found a number of trails, particularly around the base of the
foothills, but they were evidently game trails, for there were no
dwelling places of any kind; no cities, no villages, not even a single
habitation of any kind that the searching eyes of the disc could
detect.

Correy set her down as neatly and as softly as a rose petal drifts to
the ground. Roses, I may add, are a beautiful and delicate flower,
with very soft petals, peculiar to my native Earth.

We opened the main exit immediately. I watched the huge, circular door
back slowly out of its threads, and finally swing aside, swiftly and
silently, in the grip of its mighty gimbals, with the weird,
unearthly feeling I have always had when about to step foot on some
strange star where no man has trod before.

The air was sweet, and delightfully fresh after being cooped up for
weeks in the _Ertak_, with her machine-made air. A little thinner, I
should judge, than the air to which we were accustomed, but strangely
exhilarating, and laden with a faint scent of some unknown
constituent--undoubtedly the mineral element our spectroscope had
revealed but not identified. Gravity, I found upon passing through the
exit, was normal. Altogether an extremely satisfactory repair station.

Correy's guess as to what had happened proved absolutely accurate.
Along the top of the _Ertak_, from amidships to within a few feet of
her pointed stem, was a jagged groove that had destroyed hundreds of
the bright, coppery discs, set into the outer skin of the ship, that
operated our super-radio reflex charts. The groove was so deep, in
places, that it must have bent the outer skin of the _Ertak_ down
against the inner skin. A foot or more--it was best not to think of
what would have happened then.

* * * * *

By the time we completed our inspection dusk was upon us--a long,
lingering dusk, due, no doubt, to the afterglow resulting from the
mineral content of the air. I'm no white-skinned, stoop-shouldered
laboratory man, so I'm not sure that was the real reason. It sounds
logical, however.

"Mr. Correy, I think we shall break out our field equipment and give
all men not on watch an opportunity to sleep out in the fresh air," I
said. "Will you give the orders, please?"

"Yes, sir. Mr. Hendricks will stand the eight to twelve watch as
usual?"

I nodded.

"Mr. Kincaide will relieve him at midnight, and you will take over at
four."

"Very well, si