ALL NIGHT SIMMS DROVE, weaving through aisles of man-high rip grass, circling denser groves of blue priest trees and ardaleptic ferns.
At dawn he drew up at a small island, built a fire and cooked some of the food he found packed away in a rear compartment of the hydrocar. He rested half an hour, reentered the car and drove on at a more leisurely speed.
There remained now only to go to GHQ at BeTaba, give his report and hand over his message-cylinder. And when the tube was opened, he would be through on Venus. Dismissed from the Service for insubordination. Wherever he went, that report would follow him.
His lips compressed. There was a girl waiting for him back on Earth—waiting until he had completed his hitch in the Service and could graduate to the spaceways.
Abruptly his hand, reac
