It was like stepping into an oven. The sand was still hot from the sunshine just ended. The air was so utterly dry that Bordman instantly felt it sucking at the moisture of his nasal passages. In ten seconds his feet--clad in indoor footwear--were uncomfortably hot. In twenty the soles of his feet felt as if they were blistering. He would die of the heat even at night, here! Perhaps he could endure the outside near dawn, but he raged a little. Here Amerinds and Africans lived and throve, but he could live unprotected for no more than an hour or two--and that at one special time of the planet's rotation! He went back in, ashamed of the discomfort of his feet and angrily letting them feel scorched rather than admit to it. Aletha turned another page. "Look here!" said Bordman. "No matter what you say, you're going to go back on the _Warlock_ before--" She raised her eyes. "We'll worry about that when the time comes. But I think not. I'd rather stay here." "For the present, perhaps," snapped Bordman. "But before things get too bad you go back to the ship! They've rocket-fuel enough for half a dozen landings of the landing-boat. They can lift you out of here." Aletha shrugged. "Why leave here to board a derelict? The _Warlock's_ practically that. What's your honest estimate of the time before a ship equipped to help us gets here?" Bordman would not answer. He'd done some figuring. It had been a two-month journey from Trent, the nearest Survey base, to here. The _Warlock_ had been expected to remain aground until the smelter it brought could load it with pig-metal. Which could be as little as two weeks, but would surprise nobody if it was two months instead. So the ship would not be considered due back on Trent for four months. It would not be considered overdue for at least two more. It would be six months before anybody seriously wondered why it wasn't back with its cargo. There'd be a wait for lifeboats to come in, should there have been a mishap in space. Eventually a report of non-communication would be made to the Colonial Survey headquarters on Canna III. But it would take three months for that report to be received, and six more for a confirmation--even if ships made the voyages exactly at the most favorable intervals--and then there should at least be a complaint from the colony. There were lifeboats aground on Xosa II, for emergency communication, and if a lifeboat didn't bring news of a planetary crisis, no crisis would be considered to exist. Nobody could imagine a landing-grid failing.