The scout came roaring over the horizon; but no one could hear it in the airlessness. Somebody saw it and said, "Here comes Erskine!" and everybody turned to watch. The scout was a gaudy red and came in low over the surface of the atmosphere. It put out its pontoons and came to a landing near the raft. Then it taxied over slowly, its jets running at their lowest speed. When it got very close it cut its motors and men in clumsy space suits grappled it and made it fast with ropes. Erskine hopped out of the scout. You could tell who it was from the cocky stride and the colorfully decorated suit, which he spent hours in painting and shining. "Who's Nils Borgmann?" he asked. "The lucky man gets a trip upstairs for tonight. You scow jockeys will have to sleep out in the cold again." Actually, the raftsmen lived in an air-filled bubble in the center of the raft which was comfortable and warm. But it was a standing joke that the men "upstairs," in the ship that wheeled idly in its orbit around Uranus, slept in feather beds every night with all the comforts of home except women--and some rumors even gave them that advantage. "Here I am," Borgmann said. "Let's go," Erskine said. "This smell offends my nostrils. I just don't know how you guys stand it down here." Somebody guffawed, and somebody else began singing, "Swing low, sweet chariot, comin' for to carry me home...." * * * * * Borgmann walked to Erskine's side and let the scout pilot boost him into the cabin. "So long, suckers," Erskine said as he climbed into the scout and clanged the door shut behind him. He pressed a button which cleared out the faint traces of Uranian atmosphere in the cabin and pumped in an Earth-type mixture. Then he unscrewed his helmet and grinned at Nils, who by then was struggling with his own. "I hear you got your sixth one today," he said, starting up the jets. "That's right," Nils answered self-consciously. "Well, that's good. There aren't many men with six lions to their credit." He took off, and Nils could feel the scout rising, heading out into space. Erskine was busy with his navigation, and Nils was glad that there was little time for conversation. He leaned back and closed his eyes. He was always tired after a plunge. But sleep would not come, and he roused himself and peered out of the porthole. By this time the raft had dwindled to a speck on the vast, featureless surface, and the scout had climbed high above it. The sky was black, even though it was a region of eternal day. On the raft, far below, little sparkles of light moved in a random dance--the headlamps of the men. But out and away the scout moved until the horizon lay between it and the raft. High and higher it went until the planet was a smooth, gray ball beneath and behind it. And then, out of the black daylight sky, a pattern of red and green lights seemed to take shape above them and ahead. It was _Proserpine_, their ship.