"Irene Croft," she said, smiling. "And you, I know, are Glade Masson. I saw you working on these canoes before I was captured." The ex-instructor of history felt his mouth drop open. This most charming of all females he had seen on Venus was Irene Croft? Croft, the slab-sided, bony woman who had taught languages at Crayton College--the fussy old maid without a saving grace or charm save her intelligence and quick understanding? They had been good friends back there on Earth, but now--well, friendship would not be enough. "Irene," he said enthusiastically, "you're a--a--honey." His face turned purple as she smiled her gracious acceptance of his compliment. Words gurgled impotently in his throat as he helped her aboard the canoe. "Son," said Charles Ellis gruffly, "you've got it bad. And," he scowled at the trim figure sitting between them, "I don't blame you." This time it was Irene's face and neck that purpled delicately. "Sorry we can't take you back to New Crayton," said Masson, his grin anything but sorry, "but we must be almost to the rocky island we are hunting." The girl flashed a quick smile at Masson, a smile that would have given the ordinary Earthman a series of nightmares. "You are right about the island," she said. "I have picked up a fair knowledge of the speech of the Butrads." "So that's what they call themselves," broke in Ellis. "Sorry, Miss Croft. Go on." "The island is called Tular," she said. "They were taking me there to give me as a bride to the God-From-the-Clouds, as I translated it, but I feel sure that I was to be sacrificed in some ghastly religious fashion." "From-Clouds," Ellis was musing. "Probably a meteorite." His face brightened. "A meteorite may mean iron!" he cried. Masson's paddle dipped steadily into the murky waters of the cast sea that covers all Venus. Floating miniature islets of thidin swirled past, islets that some day might grow to be huge, matted sub-continents of green life. Ghostly islands of thidin, their swampy floors giving root to the stocky trees and shrubs of the Venusian jungle growth, loomed out of the endless blanket of fog. The throaty deep roar of the scaly vallids and the splash of their bodies broke the thick silence. "And iron means machines, and weapons," he said thoughtfully, without turning around. "Machines--and plows. Weapons--and hoes. We will build factories, but we will also build homes." Irene's voice cut across their musings. "Supposing the meteor is not iron?" she demanded. "The sea is full of metal," said Ellis doggedly. "We will take magnesium from it. We did it on Earth. And the island will contain metal--it must." "Spears!" called Masson unexpectedly, and then, tersely, "vallids just ahead."