He glanced at the mirror that reflected the cabin behind him.
The girl with the brown hair and the white teeth winked at him.
Caine looked away quickly and thin muscles rippled along his jaw. He didn't know which of them was getting on his nerves more, the girl or the insane kid who was with her.
It was certain that between them they were getting him, and he jambed a hand forward. The ship whipped down through the air like an Earth sea gull, skimming the tops of the vine-trees of the Venusian jungle.
"Oh, lookee, lookee!" screamed the thin twitching boy with the blond hair. "Swamp and jungle, snakes and lizards! Are there devils down there, Driver? Are there spooks and ghosts and witches? Hey, Driver?"
Caine didn't answer. He looked again to the mirror.
The girl was laughing and shaking her brown hair. The boy was using his camera, leaning over the edge of the open-topped cabin. He was about twenty-one, Caine judged. Six years younger than Caine, but he acted like he was twelve or thirteen. Caine hadn't liked him from the start and he hated him right now. He was just another rich kid who thought the whole system was a playground.
And he kept calling Caine, "Driver." If he did it once more, Caine promised himself, he'd kill him.
Only he wouldn't, he knew. He wouldn't do anything. Caine had asked for this job, taking people with too much money on sight-seeing hops over the wilds of the Venusian country. It was a long way for both Caine and his jetcopter from the days when he was out at the tip of the finger of exploration, when the American Colony had been only a rugged square on the flatland.
Now that was over and he was leaving Venus. And the reason why he was leaving, was because of people like the two in back of him. The stupid, blind, selfish people who had ruined every chance for a decent relationship between the Colonists and the Venusians.