They watched ... waited ... mindless of time. Crag felt the tension building inside him. Occasionally he glanced at the chronometer, itching for action. The wait seemed interminable. Minutes or hours? He lost track of time. All at once his hands and mind were busy with the braking rockets, dials, meters. First the moon had been a pallid giant in the sky; next it filled the horizon. The effect was startling. The limb of the moon, seen as a shallow curved horizon, no longer was smooth. It appeared as a rugged saw-toothed arc, somehow reminding him of the Devil's Golf Course in California's Death Valley. It was weird and wonderful, and slightly terrifying. Prochaska manned the automatic camera to record the orbital and landing phases. He spotted the Crater of Ptolemaeus first, near the center-line of the disc. Crag made a minute correction with the steering rockets. The enemy rocket followed suit. Prochaska gave a short harsh laugh without humor. "Looks like we're piloting them in. Jeepers, you'd think they could do their own navigation." "Shows the confidence they have in us," Crag retorted. They flashed high above Ptolemaeus, a crater ninety miles in diameter rimmed by walls three thousand feet high. The crater fled by below them. South lay Alphons; and farther south, Arzachel, with walls ten thousand feet high rimming its vast depressed interior. Prochaska observed quietly: "Nice rugged spot. It's going to take some doing." "Amen." "I'm beginning to get that what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here feeling." "I've had it right along," Crag confided. They caught only a fleeting look at Arzachel before it rushed into the background. Crag touched the braking rockets from time to time, gently, precisely, keeping his eyes moving between the radar altimeter and speed indicator while the Chief fed him the course data. The back side of the moon was spinning into view--the side of the moon never before seen by human eyes. Prochaska whistled softly. A huge mountain range interlaced with valleys and chasms pushed some thirty thousand feet into the lunar skies. Long streaks of ochre and brown marked its sides, the first color they had seen on the moon. Flat highland plains crested between the peaks were dotted with strange monolithic structures almost geometrical in their distribution. Prochaska was shooting the scene with the automatic camera. Crag twisted around several times to nod reassuringly to Nagel and Larkwell but each time they were occupied with the side ports, oblivious of his gesture. To his surprise Nagel's face was rapt, almost dreamy, completely absorbed by the stark lands below. Larkwell, too, was quiet with wonder.