"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—designed for a more modern ship, and excessively inconvenient in such an outmoded launching-device. Barnes crawled in after him.
"Excuse me, sir. I'm to take you down."
He dogged the blister door from the inside, closed the boatport and dogged it, and flipped a switch.
"Ready for departure," he said into a microphone.
A dial on the instrument board flicked halfway to zero. It stopped there. Seconds passed. A green light glowed. The young officer said:
"All tight!"
The needle darted a quarter-way farther 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.
There were clankings. The blister-seal broke, and the two halves of the boat cover drew back. There were stars. To Hardwick 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.