There were a few nervous little laughs; then Councillor Simmons remarked thoughtfully, “I’m sure we could handle a seedship if we had to. And wouldn’t its robots be intelligent enough to cancel their program when they saw that the job had already been done?”

“Perhaps. But they might think they could do a better one. Anyway, whether it’s a relic from Earth or a later model from one of the colonies, it’s bound to be a robot of some kind.”

There was no need to elaborate; everyone knew the fantastic difficulty and expense of manned interstellar flight. Even though technically possible, it was completely pointless. Robots could do the job a thousand times more cheaply.

“Robot or relic — what are we going to do about it?” one of the villagers demanded.

“It may not be our problem,” the mayor said. “Everyone seems to have assumed that it will head for First Landing, but why should it? After all, North Island is much more likely —“

The mayor had often been proved wrong, but never so swiftly. This time the sound that grew in the sky above Tarna was no distant thunder from the ionosphere but the piercing whistle of a low, fast-flying jet. Everyone rushed out of the council chamber in unseemly haste; only the first few were in time to see the blunt-nosed delta-wing eclipsing the stars as it headed purposefully towards the spot still sacred as the last link with Earth.

Mayor Waldron paused briefly to report to central, then joined the others milling around outside.

“Brant — you can get there first. Take the kite.”

Tarna’s chief mechanical engineer blinked; it was the first time he had ever received so direct an order from the mayor. Then he looked a little abashed.