Chapter II

Venus was no longer a green planet; it loomed ahead like some woolly ball spinning in space. The _Comet_ circled it warily, Don Denton's fingers resting lightly on the control studs of the instrument panel, his lips pursed a bit as he drove the ship closer to the clouds.

"It will probably be several hours before we land," he explained to the wide-eyed Jean at his side, "Trying to find the _Lanka_ camp in that soup down there is quite a job in itself, even after I get the _Comet_ through fifteen miles of cloud banks."

Jean was a trifle pale, but there was a spark of confidence in her eyes. "I think," she said quietly, "I feel like you must have felt the first time you landed here."

Don Denton smiled. "There's no feeling like it," he admitted. "I felt it first on the Earth's Moon, and I knew then that I'd never be able to settle down into some routine job. I suppose I'll end my life still feeling that thrill, still seeking out hidden places in the universe."

He pressed a firing stud, and the _Comet_ flashed down toward Venus. For the first time, there was a sense of movement, as the spinning clouds rushed to meet the ship. Always before, with nothing relative to compare their speed with, and because the inertia-field sent all molecules of ship and contents ahead at the same rate of speed, there had been the sensation of staying at rest in the blackness of space. Now, there was something breathtaking in the way that the ship seemed to be dropping.

Then the first tendrils of cloud whipped lazily about the _Comet_. There was the thrum of the rockets rising to a higher crescendo, and the force screen's voltemeter leaped higher to combat the friction of the tenuous air. Another second, and the great cottony batts of cloud pressed with invisible force against the ship.

And then there was only a grey darkness outside, all light from the sun nullified by the thicknesses of clouds.

Don Denton drifted the ship lower, his fingers flying over the control studs, handling the ship's weight as a horseman controls his mount by a light touch of the reins.

There seemed to be no mental passage of time while the ship was sinking. Moments flowed into each other, and always the clouds seemed to be pressing with a tenuous strength at the quartzite ports.

Then they were through the clouds, and a thousand feet below the ocean tossed and tumbled with a majestic silence that was thrilling and menacing.

Don Denton's breath escaped with a tiny sigh of relief, and his eyes flashed to the girl's face, then back again to the window. He was conscious of the close scrutiny she had given him during those tense moments, and he wondered, irrelevantly, if he measured up to her standards.

"Where's all of the light coming from?" she asked curiously.

"From some sort of minute animal life in the oceans. The water is so filled with tiny worm-like forms of life that I doubt if you could find one cupful of clear water anywhere. They glow like fireflies, and the light generated is reflected back from the low clouds." Don Denton grinned. "I used to call Venus the 'Light bulb planet'!"

"It's beautiful!" Jean breathed in rapture.

Don Denton nodded, swung the _Comet_ directly North. Beneath them, the ocean was a shifting, white-capped wash of silvery light, gleaming with a phosphorescent sheen, its turbulence a shifting kaleidoscope of shattered colors.

And then the water was broken, and a scaly, blunt something darted out of the water, fell crashing in a spray of light.

"What was that?" Jean whispered.

Don Denton swallowed heavily. "I don't know," he said slowly. "Probably some deep sea monster; and he must have been fully three hundred feet long!"

He sent the _Comet_ flashing ahead, the memory of the scaly monster tensing his broad shoulders in a shiver of disquiet. Jean sat silently at his side, quiet for once, and he felt a quick stab of emotion when he read the worry that lay deep in her eyes.

They cruised for almost an hour before Don Denton located the base camp. It had moved from island One to island Three, and its earthly regularity in the green of the _Lanka_ jungle was pleasant to see.

"Five minutes," Don Denton said cheerfully, "and you can surprise your dad."

"Oh, hurry!" Jean said, bent close to the port-window.

* * * * *

Don Denton nodded silently, but there was suddenly a great fear in him. For nowhere in the camp below was there a sign of life.

Smoke was not bulging from the short stack of the rendering plant, and men did not dart from the small shacks to greet the landing ship. The camp appeared to be deserted.

"I don't see anyone?" Jean said puzzledly, fearfully.

Don Denton forced a confident laugh, but his eyes were entirely serious. "They're all probably out in the jungle grubbing up the best grade of plants. Don't worry, when they hear the rockets, they'll come stringing in plenty fast."

He set the _Comet_ down squarely in the middle of the clearing, touched studs, and there was an immediate cessation of noise and vibration.

"This is it," Don Denton said quietly. "Slip on an oxy-helmet, and we'll take a look around."

He smiled away some of the growing fear in the girl's eyes, but there was a growing panic in him that he could not quell.

He could see no one; there was not the slightest sign of life. Yet there should be fifteen men working here. Don Denton shrugged, and there was suddenly a steely gleam in his eyes. He slipped the light helmet over his head, fastened the air-tight cloth beneath his chin.

"Let's go, Jean," he said into the tiny transmitter of his helmet. "Be careful not to dislodge your helmet; the air will make you ill unless you are acclimated to it."

He could see the tiny tremulous smile on her lips, and he held her hand tightly for a moment. Then he spun the cogs of the port-door, felt the slight breeze about his body as the higher compressed air of the ship soughed into the heavy air of Venus.

He helped the girl to the muddy ground, lifted the ati-gun from his belt, paced slowly toward the main hut, his eyes flashing everywhere for the slightest sign of danger, absolutely certain now that things here were even worse than he had conceived them to be.

There was an indefinable threat of danger in the stillness of the great clearing that tightened Don Denton's nerves. Far away, could be heard the dull rumble of the eternal waves on the island's edge, and closer could be heard the soft hissing of the air through the green _Lanka_ fronds.

The clearing had been baked brick-hard with an ati-cannon; now its surface was spotted with soupy puddles of green mud where the every-day rains had seeped into some hollow.

Two freighters squatted near the North edge of the clearing, their dulled sides scabrous with great patches of growing rust, their empty ports like great blank staring eyes watching the two terrestrials slowly approach the main hut.

"Don," Jean pressed close to the trouble shooter's tall body, "where is everybody?"

Don Denton shook his head, a furry spider of apprehension crawling up his spine, his eyes piercing and searching as he held the ati-gun in a tremorless hand. He walked slowly forward, the eeriness of the silver-lighted scene touching his sensibilities.

He fired the moment the slug-like creature came from the hut's door, the wailing hiss of the gun strangely loud. There was a silent scream that crescendoed and titillated in diminishing waves, then the creature collapsed into a protoplasmic mass that quivered horribly for a moment and then was still.

"Don!" Jean said fearfully.

The trouble shooter's face was like chiselled granite, and he stepped to the door of the hut and rayed the stinking mass of bubbly flesh out of existence. He handed the twin ati-gun to the girl, nodded toward the hut's interior.

"Stay here," he snapped, "while I take a look inside. Shoot at anything that moves."

He smiled then for the first time, seeing the determination in the lines of the girl's chin. Then he whirled, stepped within the doorway, his nerves icy cold, the flat muscles of his body ready for instant darting action.

He stopped, his breathing a startled gasp. Eight men were within the hut, eight men lying in the stillness of death.

"Good God!" he said, paced swiftly across the floor to the tiers of bunks along the far wall.

He went from man to man, feeling for a pulse on each man, the cold sweat of terror breaking on his forehead when he was finally convinced that all eight of the hut's occupants were dead.

He shivered, backed to the door, his eyes darting about the cabin, a sharp prodding prescience within him that every movement of his was being watched. He closed the door, stood speechlessly beside the girl for a moment.

"What is it, Don; what did you find?" Jean's fingers tightened on his biceps.

* * * * *

Don Denton swallowed heavily, avoided the girl's eyes. "Let's take a look at the other sleeping hut," he said tonelessly, tried to keep the horror he felt from his expression.

"There is something wrong; I know it!" Jean went rigid, her breath catching in her throat. "My father's in there!"

Don Denton shook his head. "No," he said sharply, "he isn't in there; he's probably in the other hut." He caught the girl's arm. "Let's take a look, before something happens that's too big for me to handle."

They walked swiftly, their guns ready for instant firing, strangely comforted by each other's presence. At the doorway of the second hut, Jean again stood guard while the trouble shooter entered.

He stood for a moment within the doorway of the hut, his nerves crawling when he saw an almost exact duplicate of the first scene. The only difference lay in the number of men supine in their bunks: there were but six here.

Don Denton winced, recognizing a corpse on a lower bunk as the grey-haired father of the girl outside. He felt a sick futility beating at his mind, when he remembered the reassuring words he had spoken to the girl but a few short hours before.

He moved about the hut, seeking for the slightest clue as to the cause of the men's deaths, finally turning back to the door, his search unrewarded, his mind a maelstrom of conflicting theories and thoughts.

"Jean?" he said quietly, closed the door behind him on the horrible scene within.

Blood drained from his face, leaving it suddenly haggard and drawn. He whirled, with his back to the hut's wall, the ati-gun jutting nervelessly before him in complete command of the clearing.

Not a thing moved; there was only the slightest of breezes. He felt the sweat trickling down the flat planes of his cheeks, and the metal of the hut felt incredibly warm against his back.

"_Jean?_" he called again, desperately.

There was only the muffled hollow vibration of the eternal waves pounding against the island. No voice answered his cry.

Jean Palmer was gone as though she had never been.

* * * * *

Don Denton stood rigidly for a moment, a nameless fear tugging at his mind, his blue eyes suddenly black with fear for the safety of the girl.

"Jean?" he called again, knowing that there would be no answer.

He ran lithely across the end of the clearing, burst into the first living-hut, made a quick search, dashed back outside, a monstrous fear and hate intermingled in his mind.

He went more slowly toward the first freighter, slipped within the uncogged port, moved even more slowly as he made a complete search of the shadowy corners of the hold and cabins. He found nothing but the mold and rust that came from the steamy atmosphere.

The second freighter proved to be empty also. And he stood for a moment outside its rusty length, his lips a thin white line, his eyes narrowed into slits.

Then, never permitting himself to relax, he made a complete search of the grounds, investigating the huts again, searching the rendering sheds, finally stopping, his heart thudding painfully, in the exact center of the clearing.

He considered the situation briefly, and his mind came to an abrupt stop against a wall of thought. Either the girl had disappeared into the _Lanka_ jungle because she thought she had seen something or someone there, or she had been captured, silently, by the menace that had murdered the fourteen men who lay in the bunks within the huts.

Don Denton backed slowly toward the _Comet_, his ati-gun tight in his hand, never relaxing, ready to fire at the first sign of a living thing that moved. He uncogged the door-port, slipped through, cogged the door shut again. Then he searched the tiny ship from bow to stern, making absolutely certain that he was alone.

Satisfied that he was safe for the moment, he sagged into the cushions of the pilot's seat, tried to make sense out of the sudden disappearance of the girl.

Obviously, there was something wrong with the island. Fourteen men were dead, _Lanka_ plants rotting in the shed, the freighters empty hulks on the clearing's edge.

But what could that menace be? He knew, personally, that the only life on Venus was in the oceans, a life that had not progressed far enough to permit it to cope with the brains and skill of men.

Yet Jean Palmer was gone, taken by the--the _things_ that had slain fourteen men without leaving wounds on their bodies.

Don Denton swore bitterly, his hands clutching the arms of the seat until the knuckles were like polished bone. It was only too evident that the terror had struck but recently; the men's bodies were not decomposed in the slightest.

The trouble shooter came from his seat, slid back the panel of the arms cabinet. He slipped into the silk-like folds of the cellu-ray suit, first discarding the oxy-helmet. Then he fitted on the wide belt that held the super ati-guns, checked them to make certain their loads were at maximum power.

He felt a slight dizziness from the tainted air that had filled the ship when the port had been opened, shrugged the feeling away with the knowledge that his space-hardened body could easily combat the slight toxic poison without effort.

He packed a small knapsack with a compact medicine box and food, left a water bottle behind, knowing that he could find rain puddles in the heavy _Lanka_ leaves.

The rain started then without warning, coming down in a solid smashing sheet, the blasting wind rocking the _Comet_ with titanic strength. Don Denton scowled through the storm, his vision stopped five feet from the quartzite port window by the smashing curtain of water from the low hanging clouds.

He paced the control room in tight anxiety, feeling the fear mounting within him, conscious of the driving urgency of quick action, but knowing that he could not fight the torrential downpour.

The rain battered down in a solid sheet for more than an hour.

And then the rain was over, and there was only the eerie silver light reflected from the clouds. Don Denton uncoiled impatiently from his seat, fitted on the knapsack, slipped the oxy-helmet over his head, tied the bottom strings about his throat.

He felt a momentary panic at the thought of stepping from the safety of his ship on the land where death might strike unseen. Then he grinned wryly, shrugged broad shoulders. He had his job to do, a job that he had elected for himself. Too, there was the memory of Jean's presence that drove him on. If for no other reason, he could not desert the girl who had expressed such complete faith in himself.

He twisted the cogs of the port, set the vibra-ray so that no one else could open the door unless he was along. He slipped a bit on the mud of the clearing, turned, slammed the port shut. Then, with a super ati-gun in his right hand, he started across the clearing toward the break in the jungle that was obviously a path cut by the _Lanka_ hunters.

It was then that he halted, his eyes widening in surprise, the sound of his breathing loud in his oxy-helmet. He swung in a complete circle, stifling his gasp of wonder, feeling the fear knotting in his stomach, and conscious of the scaly fingers of insanity plucking at his reason.

_For men moved about the rendering hut, and steam spurted from the tall stacks._

Don Denton half-crouched, and a soundless snarl of amazement twisted his lips. His eyes flashed from the working men around the clearing, blinked bewilderedly at what they saw.

Or, rather, what they didn't see.

For the freighters were gone, vanished from where they had been, only deep gouges in the ground to show that they had ever landed.