"That's it," I agreed. "And maybe with pressure suits, for all I know." But none of that was necessary. Cautiously I admitted the air. It was at once apparent that there was no great difference of pressure. It came slowly hissing in, stopping our ears for a moment. It was cold and dank, heavy to breathe and momentarily oppressive. But the feeling soon passed. "Very good," Carruthers said. "Open wide, Taine." I swung the bull's-eye inward ... Zura. As my foot crunched into the moist, wet snow, a pang shot through me. Perhaps I was the first living thing ever to set foot upon an alien world. How different this landing was from what I had anticipated! Dr. Livingston dead; myself a captive in the hands of these cut-throats. We had cut off the _Planeteer's_ interior gravity, and had found that Zura was little different. As I walked now out into the raw, bleak night, a sense of physical lightness was upon me. I was conscious that if I took a leap it would be prodigious. Gravity perhaps was a quarter less; but the difference certainly was no greater than that. "We're leaving everything to you," Duroh growled at my elbow. "Make it quick now, Taine, if you know what's good for you. All we want is a supply of the Xalite, and get back and get away in a hurry." Duroh and I were leading. He kept his little bullet-projector with its muzzle rammed into my side. Behind us came Alan and Carruthers. I carried the small electro-spectroscope, with its batteries slung across my back. "I have no idea which way to go," I said. "It's all a chance. Suppose we go a little way; then stop and make a test." "Suit yourself," Carruthers agreed from behind me. "We're cut off, down here in this depression. Once we get up on the level, almost anywhere should do for a start." It was a weird, fantastic night-scene, as in a moment we emerged up upon the lip of the little depression. Overhead the myriad stars glittered in an inky, frosty sky. Around us spread the wild, tumbled landscape. It was a queerly small area, viewed now from the surface level. The convexity of the little world was instantly apparent, with the horizon everywhere crowding close; the stars in the dark sky which were low at the horizon seemed hanging there, as though one might make a leap and seize them. * * * * *