Planter knelt and pulled Max straight. Max was tremendous, a burly troll in his coveralls. His shoulders were almost a yard wide, his hands like oversize gloves. His big face, with its broad jaw, heavy dark brows and ruddy cheeks, might have been handsome, was not the nose smashed in by a blow taken in some old ring battle. "Don't waste water," cautioned Disbro as Planter hunted for the food-locker. "I'll bring him out of it." He knelt and slapped the inert face sharply. Max's mouth opened, showing a gap where his front teeth had been beaten out. He gave a grumbling yell, then sprang erect so suddenly that Disbro, starting away, almost fell through the hatchway. Max saw Planter, scowled and snorted, then fell into a boxing stance. He inched forward, his mighty fists fiddling hypnotically. "Time!" yelled Planter at once. "This isn't a fight, Max! We've landed--safe and alive--on Venus!" Max's eyes widened a little. He grinned loosely, and pulled off his helmet. His skull was thatched with bushy, black hair. "Uhh," he said, in a deep, chiding tone. "I forgot. Uhhh." "Forgot!" echoed Disbro scornfully. "He sounds as if he had the ability to remember." Planter studied the ports in this compartment. They, too, were obscured by wet-looking grail soil. The ship must be well buried in the crust of Venus. What if it was completely submerged, a tomb for them? He glanced upward to another hatchway, one that would lead past the rocket engines. "Don't go up," Max cautioned him throatily. "Hot up there." "Brilliant," was Disbro's ill-humored rejoinder. "Max actually knows that the engines will be hot." Planter clapped Max on the big shoulder. "It'll be all right," he reassured the giant. "Get me a wrench, will you? That long-shanked one for tightening tube-housings will do." * * * * * He scrambled up along the levers, which made a ladder of sorts. The hatch to the engines had to be loosened with the wrench. Beyond, as Max had sagely warned him, it was stiflingly hot. He avoided gleaming, sweltering tubes and housings, scrambling to where a four-foot circle of nuts showed in the bulkheading. This would be the plate that closed the central stern, among the rear rocket-jets. He began to loosen one. "Stop that, you fool!" It was Disbro, who had climbed after him and was watching. "Who knows about this lower atmosphere of Venus?" "I'm going to find out about it," replied Planter, a little roughly, for he did not like Disbro's manner. He gave the nut another turn. "Wait, wait," cautioned Disbro. He climbed all the way into view, holding up a glass flask with a neck attachment of gauges and pipings. "I got a sample, through the lock-panel--plenty of air-bubbles were carried down with us. Let me work it out before you do anything heroic." Disbro was right. He was usually right, about technologies. Planter mopped his brow on the sleeve of his coverall, and waited.