"I suppose I'd better get in the boat. No change in that arrangement, anyhow!"
He crawled through the blister door and wormed his way into the landing boat, one designed for a more modern ship, and excessively inconvenient in such an outmoded launching-device. Barnes crawled in after him.
He dogged the blister door from the inside, closed the boat port and dogged it, and flapped a switch.
"Excuse me, sir. I'm to take you down."
"Ready for departure," he said into a microphone.
A dial on the instrument-board flicked half-way to zero. It stopped there. Seconds passed. A green light glowed. The young officer said:
"All tight!"
The needle darted a quarter-way further over, and then began to descend slowly. The blister was being pumped empty of air. Presently another light glowed.
"Ready for launching," said the young officer briskly.
The blister-seal broke with a clank, and, the two halves of the boat-cover drew back. There were stars. To Bordman they were unfamiliarly arranged, but he could have picked out Seton and the Donis cluster in any case, and half a hundred more markers by taking thought of the position of the planet Canna III, on which Colonial Survey Sector Headquarters for this part of the galaxy were established.