About this story
Touchdown puts you on a plain of giant ferns and unfamiliar animals, one of which springs at the party before a rifle proves it venomous. Night brings a horned creature testing your electrified perimeter, and morning shows tracks of something strong enough to cripple a mastodon and drive it toward you — trees are already falling on both sides when the chapter ends.
How it opens
In the year 2000, the Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company had altered climate and public ambition.
Colonel BearwardenAyrault, the shareholders expect a tamed Earth; we propose an untamed Jupiter.
I verified the axis figures while reserving my enthusiasm for Jupiter.
Colonel BearwardenThe Callisto now has apergetic drive, instruments, stores, and more rifles than optimism.
Sylvia Preston accepted your promise to return but not your estimate of how soon.
Sylvia PrestonDistance is measurable; the confidence with which you spend it is not.