Rusty came to a long declivity, the rocks sloping down to a wide crater. In the center was a pale wall of lichen, smoothly white on the side of a towering peak. It was White Cliff. Largest landmark on the narrow-horizoned planet, it reared for hundreds of feet into the thin air. Upon its vast sides was a thick blanket of the plants, giving the cliff an unbroken, white distinctiveness and its name. Never visited by day because of the Bugs, it was rarely approached even at night. The reflecting vegetation surrounding it in a dim glow, the Bugs lingered even then. Foot-long obscenities of fuzzy yellow, razor-tipped tendrils before formless maws, by day they swarmed from every crevice of the distorted terrain. Subsisting chiefly upon the rabbit-like veedles, they would also eat a man. Rusty stared at the ghostly scene, suddenly remembering the words of Lothar, the Vulcanian. Preferring the Bugs to curious eyes, it was here that the drift-tubes had been stored, the escape ship built. Escape! Why hadn't he thought of it before? As criminal as they now, he must take a criminal's chance--the odds were all against their survival--a swift death in the suffocating void of space, the sudden burn of a patrol's flame-gun. But each was a feeble fear. Death here was slow, gnawing for years at a weakening brain. Any chance was worth taking. He glanced over his shoulder at the rising shape of the Great Moon, and sped across the quartz dust to the cliff. Rounding the rise, Rusty came upon a dark form in a little clearing. It was the ship. Startled figures whirled as he burst upon them, relaxed as he was recognized. The great bulk of Lothar was stark against the dim light. "Hello!" came a husky Earthian voice, and Rusty was relieved to see the barrel shape of Spike appear, his mop of black hair haloed in the green glow. Rusty looked at the squat hull of the oddly constructed boat. The others gathered around him. "Crude but crafty," admired Spike. Rusty glanced at the others. The tall Martians stood at the side, slender silhouettes. The Vulcanian towered above him, long incisors gleaming between drooping lips. "I think you know the rest," said Spike. "Here's Fish." Rusty noticed for the first time the frail form of a Venusian in the shadows. He moved silently to Rusty, extended a finny hand in the Earthian clasp adopted by the Universe. Venusians were an eternal surprise to Rusty. Half the height of an average man, limbs thin and tipped with prehensile spines, they were covered with fish-like scales, a delicate lavender in color. A single eye in the middle of the forehead, throughout the Universe they carried optional misnomers, "Cyclops" or "Fish." Rusty shook the cold hand and for a moment forgot his plight, as he felt his usual presentiments. These weird creatures from the cloud-hidden planet never failed to arouse unreasoning tingles of distrust.