WHEN HE TURNED TO STARE into the depths beyond him, at first he could see nothing but a great orange ball, which was his photo-image of the dazzling sunlight whence they had fled. Then tortured nerves surrendered to the soothing dark and he could see that they stood at the mouth of not a cave but a great, many-corridored cavern that stretched—for all Mallory could tell—clear down into the murky bowels of Venus.
Jonathan Lane was loudly exuberant.
“This is fine!” he declared. “We owe those grease-balls a vote of thanks. This is an ideal refuge. Shady and cool and safe—and look! We can even see the ship from the heights, here! If anyone—I mean, when they come to rescue us, we can signal them.”
Mallory hoped the slip had passed unnoticed by Dorothy. “If anyone—” the skipper had started to
