They were enveloped in the ever-present Venerian clouds. The pilot's port was utterly useless to them. Matt now larded watching the surface under them, using an infrared-sensitive "cloud piercer."
Thurlow watched his radar altimeter, checking it against 1110 height-time plan for grounding.
"If we are going to dodge around any, it's got to be now," he said quietly to Matt. "What do you see?"
"Looks fairly smooth. Can't tell much."
Thurlow sneaked a look. "It's not water, anyway-and it's not forest. I guess we'll chance it."
Down they dropped, with Matt watching the ghostly infra-red-produced picture narrowly at the end, ready to tell Thurlow to give her full power if it were a meadow.
Thurlow eased off his jet-and cut it. There was a bump as if they had fallen a couple of feet. They were down, landed on Venus.
"Whew!" said the pilot and wiped sweat from his forehead. "I don't want to have to try that every day."
"Nice landing, Skipper!" called out Oscar.
"Yea boy!" agreed Tex.
"Thanks, fellows. Well, let's get the stilts down." He punched a stud on the control board. Like most rockets built for jet landings, the jeep was fitted with three stabilizing jacks, which came telescoping out of the craft's sides and slanting downward. Hydraulic pressure forced them down until they touched something solid enough to hold them, whereupon the thrusting force was automatically cut off and they locked in place, propping the rocket on three sides, tripod fashion, and holding it erect.
Thurlow waited until three little green lights appeared under the stud controlling the stilts, then unclutched the jeep's stabilizing gyros. The jeep held steady, he unstrapped. "All right, men. Let's take a look. Matt and Tex, stay inside. Oscar, if you don't mind my mentioning it, since it's your home town, you should do the honors."
"Right!" Oscar unstrapped and hurried to the lock. There was no need to check the air, since Venus is man-inhabited, and all of them, as members of the Patrol, had been immunized to the virulent Venerian fungi.
Thurlow crowded close behind him. Matt unstrapped and came down to sit by Tex in the passenger rest Oscar had left. The space around the lock was too limited in the little craft to make it worthwhile to do anything but wait.
Oscar stared out into the mist. "Well, how does it feel to be home?" asked Thurlow.
"Swell! What a beautiful, beautiful day!"
Thurlow smiled at Oscar's back and said, "Let's get the ladder down and see where we are." The access door was more than fifty feet above the jeep's fins, with no convenient loading elevator.
"Okay." Oscar turned and squeezed past Thurlow. The jeep settled suddenly on the side away from the door, seemed to catch itself, then started to fall over with increasing speed.
"The gyros!" yelled Thurlow. "Matt, clutch the gyros!" He tried to scramble past Oscar; they fouled each other, then the two fell sprawling backwards as the jeep toppled over.
At the pilot's yell Matt tried to comply-but he had been sprawled out, relaxing. He grabbed the sides of the rest, trying to force himself up and back to the control station, but the rest tilted backwards; he found himself "skinning the cat" out of it, and then was resting on the side of the craft, which was now horizontal.
Oscar and Thurlow were the first things he saw as he untangled himself. They were piled up on the inner wall of the ship, with Oscar mostly on top. Oscar started to get up-and stopped. "Eeeyowp!"
"You hurt, Oz?"
"My arm."
"What's the trouble?" This was Tex, who appeared from behind Matt, apparently untouched by the tumble.
Oscar helped himself up with his right arm, then tenderly felt his left forearm. "I don't know. A sprain-or a break, maybe. Eeee-ah! It's a break."
"Are you sure?" Matt stepped forward. "Let me see it."
"What's the matter with the skipper?" asked Tex.
"Huh?" said Matt and Oscar together. Thurlow had not moved. Tex went to him and knelt over him.
"Looks like he's knocked out cold."
"Throw some water over him."
"No, don't do that Do-" The craft settled again. Oscar looked startled and said, "I think we had better get out of here."
"Huh? We can't," protested Matt. "We've got to bring Mr. Thurlow to."
Oscar did not answer him but started climbing up toward the open lock, now ten feet over their heads, swearing in Venerian as he struggled painfully and awkwardly, using one hand, from strut to brace. " 'S'matter with old Oz?" asked Tex. "Acts like he's blown his top."
"Let him go. We've got to take care of the skipper." They knelt over Thurlow and gave him a quick, gentle' examination. He seemed unhurt, but remained unconscious.; "Maybe he's just had the breath knocked out of him," suggested Matt. "His heart beat is strong and steady."
"Look at this, Matt." It was a lump on the back of the; lieutenant's head. Matt felt it gently.
"Didn't bash in his skull. He's just had a wallop on his! noggin. He'll be all right-I think." I
"I wish Doc Pickering was here." '
"Yeah, and if fish had feet, they'd be mice. Quit worrying, Tex. Stop messing with him and give him a chance to come out of it naturally."
Oscar stuck his head down into the open door. "Hey, you guys! Come up out of there-and fast!"
"What for?" asked Matt. "Anyhow, we can't-we got to stay with the boss, and he's still out cold."
"Then carry him!"
"How? Piggy-back?"
"Any way-but do it! The ship is sinking!"
Tex opened his mouth, closed it again, and dived toward a small locker. Matt yelled. "Tex-get a line!"
"What do you think I'm doing? Ice-skating?" Tex reappeared with a coil of thin, strong line used in warping the little craft in to her mother ship. "Easy now-lift him as I slip it under his chest."
"We ought to make a proper sling. We might hurt him."
"No time for that!" urged Oscar from above them. "Hurry!"
Matt swarmed up to the door with the end of the line while Tex was still fastening the loop under the armpits of the unconscious man. A quick look around was enough to confirm Oscar's prediction; the jeep lay on her side with her fins barely touching solid ground. The nose was lower than the tail and sinking in thin, yellow mud. The mud stretched away into the mist, like a flat field, its surface carpeted with a greenish-yellow fungus except for a small space adjacent to the ship where the ship, in failing, had splashed a gap in the surface.
Matt had no time to take the scene in; the mud was almost up to the door. "Ready down there?"
"Ready. Ill be right up."
"Stay where you are and steady him. I think I can handle him." Thurlow weighed one hundred forty pounds, Earth-side; his Venus weight was about one hundred and seventeen. Matt straddled the door and took a strain on the line.
"I can give you one hand, Matt," Oscar said anxiously.
"Just stay out of my way." With Matt pulling and Tex pushing and steadying from below, they got the limp lieutenant over the lip of the door and laid out on the rocket.
The craft lurched again as a tail fin slid off the bank. "Let's get going, troops," Matt urged. "Oz, can you get up. on that bank by yourself?"
"Sure."
"Then do so. Well leave the line on the skipper and chuck the end to you and you can hang onto it with your good hand. That way, if he goes in the mud, we can haul him out."
"Quit talking and get busy." Oscar trotted the length of the craft, taking the end of the line with him. He made it to the bank by stepping from a tail fin.
Matt and Tex had no trouble carrying Thurlow as far as the fins, but the last few feet, from fins to bank, were awkward. They had to work close to the jet tube, still sizzling hot, and balance themselves in a trough formed by a fin and the converging side of the ship. They finally made it by letting Oscar take most of the lieutenant's weight by hauling from the bank with his one good arm,