The air of the Hotlands is hazy with spores which instantly infest any life-form unfortunate enough to have its skin pierced, and at the top of the Venusian food chain is the doughpot, a mass of fast-moving undifferentiated protoplasm that absorbs every living thing in its path, and whose touch is fatal to humans.

Close to the terminator a constant wind from the night side of Venus brings the temperature below 80 degrees Fahrenheit, too cold for the spores and most of the other Hotlands' life.

When Hammond's shack is sucked under the surface by a mud-spout, he must make his way across 200 miles of hot, humid, hostile Venusian jungle to reach Erotia, a settlement in the American part of the planet.

Their truce ends when Hammond wakes to find that Burlingame has emptied his xixtchil pods onto the ground, exposing them to the destructive spores.

Now destitute, Hammond angrily sets off north toward Erotia, leaving Burlingame to make her way south through the impassable Mountains of Eternity to the British settlement of Venoble alone.

Hammond is able to get off two shots of his flame pistol at the doughpot before the barrel shatters, reducing the thing's size but still leaving them trapped.

They decide to go deeper into the box canyon, but in the darkness they are set upon by Triops noctivivans, vicious nightside-dwelling cousins of the Venusians.