Invaders of Space

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OUTSIDE the control building, the spaceport lights seemed to rival the stars in number, and to outshine them in brightness. There was a good two square miles of black tarmac to be seen from the office window, reflecting the lights in wavery streaks of brightness. But there was no activity anywhere. Horn, who had no business being in the control room of the spaceport, listened to a faint buzzing, moaning sound that came out of a loudspeaker overhead. It came from a space tramp, the Theban, coming down out of the night on emergency-landing status.

The landing-grid operator, whose proper empire this control room was, leaned back in a tilting chair and negligently watched certain dials and a screen on which a single blurry bright speck showed. The speck was the Theban, not yet sighted, but on the way to be brought to ground in the Formalhaut spaceport. The buzzing, moaning sound was not a comfortable one to hear.

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