was in a valley scooped out by the wind that he saw the first sign of a major alteration. Behind a huge artificial wind-break lay a group of new buildings, and one of them was dome-topped with a squat chimney. A matter of ten miles farther away was another new house and a small warehouse behind it. Just over the next low ridge lay Atkins' place.

"Standby," warned Hank Karns, as he brought the ship's nose into the hurricane and began losing altitude. "Don't let go 'til I tell you—and that'll be when we're practically down."

Just as the keel kissed the ground, Karns gave the signal and the anchors fell. At the same instant he cut his rockets and the ship began falling away to leeward, dragging her anchors behind. In a moment they grabbed, pulled loose and grabbed again. That time they held. Karns released a long pent-up sigh. It was a perfect landing. Sam Atkins' house lay but a bare hundred yards on the quarter.

There was still the business of shooting a wire over the trading post and making it fast at both ends, Atkins coming out to do his share. Then Captain Karns slid down the wire to the shack and allowed himself to be hauled in by the trading post keeper.

"I'm glad to see you, Cap'n, and sorry at the same time," was his greeting from Sam Atkins. Atkins was a grumpy sort and a self-made hermit. He seemed to enjoy the solitude of windswept Mercury and the tedious, strenuous work of snaring cangrelas.

"How come sorry, Sam?" asked Hank Karns, as innocently as if he had never visited Venus.

Atkins looked mournfully at him and jerked a thumb eastward.

"I've got neighbors—bad ones. Whatever you do, don't go over there. They'll trick you somehow. They don't want outsiders coming here, they've got a ship of their own that makes a trip every week or so."

Hank Karns raised his eyebrows.

"Trocklebecks must be breeding faster'n they used to," he observed. "Mercury never produced enough to justify more than two trips a year, if that."

"Trocklebecks," stated Atkins, "are practically extinct. And the cangrelas are starving. I doubt if I could scare up four cases of prime claws to save my soul. It's pagras that's doing it. The place is crawling with them. They bite the trockelbecks and they curl up and die."

"Mmm," commented Hank Karns. He 

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