With an effort he forced his hand to his belt and adjusted the levers to permit oxygen for his breathing to swell the space suit.
He could breath, but he could not control his movements. The pressure of the wet sand weighted heavily on him and smothered him in a blanket of darkness.
He moved down slowly as on greased feathers into a bottomless pit. His legs dangled limply, drifting now this way, now that. He put his arms out to steady himself, but the muck gave way before him.
He heard only the slight bubbling sound of the oxygen escaping through the vent in his space suit.
He felt a sucking pull on his body and on his limbs as he went down—down—
At last he hung suspended. His weight balanced the density of the pressure of the sand.
His mind worked furiously—in a race with death.
He remembered the slight alkaline taste that had penetrated to his mouth and nose back on the surface. Alkaline?
He had read about that—in the "Cross Currents of Space"—Orus was the borax planet.