That was very good. He hoped they would have the grace to quote him on that. It was a fine summing up of his entire character. Berkeley smiled a rueful smile. There was no stopping it. It was not a matter of not planting the flag, not taking possession. The captain was right. If not the Western Alliance, then certainly the Eastern Alliance. His quarrel was not with the captain nor with the duty, but with the destiny. The issue was not to be decided now. It had already been decided—decided when the first apeman had crept into the tree nest of another and stolen his mate. Man takes. Whether it be by barbaric rapine, or reluctant acceptance of duty through carefully contrived diplomacy, Man takes. Berkeley turned and made his way out of the control room. ———— Outside, the soil shifted in its contortions of cooling. The wind whispered dryly over the red landscape, sending up little swirls of dust, eternally shifting it from one place to another. The soil was less hot, and as it cooled, the Mars race pressed inward. Theirs was the urgency to get at this meteor as quickly as possible, remove it, start the water flowing once more. "Observation reports ground cool enough for landing!" The magic words seemed to sing into the control cabin. "Summon all landing party," Captain Griswold commanded immediately. The signal bells rang throughout the ship. The bell in the supercargo cabin rang also. With the other scientists, Berkeley dressed in his protecting suit, fitted the clear glassite oxygen helmet over his head, fastened it. Together with the rest, he stood at the designated airlock to await the captain’s coming. And the captain did not keep them waiting. At precisely the right moment, with only a flicker of a side glance at the photographic equipment, the captain strode ahead of his officers to the airlock. The sealing doors of the corridor behind them closed, shutting off the entire party, making the corridor itself into a great airlock. There was a long sigh, and the great beams of the locks moved ponderously against their weight. There was the rush of air from the corridor as the heavier pressure rushed out through the opening locks, to equalize with the thin air of Mars. With the air rushed outward fungus spores, virus, microbes; most of them to perish under the alien conditions, but some to survive—and thrive. The red light above the lock was blinking on-off-on-off. The officers, the scientists, the armed men, watched the light intently. It blinked off for the last time. The locks were open. The great ramp settled to the ground. ———— In ordered, military file, the captain at their head, the landing party passed down the corridor, through the locks, out upon the ramp beneath the blue-black sky; and down to the red soil. Captain Griswold was the first man to set foot on Mars, June 14, 2018. The photographers were second.