"It's hard to imagine Joe as the destroyer he is. I talked to him by the hour. I liked him; and even now, when I know what a potential of death he is—that's what makes me so damn mad."
"Tomorrow," Arden said abruptly. "Tomorrow we'll know if this cruise is in vain."
Bairn amended it: "Tomorrow, we land on Venus; if the stuff's there, okay. If it isn't, we won't have to worry about Joe Wilding any more."
Joe didn't know what time it was when it happened. But he knew the first leg of the journey was over.
That steady thrumming of the motors that had worked its way into his body so that it had become a part of him drew away gradually and left a sense of emptiness behind.
Joe climbed down from his hiding place, flexed his cramped muscles and stood erect. He faced the wall, the blank duralloy steel wall and stared as if his eyes could pierce the opaqueness and look out upon Venus.
He stood there a long time, his hands clenched into hard fists at his side, bright-eyed and staring.
"God!" he whispered.
How did it look out there on Venus—on that planet when this first earth ship landed? Was it like Earth—friendly, familiar? Or inimical, alien?