“You mean we have to go out in that?” Mrs. Kenton asked, shocked. “I don’t know any other way of getting to the settlement across the way,” was Dr. Kenton’s gentle reply. As the Kentons were walking along the corridor to the dressing room, they suddenly felt light on their feet. The unexpectedness of it sent them colliding with one another. A voice from a wall speaker said: “Watch your step. The artificial gravity of the ship has been cut off.” “I feel like a feather!” Jill said, dancing along. “You should—you weigh only one sixth of your Earth weight,” her father said. “But you be careful or you’ll have another accident like you did earlier!” The passengers lined up to receive their space gear. It was bulky equipment, but not very heavy in the light gravity. In the dressing room, several crewmen demonstrated how to put on the space suits. Dr. Kenton, who had put on much space gear in his time, helped his family into theirs. “Climb into the flexible suit first,” he said, as he demonstrated. “Then all you have to do is to zip it up—so!” “What are these tubes on our backs?” Jill asked, after the asbestos-covered suits were donned. “That’s your oxygen source,” her father said. “Those smaller boxes are refrigerator units that cool the air so that you won’t burn up in the terrible heat out there.” Weighted shoes were pulled on next. These were heavy, in order to bring the wearer more nearly to his Earth weight. Dr. Kenton helped them on next with their plastic fish-bowl helmets, fastening them in place with catches. They found that they could talk to one another, even from the air-tight helmets, because of a compact radio attachment on the top. Last to be put on were protective gloves. When everyone in the dressing room was fully attired, the strange company left the ship through an air lock—a pair of doors which kept the air pressure from escaping. The _Shooting Star’s_ gangplank, which was actually a long escalator, slid out of the side of the ship on gears until the bottom touched ground. Then the passengers stepped out of the air lock onto it and were carried slowly downward. The rocket, in landing on her tail fins, was now in position for the fire-off later into space. “What a strange feeling it is,” thought Ted, setting foot on a world outside of his own beloved Earth! The ground they walked on was soft and powdery, and his father said it was called pumice. The party was heading for a ring of stone buildings ahead, which were connected to one another by long tunnels. It reminded Ted of a giant wheel turned over on the ground. At the center was the largest building of all. Ted asked his father what it was. “That’s the headquarters building,” the scientist answered. “It’s called the Hub, and it acts as a central control for all the other buildings around the circle.” “Why are the buildings connected with one another?” Jill wanted to know.