Carefully they replaced the spongy earth. Then, with Jarl Gare in the lead, the pair walked upright, but quietly, to the great power-charged fence. It went up twenty feet and down the same distance underground--Jarl Gare had learned this depth from a prisoner who had tried to dig his way out but failed and nearly drowned as liquid seeped into the hole he was digging. The big Jovian, his thick-thewed body glimmering with sweat in the ground light, bent to pick up Jarl Gare's slight naked body. "Wait," Jarl Gare warned. "We must wait until one of the river beasts start plunging." The Jovian grunted. He waited, flexing the great shoulder and back muscles. Then he said suddenly, "I smell guards." Jarl Gare's thin face jerked up at the seven foot figure of his companion. "Where?" he asked tensely. The Jovian with a quick movement shoved Jarl Gare to the ground, dropped flat swiftly himself and wriggled away through the short grass. Jarl Gare waited quietly. The big Jovian whose eyes, trained on his homeworld of darkness, penetrated the steamy fog of Venus almost as well as an infra-red lamp, would take care of the guards his nostrils had scented. That was the way Jarl Gare had planned it. Waltk's strength, nearly a dozen times greater than that of an Earthling, his hearing developed to a tremendous acuity by the environment of his homeworld, and his eyesight were the tools of Jarl's brain. If Waltk had had Jarl's brain, he could have won a Venusian pearl, but, while Nature had given him a marvelous machine for survival, she had only given him just enough brain to keep it operating. His work would be done when they reached the Venusian pearl-beds. One glance at the bulky figure and the Venusians would know the weakness. But it did not matter if he lost. Jarl Gare would still win a pearl. _I have no weakness_, Jarl grinned to himself, _except pride and the Venusians seek out physical or mental weakness--not a character weakness._ He remembered the oft-told tale of the Earthman whom the Venusians had frightened to death, but that was because he showed that fear physically. Three years in The Hole and you either go raving mad or learn to mask every emotion. Abruptly, Waltk was back. "There were two," he said, "Two no more." "Did they have fog-piercers?" Jarl Gare asked. "Yes," Waltk grunted. "I remembered what you said." He handed over a pair of glasses and the special light. "You would not need these. I see enough for both of us." There was a muted splash from the river. Waltk's great hands seized Jarl Gare about the waist and lifted him. "Three splashes--then heave," Jarl Gare said. The next splash was louder, the second louder and longer and, when the third crashed into the night, Jarl Gare was flung as if from a catapult over the fence. As his naked body struck the river, his mind exulted. It was perfect timing, the splash of the river beast drowning out his own.