ode
in to the four-fathom shallows and halted in a smooth patch of yellow
sand. Gerry unsaddled the dolphins and tethered them to lumps of coral
where they browsed contentedly on the short vegetation. Then the three
exiles sat down in a circle on the sand. McTavish stretched his long
legs, bouncing a few feet off the ground as he did so and then floating
slowly down again.

"I'll never forget this journey if I live to be older than the whole
Solar System itself!" he said. "Also--I'm hungry."

"There's nothing we can do about that until noon tomorrow," Gerry
grunted. "Maybe the fasting will make you lose some of that surplus bulk
of yours. But I'll admit I could do with some of that special coffee
Portok used to brew in the ward room on the _Viking_ in the evenings."

"I'd give a lot for a drink of plain water," Closana said wistfully.
"Acres of water around us and nothing to drink!"

When the last of the light was gone they lit a small lamp that Sarnak
had given them. It illumined a circle some twenty feet across, a little
patch of light in the midst of the utter blackness of the depths of the
sea. They sat there talking for a while, then Gerry stretched out on the
sand with one arm hooked around a lump of coral to hold himself in
place. He was thankful that the waters of Venus were always warm. It
would scarcely have been possible to sleep at the bottom of one of
Earth's oceans in this manner, even with the equipment with which Sarnak
had supplied them.

For a while Gerry drowsed. The audiphones of his helmet picked up all
the faint sounds of this watery world. A muffled splash as Angus
McTavish stirred restlessly ... the steady movement as their drowsing
but apparently sleepless dolphins fed on the fields of sea-weed ... an
occasional steady churning as some larger denizen of the deep swam past
above them. Then he slept.

* * * * *

It was well past midnight by the illuminated dial of the waterproof
chronometer that Sarnak had given Gerry when he awoke. Angus was shaking
his shoulder. The light had been put out hours before, and there was no
illumination at all except for an occasional flash of green
phosphoresence where some fish sped by.

"Either I'm an over-grown sponge," the big engineer muttered, "or
there's a light shining through the water off to the west."

Gerry yawned and sat up, instinctively starting to rub his eyes before
his hands bumped against the hard glass su