They looked at each other doubtfully, conscious of anti-climax. This was little different from the far reaches of the Gobi plateau where they had trained for weary, boring months. Bryan and Hughes drew the lots as the two to don their heated, protective suits and explore within cautious distance of the ship. Williams, restless and bored, watched their horseplay resentfully. Even the tenuous atmosphere of the dead world dimmed the splendor of the heavens; why didn't they hurry and get it over with? He shivered a little watching Bryan and Hughes trudging clumsily in the sand, throwing out a comment occasionally for the benefit of the tape recorder in the cabin. "This is different from the deserts back home," Hughes said. "Back there you get the feeling they're just waiting for somebody to move in, but here...." "It's more like a haunted house," Bryan finished for him. Williams, adjusting his headphones, was conscious of a deepening of his faint uneasiness--why didn't they hurry up and get back! All they really had to do was build a cairn and plant the Federation flag. They had found a few rocks and Bryan was stooping to bury the prepared canister with the data of the flight-- Williams watching incredulously as Bryan and Hughes reeled and staggered, was dimly conscious of a sudden faint tremor along the ship. There was an abrupt metallic shrieking in his headset, a background of thundering, grinding bedlam, and over it Bryan's voice frantic-- "Cave-in! Lift ship--_lift ship_!" It had been the one constant in the shifting, nebulous mass of theory drilled into them. _They_ were valuable--the _ship_ was irreplaceable. With a last unbelieving look of horror at the gigantic crack widening under the very feet of his companions, Williams threw himself into the control seat and threw the lever over to "takeoff" position. The rockets fired and the ship rose majestically, the thousand foot fiery splendor of her trail blotting out the space-suited figures toppling into the thundering chasm. Hours later, Williams pulled himself up, looking around dazedly. The motors had shut off and the great ship was coasting noiselessly along the return track; only the computers ticked steadily and the air-valves made a muted shushing in the silence. Funny he hadn't noticed the silence on the way out--sometimes he had even been irritated with the noise Bryan and Hughes had made with their eternal wrangling over their cards. Automatically he pushed the forward viewing plate button feeling the familiar sense of timeless peace as he looked out on the eternal suns.