em
insolently, may have guessed. They challenged us, but let us through.

"You are the last one in," this sub-director of the patrol told us. I
could see him in our mirror as his gaze examined our pit--a dapper,
jaunty fellow with the up-tilted mustache affected in Latina. "Last one
in--you Inter-Allied are a nuisance."

He was more particular than those directors we had passed before. My
badge and my verbal explanation were not enough. He made me show him the
Inter-Allied seal which I always carried, and I gave him the pass-code
of the current week.

"Last one in," he reiterated. "And you wouldn't get in now without those
refugees with you. Venia's closed after noon of today. Didn't you know
it?"

"No," I said.

"Well, it is. They shut off the power early this morning for all low
vibrations--yours and under. Brought 'em all down for a general traffic
inspection. Then changed their minds and threw it on again. But if
you're coming out north again, you've got to get out by noon. And you go
in at your own peril."

He assumed that Argo and his men were Venus refugees going with me into
Venia! I only vaguely understood what might be afoot, but I did not dare
question him. Argo's side glance at me was menacing. I agreed with this
director obediently and broke connection.

We seemed now to have passed within the patrol line. There were no more
official vessels to be seen. We clung low, and at 12 deg. South, 60 deg. 2O'
West, at 10:16 that morning we descended in Venia, capital of the
Central Latina Province, largest immigrant colony of the Western
Hemisphere.[9]

[Footnote 9: Now Matto Grosso State, Brazil.]

We landed on a stage of one of the upper crescent terraces. A crowd of
Venus people surrounded us. Even in the turmoil of our debarkation, I
wondered where the official landing director might be. None of the
governing officials were in sight. The place was in confusion. Crowds
were on the spider bridges; the terraces and the sloping steps were
jammed. Milling, excited people. The foreign police, pompous Venus men
in gaudy uniforms, were herding the people about.

But none of our Earth officials! Where were they, who should have been
in charge of all this confusion?

My heart sank. Something drastic, sinister, had occurred. We had no time
to guess what it might be. Argo drove us forward, with scant courtesy
now, down in a vertical car, through a tunnel on foot to what they
called here in Venia the Lower Pla