 What was Sanderson studying?
He had no stomach for mysteries, vast or trifling, and there were pressing things to think about at this time. Street trade was discouraged at the Red Lion, gently but persuasively; the patrons were few in number. Across to the right was a group that Baron knew vaguely—Andean climbers, or at least two of them were. Over near the door he recognized old Balmer, who had mapped the first passage to the core of Vulcan Crater on Venus. Then he settled back and waited impatiently for the intruder who demanded his time without justifying it. Presently a small, grizzled man crossed the room and sat down at Baron’s table. It was the planet that whipped us, that and the Sun . I guess I was about ten when Wyatt and Carpenter made the last attempt—that was in 2082, I think. After that, I followed Sanderson’s work in the Twilight Lab up there and began to get Brightside into my blood, sure as death. Did you ever know Tom Mikuta? He was a major in the Interplanetary Service for some years and hung onto the title after he gave up his commission. He was with Armstrong on Mars during his Service days, did a good deal of the original mapping and surveying for the Colony there. I first met him on Venus; we spent five years together up there doing some of the nastiest exploring since the Matto Grasso. Then he made the attempt on Vulcan Crater that paved the way for Balmer a few years later. I’d always liked the Major—he was big and quiet and cool, the sort of guy who always had things figured a little further ahead than anyone else and always knew what to do in a tight place. He also had the kind of personality that could take a crew of wild men and make them work like a well-oiled machine across a thousand miles of Venus jungle. We spent an evening here at the Red Lion, talking about old times; he told me about the Vulcan business, and how he’d been out to see Sanderson and the Twilight Lab on Mercury, and how he preferred a hot trek to a cold one any day of the year—and then he wanted to know what I’d been doing since Venus and what my plans were. Four thousand miles of butcherous heat, just to have some joker come along, use your data and drum you out of the glory by crossing at perihelion forty-four days later? “I want to make a Crossing at perihelion and I want to cross on the surface.
 The Sun
 The Brightside  The Darkside  The twilight zone  The Sun