He sat, alone, in the view-room, looking at nothing.  The screens were dead, here.  Venus was to be seen from the ventral view-room.  That's where the others were.  Anthony knew that nemesis was creeping up on him, and the knowledge was enough.  He didn't want to sit and look at it.  The seat fell away beneath him, momentarily, and he clutched an arm-rest.  Someone juggling with the anti-grays, getting ready to come alongside the satellite-platform.  Any minute now the alarms would sound.  Venus was out there, somewhere, and getting closer by the minute.  The idea hung over him like a weight.

Clang... the gong snapped him into a leap of fright.  Clang... that pitch was chosen to catch the nerves.  Clang... he scrambled up from his chair, sweating... clang... into the passage and chrome-railed companionway.

"One minute to course-correction and rendezvous," an impersonal voice warned him.  "Passengers will secure to cabins, at once."

At the end of the companionway he almost collided with Martha, and Willers, and that infernal gong began again... clang.

"Let me help you," she said, and put a hand... clang... on his arm.  He threw it off, savagely, hardly sane in his... clang... terror, and the pounding in his skull... clang...

"Let me alone!" he choked.  "Let me alone!  If it hadn't been for you... clang... I wouldn't be here.  Damn you!"  He was almost speechless with... clang... with the effort of holding in his fear.  There was... clang... shock on her face.  He fended himself away... clang... from the bulkhead, and Willers grabbed at his arm.  CLANG.

"Just a minute!" he growled.  "You can't... CLANG... talk to a lady like that!"  Without thinking about it... CLANG... Anthony balled his fist and flung it... CLANG... against Willers' jaw, saw him reel.  Then he tore loose... CLANG... and went retching down the passage to his own... CLANG... cabin.  There, sobbing for breath... CLANG... he slammed the door shut and threw himself on his... CLANG... bunk.  The automatic mechanism sighed and clicked, the side-wall folded down in a comforting grip of sponge-plastic, holding him safely.  The steady clanging was far away, now.  After a while it stopped.  Strange forces and strains tugged him, physically and mentally.  He broke through something inside, and went down into a hot darkness of shame and degradation.  He wallowed in fear and humiliation until there was no more left of it. until it had all been boiled out of his system, leaving him dully indifferent.

Everything had gone, his interests and curiosities along with his fears and resentment, leaving him curiously light-headed and uncaring.  He was distantly aware that the ship had come alongside the orbital satellite, that various items of value were being unloaded, and that he was one of the items.  In a far-off-way, that bit of information was almost amusing.  If it had mattered, he would have laughed at it, as they waited for the shuttle-rocket to come fire-tailing up from the planet below and get them.  He was still microscopically intrigued by the thought as he sat where Harper told him to, and watched, through a port, the surface of the planet reaching up to engulf him.

Willers had an angry red bruise along his left cheek-bone.  That planet down there wasn't fleecy white clouds, after all, but a seething, mottled greenish-gray, like some gross glob of yeast.  Harper was looking at him oddly.  Willers was whispering, but Anthony could hear every word, as if his hearing had been tuned up to maximum response.

"I tell you, he's a hop.  Nobody acts that way, normal.  And you can see the glassy glitter in his eyes.  Doped to the ear-lobes, I'll bet..."