nce anywhere in the
solar system. But it was not always thus. This astounding prestige
had to be earned with blood and courage, in many a desperate and
lonely battle; had to be snatched from the dripping jaws of death.

* * * * *

Olear checked over his flying ovoid, got his bearings from the port
astronomer, set his coordinate navigator and shoved off. Two weeks
later he plunged into the thick, misty atmosphere on the dark side of
Mercury.

Ancient astronomers had long suspected that Mercury always presented
the same side to the sun, though they were ignorant that the little
planet had water and air. Its sunward side is a dreary, sterile, hot
and hostile desert. Its dark side is warm and humid, and resembles to
some extent the better known jungles and swamps of Venus. But it has a
favored belt, some hundreds of miles wide, around its equator, where
the enormous sun stays perpetually in one spot on the horizon. Sunward
is the blinding glare of the desert; on the dark side, enormous banks
of lowering clouds. On the dark margin of this belt are the
"ringstorms," violent thunderstorms that never cease. They are the
source of the mighty rivers which irrigate the tropical habitable belt
and plunge out, boiling, far into the desert.

Olear's little ship passed through the ringstorms, and he did not take
over the controls until he recognized the familiar mark of the trading
company, a blue comet on the aluminum roof of one of the larger
buildings. Visibility was good that day, but despite the unusual
clarity of the atmosphere there was a suggestion of the sinister about
the lifeless scene--the vast, irresistible river, the riotously
colored jungle roof. The vastness of nature dwarfed man's puny work.
One horizon flashed incessantly with livid lightning, the other was
one blinding blaze of the nearby sun. And almost lost below in the
savage landscape was man's symbol of possession, a few metal sheds in
a clear, fenced space of a few acres.

Olear cautiously checked speed, skimmed over the turbid surface of the
great river, and set her down on the ground within the compound. With
his pencil-like ray-tube in his hand he stepped out of the hatchway.

* * * * *

A Mercurian native came out of the residence, presently, his hands
together in the peace sign. For the benefit of Earthlubbers whose only
knowledge of Mercury is derived from the teleview screen, it shoul