By JAMES McKIMMEY, JR.
_It wasn't love of adventure that forced
Caine onto Venus' forbidden Purple Plateau.
Oh, no. But there was a wench named Cice--a
five-imaged wench--who could make the heart
of any pilot leap crazily through the Galaxy._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories May 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
This was Nicholas Caine's last run and he didn't like it. It didn't
look right or feel right or taste right. Even the small jetcopter felt
sluggish to his touch. He was getting it down too fast and up too slow.
But that, he knew, was really caused by his nerves. Usually he was as
cold about these jaunts as a piece of newly chipped ice; this was his
business. But today was different.
This was the end of it and tomorrow it wouldn't be his business
anymore. A man absorbed so much and he couldn't absorb anymore. He got
to the point finally when he kicked it over and he said, "Thank you and
to hell with it," and then he left.
And that was what Caine was doing. Only he still had this last run and
it was wrong. He knew it. It was all wrong.
He glanced at the mirror that reflected the cabin behind him.
The girl with the brown hair and the white teeth winked at him.
Caine looked away quickly and thin muscles rippled along his jaw. He
didn't know which of them was getting on his nerves more, the girl or
the insane kid who was with her.
It was certain that between them they were getting him, and he jambed a
hand forward. The ship whipped down through the air like an Earth sea
gull, skimming the tops of the vine-trees of the Venusian jungle.
"Oh, lookee, lookee!" screamed the thin twitching boy with the blond
hair. "Swamp and jungle, snakes and lizards! Are there devils down
there, Driver? Are there spooks and ghosts and witches? Hey, Driver?"
Caine didn't answer. He looked again to the mirror.
The girl was laughing and shaking her brown hair. The boy was using his
camera, leaning over the edge of the open-topped cabin. He was about
twenty-one, Caine judged. Six years younger than Caine, but he acted
like he was twelve or thirteen. Caine hadn't liked him from the start
and he hated him right now. He was just another rich kid who thought
the whole system was a playground.
And he kept calling Caine, "Driver." If he did it once more, Caine
promised himself, he'd kill him.
Only he wouldn't, he knew. He wouldn't do anything. Caine had asked for
this job, taking people with too much money on sight-seeing hops over
the wilds of the Venusian country. It was a long way for both Caine and
his jetcopter from the days when he was out at the tip of the finger of
exploration, when the American Colony had been only a rugged square on
the flatland.
Now that was over and he was leaving Venus. And the reason why he
was leaving, was because of people like the two in back of him. The
stupid, blind, selfish people who had ruined every chance for a decent
relationship between the Colonists and the Venusians.
Because the Venusians were kind and honest and good, these people had
swept over them like hail hitting flower petals. They had slashed and
gouged and broken everything in their way: the earth, the vegetation,
the Venusians themselves. Everything went down in front of the
Colonist's hand. And then they laughed and spent the money they made
and damned near tickled themselves to death with their own superiority.
Caine brought the ship up with a wrench, swearing under his breath.
Well, this was the last time he'd have anything more to do with them.
Tomorrow, he'd be on a rocket and this time he'd find a place where he
wouldn't see another damned tourist the rest of his life. The only good
thing about this was that he would use their money to do it. He wasn't
a sucker like the Venusian. He knew how to charge six times over for a
trip like this.
The boy was chattering and the girl was laughing and Caine made a slow
sweeping circle over the yellow and green and purple jungle.
The boy was jerking finished three-dimensional pictures out of the
camera and squinting at them. "Oh, Lord," he would say, giggling as
he looked. Then he would throw the picture over his shoulder and grab
another. "Oh, heavens." And that one would go over his shoulder.
"Hey, Driver!" the boy yelled. "Let's go down again."
Caine set his teeth and spiraled slowly in the cloud-dull air.
He felt a touch against his right arm. He glanced down and found the
girl's small foot beside his arm. She wiggled a sandaled toe and tapped
him again with her foot.
* * * * *
Caine saw her small ankle and after that, the neat swell of her calf.
She wore no stockings and her skin was tanned the color of golden
wheat--from long hours, Caine knew, lying in an artificially sunlit
patio.
He looked at her in the mirror.
"Vanny wants to go down again," she said, smiling insolently. She shook
the soft brown hair and her eyes danced. She had dark blue eyes, Caine
noticed, and they sparkled and flirted. And Caine wanted none of it. He
wanted to get this over and he wanted to get away.
She was making him more nervous than the boy was, only it was a
different kind of nervousness. It was the kind that got into your blood
and found your heart and your breath, and it was more dangerous.
"Down, down!" the boy was yelling.
"All right," Caine said. "All right."
He spiraled the ship toward the jungle.
"You know," he could hear the girl say, "I don't think Driver likes
you, Vanny. I don't think he likes me, either. Why don't you like us,
Driver?"
Caine concentrated on his flying.
"You know," said the girl in her husky voice, "maybe he doesn't like it
because we call him Driver. Do you, Driver?"
Caine accelerated the ship and cut at the tips of the vine-trees. He
heard the clicks of the boy's camera and his crazy yelling.
The girl touched his arm with her toe again. "What is your name,
Driver?"
Caine looked up at the mirror and stared at the girl's eyes. She bent
forward, her smile a quirk at each corner of her red mouth. She wore a
thin blue dress that matched the color of her eyes, and its neckline
was cut so that, as she leaned forward, Caine could see that she was
probably tanned all over.
She smiled her white smile and her teeth were even and small. "Name,"
she said.
"Caine," he snapped.
"First name."
"Nicholas."
"Do they call you Nick?"
"My friends call me Nic. N-i-c. Pronounced like Nick. My friends call
me that."
"That's what I'll call you, Nic."
He stared at her in the mirror, his mouth tight.
"Aren't I your friend, Nic?" she said, wiggling her toe.