e," chuckled Heemskerk; a logical reaction,
considering the scarcity of brooms on Venus.

* * * * *

Two hours earlier the two men had sat across a small table playing
chess, with little indication there would be anything else to occupy
their time before blastoff of the stubby gravity-boat. It would be their
last chess game for many months, for Jan was a member of the Dutch
colony at Oostpoort in the northern hemisphere of Venus, while Heemskerk
was pilot of the G-boat from the Dutch spaceship _Vanderdecken_,
scheduled to begin an Earthward orbit in a few hours.

It was near the dusk of the 485-hour Venerian day, and the Twilight Gale
already had arisen, sweeping from the comparatively chill Venerian
nightside into the superheated dayside. Oostpoort, established near some
outcroppings that contained uranium ore, was protected from both the
Dawn Gale and the Twilight Gale, for it was in a valley in the midst of
a small range of mountains.

Jan had just figured out a combination by which he hoped to cheat
Heemskerk out of one of his knights, when Dekker, the _burgemeester_ of
Oostpoort, entered the spaceport ready room.

"There's been an emergency radio message," said Dekker. "They've got a
passenger for the Earthship over at Rathole."

"Rathole?" repeated Heemskerk. "What's that? I didn't know there was
another colony within two thousand kilometers."

"It isn't a colony, in the sense Oostpoort is," explained Dekker. "The
people are the families of a bunch of laborers left behind when the
colony folded several years ago. It's about eighty kilometers away,
right across the Hoorn, but they don't have any vehicles that can
navigate when the wind's up."

Heemskerk pushed his short-billed cap back on his close-cropped head,
leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his comfortable
stomach.

"Then the passenger will have to wait for the next ship," he pronounced.
"The _Vanderdecken_ has to blast off in thirty hours to catch Earth at
the right orbital spot, and the G-boat has to blast off in ten hours to
catch the _Vanderdecken_."

"This passenger can't wait," said Dekker. "He needs to be evacuated to
Earth immediately. He's suffering from the Venus Shadow."

Jan whistled softly. He had seen the effects of that disease. Dekker was
right.

"Jan, you're the best driver in Oostpoort," said Dekker. "You will have
to take a groundcar to Rathole and bring the fellow back."