Beneath the ground, in response to the return of the ships, ancient mechanisms whirred to life, and the tech guilds hurried to tend them. On Earth, there was a suspenseful night, pregnant with the dissimilar twins of hope and fear, laden with awe, hushed with the expectancy of twenty thousand years. The stargoers--they had come home.
"_Kulturverlaengerung!_" grunted the tense young man in the toga of an Analyst. He stood at one end of the desk, slightly flushed, staring down at the haughty wing leader who watched him icily from a seat at the other end. He said it again, too distinctly, as if the word were a club to hurl at the wingsman. "_Kulturverlaengerung_, that's why!"
"I heard you the first time, Meikl," the officer snapped. "Watch your tongue and your tone!"
A brief hush in the cabin as hostility flowed between them. There was only the hiss of air from the ventilators, and the low whine of the flagship's drive units somewhere below.
The erect and elderly gentleman who sat behind the desk cleared his throat politely. "Have you any further clarifications to make, Meikl?" he asked.
"It should be clear enough to all of you," the analyst retorted hotly. He jerked his head toward the misty crescent of Earth on the viewing screen that supplied most of the light in the small cabin. "You can see what they are, what they've become. And you _know_ what _we_ are."
The two wingsmen bristled slightly at the edge of contempt in the analyst's voice. The elderly gentlemen behind the desk remained impassive, expressionless.
The analyst leaned forward with a slow accusing glance that swept the faces of the three officers, then centered on his antagonist at the other end of the desk. "You want to _infect_ them, Thaüle?" he demanded.
The wingsman darkened. His fist exploded on the desktop. "Meikl, you're in contempt! Restrict yourself to answering questions!"
"There will be no further breaches of military etiquette during the continuance of this conference," the elderly gentleman announced icily, thus seizing the situation.
After a moment's silence, he turned to the analyst again. "We've got to refuel," he said flatly. "In order to refuel, we must land."
"Yes, sir. But why not on Mars? We can develop our own facilities for producing fuel. Why must it be Earth?"