He closed his eyes and stood tense, unmoving as minutes dripped past.
"I have it," he said.
Brains, chuckled Jarl Gare to himself. Use every weapon, every tool. But it was easy. Waltk was of a race which had developed for self-preservation the sense of taking a straight line between two points. In their vast world where landmarks were absent, it was a necessity.
Here on Venus that sense would lead Jarl Gare to freedom and wealth.
It was like a radio beam on the space lanes, but the Jovian needed no sending station. He was the station itself, able to orient himself if he went off course.
They started out through the jungle—naked and unarmed—aiming straight for the Venusian pearl-beds which, by Jarl Gare's estimate, lay three hundred miles north of the Hole. Three hundred miles between hell and heaven.
Waltk was tireless, his great body immune to the ravages of the sharp-edged undergrowth and the strangling vines. He had no need of a path. He made his own, guided by that unfailing sense of direction.
Jarl Gare slid along in the Jovian's wake, his passage cleared by the strength of his companion.
Jarl used his infra-red lamp sparingly, for fear Earth patrols might be wearing the special glasses and discover the beam.