I've often toyed with the thought that there may be windows in the mind we can see out of sometimes--at oblique angles and around corners and without turning our heads. I could visualize the passengers who were descending behind us more clearly than you usually can in a mind's eye picture. Each face was in sharp focus and there was no blurring of their images as they moved. It was as if I was staring straight up at them through a crystal-clear pane of glass. In that astonishingly bright inner vision--why look up and back when I did not doubt its accuracy?--Commander Littlefield was wasting no time in setting a good example. He'd descended the spiral so many times that great height meant nothing to him. He'd be ascending and descending at least ten more times just in the next few hours. But this was his big moment. I could already picture him striding across the disembarkation section to the Administration Unit with his shoulders held straight, and announcing officially, with a ring of pride in his voice, that the trip had been completed in record time, and the rocket had been berthed successfully. He was descending now with a confident smile on his lips, his Mars' legs buoyantly supporting him. Behind him came the small group who had been closest to us in space. They were doing their best to stay calm, but there was a slight flicker of apprehension in their eyes. Our section had been the first to disembark, because Littlefield had agreed with me that it might have seemed a little strange if I'd been accorded that privilege and it had been denied to the others. Why give anyone who might have outwitted every screening precaution the idea that I might be a man apart, with so big a job awaiting me on Mars that getting started on it without delay was damned important to me. It was natural enough for one or two sections to be cleared fast and emerge with the Commander. But others would have to await their turn in line and quarantine checkups could drag along for hours. "It's funny how long it takes to get even a little lower when you're this high up," Joan said, her fingers tightening on my arm. "We're not anything like as high as when we started. But nothing down below looks any larger." "We're not a fourth of the way down, and the human eye is a very poor judge of distances," I said, reassuringly. "It would be better if you let go of my arm and just kept your right hand on the rail. We sway more this way." "When you look down from the observation roof of the North-Western University Building you can see all of New Chicago, and practically half of Lake Michigan," she complained breathlessly. "But it never made me feel as giddy as this." "You had a firmer support under you," I said. "But not a safer one. There's no danger at all. You can be absolutely sure of that. What could happen to us?"