He set the _Ra-Twelve_ down first, at the base of a mountain that reared up almost vertically for eighteen thousand feet or so out of a flat, dimly-lit stretch of rocky desert land. The _Asteroid_ came down in a very neat landing, two hundred yards away. He got there on the run, just as the front lock opened. Peer came tumbling out of it into his arms and hung on fiercely, while her skipper hugged her. "Let that scare be a lesson to you!" he remarked when he set her down. "It certainly will," said Peer, still clutching his arm as they started over to the _Ra-Twelve_. "That old Space Ghost had me going!" "Me, too," he confessed; "just for a moment, anyway! Well, let's get busy." They went over the _Ra-Twelve_ again from bow to stern, to make sure there was nothing they would want to take along immediately, and found there wasn't. They gave the unopened wall-safe a last calculating regard, and decided once more that they'd better not. Then they shut off everything, closed the front lock behind them and safetied it with the dock bolts. The plain was darkening when they came out, but the top of the mountain still glowed with red light. They climbed into the _Asteroid_, and Channok closed the lock. He started for the control desk then; but Peer beat him to it and anchored herself into the seat of command with hands, knees and feet. It became apparent almost at once that he couldn't get her out of it without running the risk of pulling off her head. "Now look here, crew-member Peer," he said persuasively, "you know good and well that if these top-heavy cargo crates have one weakness, it's the take-off!" "It could be the pilot, too," Peer said meaningly. "I've been studying the manual, and I've watched you do it. It's my turn now." He considered her thoughtfully. "Suppose you die of old age, all of a sudden?" argued Peer. "Wouldn't want me to sit here alone without knowing even how to take her off, would you?" That did it. "Go ahead," said Channok with dignity, taking a position back of the chair. "Go right ahead! This decrepit old man of twenty-eight is going to stand right here and laugh himself sick!" "You'll be sick, all right," promised Peer. "But it won't be from laughing! I'll read that chapter out of the manual to you sometime." She _had_ studied it, too, he decided. She sat perched forward on the edge of the chair, alert and cocky, and went through the starting operations without hitch or hesitation. The _Asteroid_ rumbled beneath them, briefly building up power.... Channok braced himself-- IV For the next few seconds, the question seemed to be whether they'd pile into the plain or the mountain first; and, for another improbable moment, they were distinctly skidding along upside down. Then Peer got them straightened out, and they soared up rapidly into the night sky above Old Nameless. Channok's hair settled slowly back into place. Peer looked around at him, puzzled and rather pale.