He might have betrayed her and her brother, kidnapped her, all but seduced her--yet he was the sole human being she knew here. Her eyes sought him desperately, finally saw him working his way through the waiting passengers toward her. He thrust an oddly-shaped little packet toward her, said, "Here--fasten it on. It's an oxyrespirator--you'll need it. Use it whenever you feel faint." His manner was gravely polite and his thoughts were carefully masked. He hadn't, she decided, forgiven her for that _armlounge admiral_ insult of the night before. She sent her apologies mentally, received only a curt acknowledgement. She began to feel miserable. Then, abruptly, the port was opened. With his arm steadying her Lynne stepped out onto the escaramp platform, a couple of hundred meters above the flat blast-scarred surface of the field. A thin chill wind cut her face, a wind from out of a sky darker than that of Earth. Her first reaction was of gauntness, of barrenness beyond anything she had known on her home planet. The grounds around the Sahara brain-center in which she had served her apprenticeship had been lush with tropical growths--and even the desert around them had been warm. But the vast reddish expanse of the spaceport looked cold and uninviting--even the row of oddly-shaped metal buildings at its edge had a shabby eroded untended appearance. Her second reaction, as she rode the ramp down was of breathlessness. The icy air stung the insides of her nostrils, as it did her face, but failed to fill her lungs. Panic swept over her and she clutched at her breast. Then Rolf's arms were around her from behind, his long strong fingers were adjusting the oxyrespirator. Lynne breathed deeply and felt a sudden surge of exhilaration. No wonder, she thought irrelevantly, the Martians were more volatile than Earthfolk. They must be constantly high on oxygen. She suppressed an impulse to giggle as she reached the bottom of the moving ramp. Her third reaction, as she took her first step on Mars, was of weightlessness. Not the unhealthy weightlessness of the space-ship but a buoyancy comparable to that of swimming in the Great Salt Lake or the Dead Sea. Lynne sat rigidly on an urge to discover how high and far she could jump, even encumbered by the aluminum coverall. She realised her hair was blowing in the wind, pulled the parka over it. "You'll do." Rolf looked her over disinterestedly, added, "Unless you still want to go back to Earth." It must have been the oxygen that made her reply, "What for? Now that I'm here I might as well give it a run." Irresponsible or not, it was worth it to see the softness that came into his dark eyes. He took her arm and said gruffly, "Come on. We've got things to do. I'm turning you over to Tony Willis. He'll brief you. He promised to be here.... There he is, by the Administration Building."