Children and women are forbidden to venture into the
wastelands, except in special vehicles.

Actually they had started out by vehicle. But it was old, cranky and
ready for the junkyard. In the first flurry of sandstorm, it had
clogged, burned out and died. Nothing very reliable was available in the
black market without more notice.

Newlin accepted the inevitable and proceeded on foot. Perhaps they could
reach the Archaeological Station at Sansurra. He was not certain if it
would be inhabited at the Sandstorm season, but there was a good chance
of stored food and water. Turning back to Venusport was impossible. So
they went on.

Now he was confused. Directions are difficult at best on Venus, and his
radio-compass proved faulty. He had only the vaguest idea where they
were, and none at all where they were headed. But if he stopped too
long, the shifting dunes would cover them. And if they tried to go too
fast, it would be fatally easy to blunder into one of the open
sink-holes of molten, radioactive metal.

He stopped and motioned the girl to rest.

She sank down, exhausted.

Newlin adjusted the throat microphones and headsets in their plastic
helmets to make for easier conversation. But for a while, neither could
talk. They sat and gasped, yearning for a breath of fresh, unreclaimed
air. Water supplies were low, and already Newlin had established iron
rations. Drinking by tubes was difficult in the helmets and the water
was warm and foul.

"You're lost?" Songeen asked at last.

Newlin nodded. He produced a wrinkled, battered map. "I can't even trust
the compass. I don't know where we are."

The girl took the map in her gloved hands and peered intently through
her face-mask. One finger traced a tiny circle in the film of dust.

"I know," she said. "We are somewhere about here. And over there--" she
indicated a direction behind Newlin--"is the city from which my people
came."

Newlin was startled. The directional instinct with which all Venusians
are endowed was familiar enough, yet he would have sworn the girl was
not from the enfeebled and mutant races of the veiled planet. She was,
at once, more human--and more remote. Songeen guessed his doubt. Through
the fused quartz faceplate, her angular features wore a curious, faint
smile.

"No, not Venusian. This was an--an outpost. A colony and a quarantine
station. The city was abandoned long ago. Long before the atomic
holocaust my people fled. Eons have pas