The air grew thicker, thicker. Eileen's breathing steadily became more labored. * * * * * Freeing her from the safety pack, Boone carried her to the room's lowest corner. She roused a little, then sank back once more, as if even consciousness had become an effort. More seconds. More minutes. Then, slowly, the pressure on Boone's lungs seemed to lift. Depression and weariness fell away. New energy flowed through him. He dared a look at his chronox. Three hours and seventeen minutes! Of a sudden he was giddy with exaltation. He wanted to shout, to laugh and leap. From the corner, Eileen whispered, "Fred, have we made it?" Wordless, he stumbled to her. Her eyes were open, cool and steady. The last flushed traces of fever had vanished. "Eileen--!" he choked, "Eileen...." and strained her to him. Then, because he could not trust his own emotions further, he rose and took up the blaster. "I'll go take a look around, get you something to eat." The corridor outside was thick with the alien atmosphere. But though it stung his eyes a little, his lungs now accepted it without protest. Watchful, wary of monsters, he made his way to the galleys and gathered up a sack of food, wolfing down a whole can of meat synthetic in the process. Eileen was up and dressed when he returned. Grinning, he watched her eat with the eager hunger of the fever-famished. When she had finished and he got up to leave again, she rose also. "Fred, I'm going with you." He shook his head. "You're too weak. You need to take it easy." "Please, Fred." For an instant his eyes met hers and he knew again that now, as always, he never could deny her. "All right. Just for a little way." Together, his arm about her, they left the cabin ... turned down the corridor that led to the nearest carrier lock. The hatch hung free, sprung from its hinges. Bracing himself, Boone levered it open. Eileen caught her breath. "Fred--!" He twisted; stared out past her. The sight that met his eyes set his senses reeling. For here lay no frozen wastes, no icy crags and barrens. Instead, a blaze of living color spread before him, kaleidoscopic in its brilliance. Huge flowers like none that he had ever seen carpeted the foreground in clumps of yellow, red, green, purple--every color of the rainbow. Strange trees stretched upward towards the shining blue vault of the sky, rustling and swaying in the gentle breeze. "Fred--!" Eileen's hand rested on his shoulder. "Fred, it's beautiful!" Her words broke the spell. "Beautiful? Yes, of course it is," Boone nodded, frowning. "But the question is, where are we? There's no planet like this anywhere in our whole solar system, so far as I know--" He broke off; moved out into the carrier-cradle proper, where he could get a broader field of vision. To the right, the flowerland stretched away to rolling hills that spread as far as he could see. To the left-- He went rigid.