"What you got to do, Chief?" John asked curiously, forgetting caution for a moment.
"Plenty!" retorted the Chief.
"I guess you have at that," John admitted, getting back aboard.
"Time was," brooded the Chief, "when that Kenton was a fair pretzin finder. But all he can think of to do now is to find excuses to goldbrick. Wait until he sees the stiff memorandum I'm sending him...."
Bliss Kenton had not gone far from their Venusian jungle cabin that morning before the vacuum snake hung one on her. The thick, two-foot-long pest lay very still on the ground, and she only got a glimpse of it before it jumped. Out it whipped to its full, slim, six-foot length and wrapped around her throat. Fangs struck, and in three seconds—with a loud slurp—it had withdrawn a quart of her blood. Then it unwrapped just as swiftly as it had come, and leaped into the cover of the jungle.
The hefty young matron wobbled back to the cabin.
"Pole!" she called as she hurried in. "I've been slurped!"
"Again?" her lanky husband asked, looking up from the reports on his desk.
"I'm so sorry, Pole," she said contritely.