The outside of the suit is still freezing cold; maybe this is what has jammed the fastening. After a few minutes tugging it suddenly gives away. M'Clare climbs out of the suit, leaving it standing, and says, "Help me count these, will you?" _These_ are a series of transparent containers from a pouch slung at one side of the suit. I recognize them as the envelopes in which we put what are referred to as Personal Background Sets. I say, "There ought to be twenty-three." "No," says M'Clare dreamily, "twenty-two, we're saving one of them." "What on earth is the use of an extra set of faked documents and oddments--" He seems to wake up suddenly and says: "What are you doing here, Lizzie?" I explain and he wanders over to the hopper and starts to explain the controls. There is something odd about all this. M'Clare is obviously dead tired, but kind of relaxed; seeing that the hour of Danger is only thirty-six hours off I don't understand it. Probably several of his students are going to have to risk their lives-- I am on the point of seeing something important when the speaker announces in the colonel's voice that Professor M'Clare and Miss Lee will report to the Conference Room at once please. M'Clare looks at me and grins. "Come along, Lizzie. Here's where we take orders for once, you and I." It is the colonel's Hour. I suppose that having to work with Undergraduates is something he could never quite forget, but from the way he looks at us we might almost be Space Force personnel,--low-grade of course but respectable. Everything is at last worked out and he has it on paper in front of him; he puts the paper four square on the table, gazes into the middle distance and proceeds to recite. "One. This ship will go off Mass-Time on 2nd August at 11.27 hours ship's time.... "Thirty-six hours from now. "... At a point one thousand miles vertically above Co-ordinates 165OE, 7320S, on Planet Incognita, approximately one hour before midnight local time. "Going on planetary drive as close as that will indicate that something is badly wrong to begin with. "Two. This ship will descend, coupled to _Gilgamesh_ as at present, to a point seventy miles above the planetary surface. It will then uncouple, discharge one hopper, and go back on Mass-Time. Estimated time for this stage of descent forty minutes. "Three. The hopper will then descend on its own engines at the maximum speed allowed by the heat-disposal system; estimated at thirty-seven minutes. _Gilgamesh_ will complete descent in thirty-three minutes. Engines of _Gilgamesh_ will not be used except for the heat-disposal and gyro auxiliaries. The following installations have been made to allow for the control of the descent; a ring of eight rockets in peltathene mounts around the tail and, and one outsize antigrav unit inside the nose. "Sympathizer" controls hooked up with a visiscreen and a computer have also been installed in the nose.