"That's all," he said, "unless you want to get out and push." They unstrapped silently and lighted cigarettes without looking at each other. Unconsciously their eyes went to the Geiger. It clicked softly, and the sensitive needle jumped half across the dial and fell back. The needle of the accumulator dial was already lifting off the pin. Again the Geiger clicked and the needle jumped. "Well," said Doc tiredly, "let's start getting it down on record tape. It may do some good someday." * * * * * The transmitter was set on automatic, and was tirelessly throwing out its XER, XER, XER, in Interplanetary Code. But only a hissing roar came from the speaker tuned to the Explocenter channel. Doc got up and turned the volume down. He rubbed his hands together briskly. "Let's go out and have a look-see," he suggested. "You nuts?" inquired Jon sourly. "We'd be squashed like a couple of bugs the second we step off Stable-G." Ole Doc thought about that. We put a small Stable-G unit on each foot of a space suit and run them off the dynamics in the suit. By coupling the secondary off the S-G unit on the right foot to the metal suit, and the primary of the left one ditto, we can convert the whole suit into a S-G, and be as safe as if we were in church. Just to be safe, we'll hook up a suit and shove it into the air-lock to test it. It worked. Doc insisted on being the first out. He ran a loop of eighth-inch shielded warping line through the towing rings on the shoulders of his suit and grounded the shielding to the suit with a dab of welding metal. "If I get stuck, Jon," his voice came tinnily through the phones, "haul me back with the winch. And whatever you do, watch the weld on your end of the shielding. There should be enough juice in it to keep it inert." Jon nodded, and Doc broke the seal on the outer door. For a split-second the air glittered with pinpoints of light as the moisture in the air-lock solidified. Then the crystals blinked out as the further cold broke the solids into their separate gasses and dispersed them. Doc slowly descended the ladder to the ground. His voice kept up a steady drone, feeding information to Jon and to the recorders tuned in on the control panel. "I am clear of the ship now, by about twenty meters. Surface seems to be a sort of metallic sand--granulated at least--but solid as steel. My relative weight seems to be about 1.5, with S-G unit at maximum. The area seems to be absolutely barren, without even a hummock or dune in sight. The.... Whup! There's one of those things--those spheres--just ahead, about thirty degrees off the ship's nose. Stand by--I'm coming back to the air-lock." Jon swiftly hauled in the slack in the line, hand over hand, and pressed the winch control to feed the slack onto the drum.