"I wouldn't know, sir," said the young officer respectfully. His manner toward Hardwick was quite changed. "I do know the Skipper came in expecting to land, sir, by the landing-grid, sir. He was told to stand off. He's as much surprised as you are, sir." The wall-speaker said crisply: "_Hear this! Gravity returning! Gravity returning!_" And weight came back. Hardwick was ready for it this time and took it casually. He looked at the speaker and it said nothing more. He nodded to the young man. "I suppose I'd better get in the boat. No change in that arrangement, anyhow!" He crawled through the blister door and wormed his way into the landing-boat--designed for a more modern ship, and excessively inconvenient in such an outmoded launching-device. Barnes crawled in after him. "Excuse me, sir. I'm to take you down." He dogged the blister door from the inside, closed the boatport and dogged it, and flipped a switch. "Ready for departure," he said into a microphone. A dial on the instrument board flicked halfway to zero. It stopped there. Seconds passed. A green light glowed. The young officer said: "All tight!" The needle darted a quarter-way farther over, and then began to descend slowly. The blister was being pumped empty of air. Presently another light glowed. "Ready for launching," said the young officer briskly. There were clankings. The blister-seal broke, and the two halves of the boat cover drew back. There were stars. To Hardwick they were unfamiliarly arranged, but he could have picked out Seton and the Donis cluster in any case, and half a hundred more markers by taking thought of the position of the planet Canna III, on which Colonial Survey Sector Headquarters for this part of the galaxy were established. The boat moved gently out of its place and the ship's gravity field ended as abruptly as such fields do. The Survey ship floated away, as seen from the vision ports of the boat. It apparently increased its drive, because the boat swirled and swayed as changing eddy-currents moved it. The ship grew small and vanished. The boat hung in emptiness, turning slowly. The sun Canna came into view. It was very large for a Sol-type sun, and its rim was almost devoid of the prominences and jet streams of flaming gas that older suns of the type display. But even out at the third orbit it provided 0-1 climate--optimum: equivalent to Earth--for the planet below. That planet now came swinging into view as the ship's boat continued to turn. It was blue. More than ninety per cent of its surface was water, and much of the solid land was under the northern ice cap. It had been chosen as Sector Headquarters because of its unsuitability for a large population, which might resent the considerable land-area needed for Survey storage and reserve facilities.