What happened after that was anti-climax. The effect of Lark O'Day's little speech to the Venusian Council was a measure of his greatness. He talked and they listened. They demurred and he raised his voice a note. They complained and that note became a warning note. They entered a half-hearted refusal and he stopped _asking_ and started _telling_ them what they must do ... or else. They capitulated, servilely. A short time later the _Liberty_ was once again nestling in a Sun City cradle; this time gorging its belly with the five thousand tons of _neurotrope_ for which Gary had unsuccessfully pleaded. The only difference between this arrangement and the one Lane had suggested was that the Venusians were not paid cash on the line for the vital fuel. That was Lark O'Day's idea. "Not a damn cent," he said. "Serves them right for being so stingy with it before. This will teach them a lesson. And--" He grinned--"if your conscience bothers you, you can pay them when we come back, if our trip is successful." "_We?_" said Nora Powell. "_Our_ trip?" Lark O'Day grinned at her happily. "Why, sure," he drawled. "You don't think I'd let an expedition like this get away without _me_ being aboard, do you? That's my fee for helping out in a pinch. You don't mind, do you, if I join the party?" Lane said, "Mind! We're tickled to death to have you." And he really meant it. * * * * * So set the _Liberty_ forth upon the second leg of its quest. Nor was it now a halting leg upon which they limped. For their bins were filled to the brim, "With enough fuel--" as Flick Muldoon put it--"to drive us from here to Hades and back, with lay-overs at Erewhon and Shangri-la!" This phase of the journey was not so frenzied as had been the brief shuttle from Earth to Venus. For Mars lay not in conjunction with Earth, but in opposition to the green planet. Their course bore them sunward from Venus, inside the orbit of Mercury, then outward again two hundred million miles to where slow Mars, pursuing its inexorable course, should meet them in celestial rendezvous. Thus the first week of their twenty day voyage was a far from pleasant experience. Nearing Venus they had experienced a sample of Sol's heat-dealing abilities. Now, as they flashed yet farther sunward, Gary Lane and his companions realized that this had been indeed but a tiny taste of what was to come. Hour by hour the temperature within the _Liberty_ rose as flaming radiation lashed at the cruiser's hull with scourges of flame. It scarcely mattered that the refrigerating unit strained and labored like a floundering Titan. The metal walls were unbearable to touch, and cool drinks were but a sop to bodies which oozed perspiration from every pore like desert-parched sponges.