Brilliant sunlight flooded the cabin when they awoke. At this distance, the sun seemed somewhat smaller than Sol as seen from Earth, but it was brilliant and warm. They ate a fast concentrated breakfast and studied the airlock. Hawthorne voiced his verdict:
"We can repair it in a few hours. Get the tools out."
O'Dea was looking at the gravity indicator.
"Gravity is .92," he announced. "That's the correct figure for Avignon—no question about it. But I can't understand that atmosphere! It doesn't belong!"
He took the torch Hawthorne shoved at him and they went to work on the airlock. When they had unjammed the inner door, they found that the outer had somehow escaped injury.
They crawled into the lock, an almost vertical climb with the ship tilted as it was, and closed the inner door behind them. O'Dea shoved open the outer and pushed his nose over the edge of the ship. His eyes bulged.
"Gulp," he said, pointing.
Hawthorne's head appeared beside O'Dea's, and the two stared at the cañon floor a thousand feet below. Their space ship was partly hanging over the edge of the mesa.
"And I slept last night!" O'Dea marveled.