; in thirteen
hundred years the bitter winds of Venus would have destroyed any hint of
Cavour's site, assuming the old man had reached Venus successfully.

But grimly Alan continued to circle the area. Maybe Cavour had been
forced to land elsewhere, he thought. Maybe he never got here. There
were a million maybes.

He computed his orbit and locked the ship in. Eyes pressed to the
viewscreen, he peered downward, hoping against hope.

This trip to Venus had been a wild gamble from the start. He wondered if
Max Hawkes would have covered a bet on the success of his trip. Max had
been infallible when it came to hunches.

_Well_, Alan thought, _now I've got a hunch. Help me one more time, Max,
wherever you are! Lend me some of your luck. I need it, Max._

He circled once more. The Venusian day would last for three weeks more;
there was no fear of darkness. But would he find anything?

_What's that?_

He leaped to the controls, switched off the autopilot, and broke out of
orbit, going back for a return look. Had there been just the faintest
metallic glint below, as of a spaceship jutting up from the sand?

Yes.

There was a ship down there, and a cave of some sort. Alan felt
strangely calm. With confident fingers he punched out a landing orbit,
and brought his ship down in the middle of the barren Venusian desert.

_Chapter Eighteen_

Alan brought the _Cavour_ down less than a mile away from the scene of
the wreckage--it was the best he could do, computing the landing by
guesswork--and climbed into his spacesuit. He passed through the airlock
and out into the windswept desert.

He felt just a little lightheaded; the gravity was only 0.8 of
Earth-norm, and besides that the air in his spacesuit, being perpetually
renewed by the Bennerman re-breathing generator strapped to his back,
was just a shade too rich in oxygen.

In the back of his mind he realized he ought to adjust his oxygen flow,
but before he brought himself to make the adjustment the surplus took
its effect. He began to hum, then to dance awkwardly over the sand. A
moment later he was singing a wild space ballad that he thought he had
forgotten years before. After ten feet he tripped and went sprawling
down in the sand. He lay there, trickling the violet sands through the
gloves of his spacesuit, feeling very lightheaded and very foolish all
at the same time.

But he was still sober enough to realize he was in danger. It was an
effort to rea