"It's a primitive planet, Dr. Hamlin. Right now, according to the geologists, Venus is just like the earth was ten million years ago. Life is forming on it--primitive life. Take the chowls, for example--you see replicas of them in every department store window. They look a little like teddy-bears, especially when they walk. Still they have ten fingers and ten toes. Archeologists tell us they're humanoid. Yet only half-a-million years ago they crawled out of the oceans. Maybe in another two million years they'll be living in houses instead of thatched hovels and pointing guns at people instead of running like a star-bound flame-buggy every time they hear a noise. But right now they're scared. They're out of their natural element and they're scared, the same way our own Neanderthal man was scared before he found out how to fashion a rock-hammer." Dr. Hamlin lit his pipe. "You're quite sure then, Mr. Keating, that man will never be able to live there?" "Live there! Man can't even breathe there! There's less than one tenth of one percent oxygen in the air." Dr. Hamlin pressed his fingertips together. "Mr. Keating," he said, "just how much do you know about the three men who were lost on the first Venus expedition?" "Only what's in the history books," Carl said. "It's more or less of a legend, how Edgerton, Rhind, and Mitchell, were separated from the main party and never seen again." "Died contributing to man's conquest of space," Ferguson said with mock drama. "It wasn't a pleasant death," Carl said quickly. "I'd bet on that." "Mr. Keating," Hamlin said, "do you have any ideas as to just why these three men should have disappeared at this time?" Carl shook his head. "Could have been anything, I guess. They could have got lost and ran out of oxygen. They could have gotten snake bit. I wouldn't know. The whole thing happened before I was born." II Dr. Hamlin got up. "No, there was more to it than that. In spite of the fact that it happened almost forty years ago, I happen to know that the situation didn't occur exactly as the history books would have you believe. The army, it is true covered up for them and made them heroes, but Edgerton, Mitchell, and Rhind, in reality, took off on their own. They took off without orders or permission, just a few hours before take-off-time, with nothing except a six week supply of oxygen, a portable air-blister, and a few supplies." Carl studied the man's face. The story was true. In his cadet days, old spacemen had spilled the story too many times for him to doubt its authenticity. "Suppose you tell me what all this is getting at?" he hedged. Hamlin crossed the room. From a desk drawer he removed a palm-sized photo-cartridge and inserted it in the video adaptor. The room lights dimmed as the three dimensional screen brightened, dancing in a kaleidoscope of color. The colors merged.