Dorothy said, "Land." Gently, as one might say time for lunch. And she added: "We'll find strings, Nan." "Land, of course," said Christopher Wright, preoccupied; his long finger tapped on the photograph; his lips went on moving silently, carrying through some private meditation. "Land. Give protoplasm a chance." "Land," Paul Mason said. _Did anyone suppose the First Interstellar would just turn around and go home? We're here, aren't we...?_ Through hours when spoken words were few, inner words riotous, Lucifer turned an evening face. A morning descent might have been pleasanter in human terms, but the calculator, churning its mathematical brew, said the time was now. Paul Mason squirmed into his pilot's seat. It was good, he thought, that they could at least meet the challenge of the unexplored with adequate bodies. Wright was dryly indestructible; Ed Spearman a gaunt monolith; the plumpness of Sears Oliphant had nothing flabby. The women were in the warm vigor of a youth that had never known illness. As for his own body, Paul felt for it now a twinge of amused admiration, as if he were seeing an animated statue by an artist better than himself: slender, tough, nothing too much, built for endurance and speed--it would serve. Spearman was already talking in the earphones: "Close lock. Retract shield." Paul responded from ingrained training. Beyond the window that would give him forward vision in the (impossible) event he had to fly the lifeboat, the heavens opened. Withdrawal of the shield into the belly of the mother ship _Argo_ was a dream motion within a wider dream. Dorothy and Wright were strapped in the two seats behind him: half of _Argo's_ human treasure was here. "Go over what you do if you have to drive off. Over." "Lever for release. No action till wing-lock indicator is green. No jet unless to correct position. In atmosphere handle as glider, jet only in emergency. Over." After all, Paul considered, he had had a thousand hours of atmospheric flying, and two years' drill on these boats. Ed could worry less and save wind. Beautiful mechanisms in their own right, Model L-46, lying eleven years secret but alert in the streamlined blisters, powered by charlesite to avoid the ponderous shielding still necessary for atomic motors--and charlesite, perfected only thirty years ago in 2026, was obedient stuff. In space, the boats were small rocket ships; in atmosphere, gliders or low-speed jet planes. While _Argo_ had been in the long ordeal of building, Paul had been shot from gleaming tubes like this into the atmosphere of Earth, the blind depth at the spaceport, the desolate thin air of Mars. Spearman said, "Turning in five minutes." In the port lifeboat Ann and Sears would be waiting, but that lock would be open, for Ed must be in the control room. If they had to abandon ship (ridiculous!) Ed's boat would be many moments behind. The stars moved. "Paul--check straps. Over." Paul glanced behind him. "All set. Over."