ears. Disbro chuckled.

"You know opera, Planter? Pretty fancy for an ex-con."

"I know that piece," said Planter shortly. "Wolfram's hymn to Venus, from Tannhauser."

It had started him thinking again. Gwen had played it so often on her violin. Played it and sung it. Those were the days he hadn't known she was married, down in her red-and-gold apartment in the Artists Quarter. He'd been sculpting her—she'd had the second best figure he ever saw. Then he found out about her husband, for the husband burst in upon them. The husband had tried to kill Planter, but Planter had killed the husband. And Gwen had sworn his life away.

"Check elapsed time," Disbro bade him.

"Fifty-eight days nine hours and fifty-four minutes point seven," rejoined Planter at once.

"Prompt, aren't you? We'll be on Venus before the sixty-fourth day." Planter saw Disbro shift over in his hammock. "I'm going to shave. Then eat."

Disbro turned a stud in the wall. His electric razor began to hum. Planter opened a locker-valve and brought forth his own rations—a package of concentrated solid, compounded of chocolate, meat extract, several vitamin agents. It would sustain him for hours, but was anything but a fill to his hunger. He chewed it slowly to make it last longer, and sipped from a snipe-nosed container of water, slightly effervescent and acidulated. A few drops escaped between snout and lip, and swam lazily in the gravityless air of the cabin, like shiny little bubbles.

"Planter," said Disbro, suddenly pleasant, "we're going to fool 'em."

He shut off his razor. Planter took another nibble. "Yes, Disbro?"

"We'll land at the north pole."

Planter shook his head. "We can't. This rocket is set at mid-point on the Venusian disk."

"We can. I've tinkered with the controls. A break for us, no break for the Foundationeers at home. They're watching us through telescopes. What they want is our crash on Venus, with a great upflare of the exploding fuel. Then they'll know that we landed, and can shake hands all 'round on a 'successful advancement.' But we're curving away, then in. I've fixed that. We'll not blow off and make any signal; but we'll live."

"North pole," 

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