It was Jim, here on the floor with me, bending anxiously over me in a luminous darkness. His pug-nosed face grinned down at me.
"I sure thought you might never come back, Art. You been a day, sleeping off that damned drug."
Dizzily I tried to sit up as he held me. "What—what happened? Where the devil are we?" Then I remembered the fight. "Venta—" I murmured.
"She's all right. I've seen her, and talked with her."
I could see that Jim and I were alone in a small, triangular metal apartment. A closed door was to one side. And to the other, there was a round bull's-eye window. It was black out there, with bright white points of stars. The thrumming was a faint distant electronic throb, off in this strange interior.
I could feel my strength rapidly coming back. I sat up, shoving Jim away. "I'm all right now. Where are we?"
He grinned wryly. "Hold your breath for a shock. We're out in Space, plenty far. I guess, by now, we're on our way to Venus!"
Out in Space! How often, like everyone else in our modern world of science, I had envisaged it, and wondered why it had never been made possible.
"On the way to Venus?"
"So they tell me, an' Lord knows I wouldn't doubt it. If you don't believe me, come take a look."