
Stranded in the scorching Scorpion Desert of Venus, a young prospector pilots a rugged sandcar across endless dunes, chasing rumors of goldenstone veins that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. Armed with only a meager grubstake and a stubborn belief in his own endurance, he left the dusty outpost of Presto to carve a fortune in a landscape three times the size of Earth’s Sahara. The heat‑blasted horizon, swarms of sand‑wolf packs and the distant hum of Venusborg’s music set a vivid backdrop for his solitary trek.
On the twenty‑first day, a sudden collapse of a massive dune sends his vehicle careening, wheels shredded and sand choking his senses. As the sandcar tumbles and comes to a jolting halt, he awakens bruised, his supplies dwindling, and the clock ticks toward a brief, desperate nap. Yet even in this precarious moment, his mind races toward the promised strike that could fund a future on Earth’s oceans, keeping his resolve as fierce as the desert itself.
Language
en
Duration
~49 minutes (47K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
Apr 15, 2016
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1928–2005
Known for sharp, funny science fiction that could turn absurd in an instant, his stories mixed satire with big speculative ideas. He became one of the standout short-story writers to emerge from the magazine boom of the 1950s.
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