Venus has no moon, and no star can shine through its vast cloud layer. Ensign Lowry, staring anxiously out through the astro-dome in the bow of the Earth-ship, cursed the blackness.
"Can't see a thing," he complained to the Exec, steadily writing away at the computer's table. "Look—are those lights over there?"
The Exec looked up wearily. He shrugged. "Probably the guards. Of course, you can't tell. Might be a raiding party."
Lowry, stung, looked to see if the Exec was smiling, but found no answer in his stolid face. "Don't joke about it," he said. "Suppose something happens to the delegation?"
"Then we're in the soup," the Exec said philosophically. "I told you the natives were dangerous. Spy-rays! They've been prohibited for the last three hundred years."
"It isn't all the natives," Lowry said. "Look how they've doubled the guard around us. The administration is co-operating every way they know how. You heard the delegation's report on the intercom. It's this secret group they call the Council."
"And how do you know the guards themselves don't belong to it?" the Exec retorted. "They're all the same to me.... Look, your light's gone out now. Must have been the guard. They're on the wrong side to be coming from the town, anyhow...."
Svan hesitated only a fraction of a second after the girl turned the lights out and stopped the car. Then he reached in the compartment under the seat. If he took a little longer than seemed necessary to get the atomite bomb out of the compartment, none of the others noticed. Certainly it did not occur to them that there had been two bombs in the compartment, though Svan's hand emerged with only one.