"Son," said Charles Ellis gruffly, "you've got it bad. And," he scowled at the trim figure sitting between them, "I don't blame you."
This time it was Irene's face and neck that purpled delicately.
"Sorry we can't take you back to New Crayton," said Masson, his grin anything but sorry, "but we must be almost to the rocky island we are hunting."
The girl flashed a quick smile at Masson, a smile that would have given the ordinary Earthman a series of nightmares. "You are right about the island," she said. "I have picked up a fair knowledge of the speech of the Butrads."
"So that's what they call themselves," broke in Ellis. "Sorry, Miss Croft. Go on."
"The island is called Tular," she said. "They were taking me there to give me as a bride to the God-From-the-Clouds, as I translated it, but I feel sure that I was to be sacrificed in some ghastly religious fashion."
"From-Clouds," Ellis was musing. "Probably a meteorite." His face brightened. "A meteorite may mean iron!" he cried.
Masson's paddle dipped steadily into the murky waters of the cast sea that covers all Venus. Floating miniature islets of thidin swirled past, islets that some day might grow to be huge, matted sub-continents of green life. Ghostly islands of thidin, their swampy floors giving root to the stocky trees and shrubs of the Venusian jungle growth, loomed out of the endless blanket of fog. The throaty deep roar of the scaly vallids and the splash of their bodies broke the thick silence.
"And iron means machines, and weapons," he said thoughtfully, without turning around. "Machines—and plows. Weapons—and hoes. We will build factories, but we will also build homes."
Irene's voice cut across their musings. "Supposing the meteor is not iron?" she demanded.