And he would, if he got the chance.

"It's the devil, Sattell," Borden said somberly. "If I didn't think you were a rat I could make a bargain to forget what's happened until we get the ship safely home. But I don't think you'd keep a bargain."

Sattell snarled at him and turned away. Jerry looked up from the tiny air-testing cabinet. He'd drawn in a sample of outer air and a silent discharge had turned its oxygen to ozone, which a reagent absorbed. A hot silver wire stayed bright, and so proved the absence of chlorine or sulphur, CO2 tested negligible, and hot magnesium took up nitrogen. The remnant of the sample did not react with reagent after reagent, so it had to be noble gases.

"It seems all right, sir," said Jerry. "If I may, I'll go in the air-lock and take a direct sniff. May I, sir?"

"Unless Sattell wants to volunteer," Borden observed. "I would think better of you, Sattell, if you volunteered for first landing."

Sattell laughed shrilly. "Oh, yes! I'll walk out on a hostile planet, and let you take off and leave me! Even if you can't leave the planet, you can come down ten thousand miles away. You'd like to do that, too!"

"Meaning," Borden said, "that you would.... All right, Jerry. Go ahead."

"Yes, sir." Jerry went out. They heard the inner air-lock door open.

Borden said heavily, "It would be sensible to lock you up while we're aground, Sattell. I can't leave the ship with you inside and free. You've already said what you'd do if you could—take off and maroon us."

Jerry's voice came from the air-lock through a speaker.

"Mr. Borden, sir, the air's wonderful! You don't realize what canned air is like until you breathe fresh again. Wonderful, sir! I'm going out."

Borden nodded to Ellen. She moved over to watch through a port as Jerry made the first landing on this unnamed planet of an unnamed sun. She could see the straggling ground-cover vegetation, and the thing that looked like a cactus except that it wasn't, and the trees. She saw Jerry step to the ground and look about, breathing deeply.

Behind her, Borden said bitterly:

"We were blasted at without challenge. But it was with a sun-mirror that was not too efficient. The local race may not have any other power 

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