid purple cloak rose with it at its very end. The ship's air lock opened and a crewman threw a rope. The purple-cloaked man caught it and made it fast. From somewhere inside the ship of space the line was hauled in. The end of the landing ramp touched the sill of the air lock. Somebody made other things fast and the purple-cloaked man triumphantly entered the ship.
There was a pause. Men loaded