utiful, with golden
hair and dark, liquid eyes. She smiled at Jan.

"_Encantada de conocerlo, senor_," she greeted him.

"Is this the patient, Doctor?" asked Jan, astonished. She looked in the
best of health.

"No, the patient is in the next room," answered Sanchez.

"Well, as much as I'd like to stop for a pipe, we'd better start at
once," said Jan. "It's a hard drive back, and blastoff can't be
delayed."

The woman seemed to sense his meaning. She turned and called: "_Diego!_"

A boy appeared in the door, a dark-skinned, sleepy-eyed boy of about
eight. He yawned. Then, catching sight of the big Dutchman, he opened
his eyes wide and smiled.

The boy was healthy-looking, alert, but the mark of the Venus Shadow was
on his face. There was a faint mottling, a criss-cross of dead-white
lines.

Mrs. Murillo spoke to him rapidly in Spanish and he nodded. She zipped
him into a venusuit and fitted a small helmet on his head.

"Good luck, _amigo_," said Sanchez, shaking Jan's hand again.

"Thanks," replied Jan. He donned his own helmet. "I'll need it, if the
trip over was any indication."

* * * * *

Jan and Diego made their way back down the chain to the groundcar. There
was a score of men there now, and a few women. They let the pair go
through, and waved farewell as Jan swung the groundcar around and headed
back eastward.

It was easier driving with the wind behind him, and Jan hit a hundred
kilometers an hour several times before striking the rougher ground of
Den Hoorn. Now, if he could only find a way over the bluff raised by
that last quake....

The ground of Den Hoorn was still shivering. Jan did not realize this
until he had to brake the groundcar almost to a stop at one point,
because it was not shaking in severe, periodic shocks as it had earlier.
It quivered constantly, like the surface of quicksand.

The ground far ahead of him had a strange color to it. Jan, watching for
the cliff he had to skirt and scale, had picked up speed over some
fairly even terrain, but now he slowed again, puzzled. There was
something wrong ahead. He couldn't quite figure it out.

Diego, beside him, had sat quietly so far, peering eagerly through the
windshield, not saying a word. Now suddenly he cried in a high thin
tenor:

"_Cuidado! Cuidado! Un abismo!_"

Jim saw it at the same time and hit the brakes so hard the groundcar
would have stood on its nose had its wheels been smaller. Th