There was no emergency barrier down on this ramp. The heavy, Earth-pressured air of the north building whistled out into the desert. As from a punctured balloon, the pressured atmosphere of the entire Canfell Hydroponic Farm rushed after it, roaring up the ramp, in a moment stripping the vats, the upper level and the north building. Caught in the tornadic blast, Dark could only cling to a bolted-down cot with one hand, and hold onto Maya around the waist with the other. As the pressure dropped precipitately and oxygen no longer touched his lungs, he could actually feel his alternate metabolism shifting into gear, he could feel his breathing stop and the glow of solar energy begin to spread through his body. As the wind faded and died, Dark released Maya and rose exultantly to his feet. Down below, he knew, Nuwell and the Masters were gasping out their lives in the thin air, like beached fish. Their recent attacker, Vidonati, lay half out of the door of the control room, his hands clutching convulsively at the floor. "That's not the way I'd planned it, but it's just as good!" Dark exclaimed. "We've taken the farm!" Then he remembered. Maya had no marshelmet! Appalled, struck to the heart, he turned in his tracks. Maya was standing behind him, calmly trying to rearrange her raven hair, tangled by the raging rush of wind. "What's the matter?" she asked quietly, becoming aware of Dark's intent gaze. "Maya! You don't have a helmet on! Are you breathing?" She was silent for a moment, apparently examining herself. "Why, no, I don't believe I am," she replied, just as calmly. "How can you ...? Wait a minute!" Dark sent his mind into the invisible. His probing thoughts fled over desert and lowland, seeking. They found the Martian, Qril, and he recognized that Qril responded immediately. _Qril, how is it that Maya is able to live in the Martian atmosphere without breathing?_ asked Dark telepathically. _She is as you_, replied Qril. _When she was a child, living among the Martians, we altered her physiological and genetic structure so that she, also, is able to utilize solar energy and exist without oxygen_. _Why didn't you tell me this before, at Ultra Vires?_ demanded Dark. _You did not ask_, replied Qril, and the mental contact faded out. Dark turned to Maya, his face alight. "Darling," he said, "our children will need no embryonic alterations. They will be born as we are, able to live under Martian conditions. And never again will either of us ever have to wear a marsuit!" He felt the questing touch of Cheng's mind. Cheng: _Are you there, Dark?_ Dark: _Here._ Cheng: _Are you all right?_ Dark: _We're both fine! We're coming out. Then we'll take off at once for the Icaria Desert, before the Mars City task force gets here._ He and Maya walked hand in hand through the blasted airlock. The three groundcars were there, waiting.