"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.

"Yes," Disbro was commenting. "Oxygen—nice article of that, and plenty. Nitrogen, too. Just like Earth. Quite a bit of carbon dioxide. It'll be from all that vegetation. Certified breathable. Go on and unship that plate."

Planter did so. He loosed the last net, and pushed against the plate. It stirred easily—the after part of the ship would still be in the open. Disbro, climbing after him, caught his elbow.

"I go out first," he announced. "They 

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