Chapter 1: The Nomad

Gathered around a long table in a luxuriously furnished director’s room, a group of men listened in astonishment to the rapid and forceful speech of one of their number.

“I tell you I’m through, gentlemen,” averred the speaker. “I’m fed up with the job, that’s all. Since 2317 you’ve had me sitting at the helm of International Airways and I’ve worked my fool head off for you. Now--get someone else!”

“Made plenty of money yourself, didn’t you, Carr?” asked one of the directors, a corpulent man with a self-satisfied countenance.

“Sure I did. That’s not the point. I’ve done all the work. There’s not another executive in the outfit whose job is more than a title, and you know it. I want a change and a rest. Going to take it, too. So, go ahead with your election of officers and leave me out.”

“Your stock?” Courtney Davis, chairman of the board, sensed that Carr Parker meant what he said.

“I’ll hold it. The rest of you can vote it as you choose: divide the proxies pro rata, based on your individual holdings. But I reserve the right to dump it all on the market at the first sign of shady dealings. That suit you?”

The recalcitrant young President of International Airways had risen from the table. The chairman attempted to restrain him.

“Come on now, Carr, let’s reason this out. Perhaps if you just took a leave of absence--”

“Call it anything you want. I’m done right now.”

Carr Parker stalked from the room, leaving eleven perspiring capitalists to argue over his action.

He rushed to the corridor and nervously pressed the call button of the elevators. A minute later he emerged upon the roof of the Airways building, one of the tallest of New York’s mid-town sky-scrapers. The air here, fifteen hundred feet above the hot street, was cool and fresh. He walked across the great flat surface of the landing stage to inspect a tiny helicopter which had just settled to a landing. Angered as he was, he still could not resist the attraction these trim little craft had always held for him. The feeling was in his blood.

His interest, however, was short lived and he strolled to the observation aisle along the edge of the landing stage. He stared moodily into the heavens where thousands of aircraft of all descriptions sped hither and yon. A huge liner of the Martian route was dropping from the skies and drifting toward her cradle on Long Island. He looked out over the city to the north: fifty miles of it he knew stretched along the east shore of the Hudson. Greatest of the cities of the world, it housed a fifth of the population of the United States of North America; a third of the wealth.

Cities! The entire world lived in them! Civilization was too highly developed nowadays. Adventure was a thing of the past. Of course there were the other planets, Mars and Venus, but they were as bad. At least he had found them so on his every business trip. He wished he had lived a couple of centuries ago, when the first space-ships ventured forth from the earth. Those were days of excitement and daring enterprise. Then a man could find ways of getting away from things--next to nature--out into the forests; hunting; fishing. But the forests were gone, the streams enslaved by the power monopolies. There were only the cities--and barren plains. Everything in life was made by man, artificial.

Something drew his eyes upward and he spotted an unusual object in the heavens, a mere speck as yet but drawing swiftly in from the upper air lanes. But this ship, small though it appeared, stood out from amongst its fellows for some reason. Carr rubbed his eyes to clear his vision. Was it? Yes--it was--surrounded by a luminous haze. Notwithstanding the brilliance of the afternoon sun, this haze was clearly visible. A silver shimmering that was not like anything he had seen on Earth. The ship swung in toward the city and was losing altitude rapidly. Its silvery aura deserted it and the vessel was revealed as a sleek, tapered cylinder with no wings, rudders or helicopter screws. Like the giant liners of the Interplanetary Service it displayed no visible means of support or propulsion. This was no ordinary vessel.

Carr watched in extreme interest as it circled the city in a huge spiral, settling lower at each turn. It seemed that the pilot was searching for a definite landing stage. Then suddenly it swooped with a rush. Straight for the stage of the Airways building! The strange aura reappeared and the little vessel halted in mid-air, poised a moment, then dropped gracefully and lightly as a feather to the level surface not a hundred feet from where he stood. He hurried to the spot to examine the strange craft.