After I had learned this, I put in a visicall to the Oak Drive mansion. The butler's face appeared on the screen. I was too late.

I got hold of Harry as quick as I could, but I could see right away that he had already found out.

Mrs. Campbell had taken Sukey Jones and left last night for Venus.

I had known Harry Thurbley for ten years, and he was a phlegmatic sort. He had the kind of unshakable calm and nerve you only find in a man that's made peace with death a couple of times or so out beyond the planets. Once I had seen him walk into a mining power plant on Callisto and disarm a runaway pile that was due to explode in three minutes and blast away half the moon.

When he came out he hadn't even been sweating.

But he was upset now. I tried to calm him, but I guess he had a hunch. I had spent several years on Venus and knew the place as well as any Terran. I tried to persuade him that Sukey Jones wouldn't be in any danger so long as they stuck to the civilized northern part, but he didn't seem to half hear what I was saying.

A month passed, and we made another trip beyond the Belt. When we got back there was still no Sukey, and not even a letter. Harry and I went into the Super's office and talked him into a transfer to the Venus run for one trip.

It was less than five days later that we set the Altair down on the surface of the White Planet at Medea, the biggest port city on Venus. The low, spidery towers of the native architects of old were crowded and overshadowed by Earthstyle skyscrapers which had grown up, mostly, since the last time I had seen Venus, fifteen years ago.

It was Harry's first trip to the sister planet of Earth, and he seemed surprised at the mushrooming civilization. But he still couldn't rest until we'd given the ship into the hands of the ground crew and gone to hunt Sukey and her mistress.

Mrs. Campbell, we discovered, had checked in at the Majestic Hotel for one week, and left, giving no forwarding address. After that she had been heard from in two or three of the border cities. She had made the rounds of all the beauty parlors and quack establishments in town. This was her fourth trip to Venus, and all of the merchants knew her by sight.

But she was not, currently, visiting any of these places. It seemed that Althea Campbell, a couple of days 

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