What chance had the castaway Earthman and
his crossbow-weaponed Amazons against the
mighty Frogmasters of the Veiled Planet?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Summer 1942.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Black velvet infinity all around, punctured and patterned with the
many-hued jewels of space--comforting, somehow, because they made the
same constellation patterns you used to see on Earth. There was the
Dipper, there Scorpio, there Orion. But the twinkle was shut off, as
though every star had turned cold and silently watchful toward your
impudent invasion of emptiness.
So big was the universe that the little recess which did duty for
control-room, observation-point and living-cabin seemed even smaller
than it was; which was very small indeed. Planter forgot the dizzy
lightness of head and body, here beyond gravity, and turned his
wondering eyes outward from where he lay strapped in his spring-jointed
hammock, toward the firmament, and decided that there was nothing in
all his past life that he would change if he could.
"Check blast-tempo," came the voice of Disbro just beyond his head,
a high, harsh, commanding voice. "Check lubrication-loss and check
sun-direction. Then brace yourself. We may land quicker than we
thought."
Planter leaned toward the instrument panel that covered most of the
bulkhead to the right of his hammock. The pale glow from the dials
highlighted his face, young, bony, intent. "Blast-tempo adequate," he
called back to Disbro. "Lubrication-loss about seven point two. Three
point nine six degrees off sunward. Air loss nil."
"Who asked for air loss?" snubbed Disbro from his hammock forward.
He was leaner than Planter, taller, older. Even in his insulated
coveralls, bulking against whatever temperature or pressure danger
might be threatened by the outer space, he was of a dangerous elegance
of figure and attitude. His face, framed in tight, cushioned helmet,
was so narrow that it seemed compressed sidewise--dark eyes crowded
together with only a disdainful blade of nose between them, a mouth
short but strong, a chin like the pointed toe of a stylish boot, a
cropped black mustache. Back on lost Earth, Disbro had frightened men
and fascinated women. His cunning crime-administration had been almost
too neat for the police, but not quite; or he would not have been here,
with his life barely held in his elegant fingertips.
"Venus plumb center ahead," he told Planter. "Have a look."
That last as if he were granting a favor. Planter twisted in the
hammock. He saw the taut-slung cocoon that would be Disbro's netted
body, the control board like a bigger, more complex typewriter where
Disbro could reach and strike key-combinations to steer, speed or
otherwise maneuver the ship.
Beyond, a great round port, at its middle a disk the size of a
table-top. Against the black, airless sky, most of that disk looked
as blue as the thinnest of milk. One smooth edge was brightened to
cream--the sunward limb of Venus. But even the dimmer expanse showed
fluffy and gently rippling, a swaddling of opaque cloud.
"That," said Disbro, "is our little gray home in the west."
"I wonder what's underneath the clouds," mused Planter, for the
millionth time.
"All those science-pots, sitting home on the seats of their expensive
striped pants, wonder that," snarled Disbro. "That's why they sent
eight rockets before us, smack into the cloud. That's why, with eight
silences out of a possible eight, they rigged this ninth. That's why,
when nobody was fool enough to volunteer, they dug up three convicts
who were all neatly earmarked to be killed anyway, and gave them a bang
at the job."
Three convicts--Planter, Disbro, and Max. Planter had forgotten Max, as
everyone was apt to, including Max himself. For Max had been a sturdy
athlete, a coming heavyweight champion, until too many gaily-accepted
blows had done something to his mind. Doctors said some concussion
unbalanced him, but not far enough so that he didn't know right and
wrong apart when he killed his manager for cheating on certain gate
receipts. And so, prison and a sentence to the chair with the reprieve
that came by recommendation of the Rocket Foundation on March 30, 2082.
Now Max was in the compartment aft, keeping the levers kicking that ran
the rocket engines. Show Max how to do a thing and he'd keep right on
doing it until you pulled him away, or until he dropped.
What would Max's last name be, wondered Planter. He studied the face of
Venus. He sang to himself, softly:
"_Oh, thou sublime sweet evening star_...."
Softly, but not too softly for Disbro's excellent ears. Disbro chuckled.
"You know opera, Planter? Pretty fancy for an ex-con."
"I know that piece," said Planter shortly. "Wolfram's hymn to Venus,
from _Tannhauser_."
* * * * *
It had started him thinking again. Gwen had played it so often on her
violin. Played it and sung it. Those were the days he hadn't known she
was married, down in her red-and-gold apartment in the Artists Quarter.
He'd been sculpting her--she'd had the second best figure he ever saw.
Then he found out about her husband, for the husband burst in upon
them. The husband had tried to kill Planter, but Planter had killed the
husband. And Gwen had sworn his life away.
"Check elapsed time," Disbro bade him.
"Fifty-eight days nine hours and fifty-four minutes point seven,"
rejoined Planter at once.
"Prompt, aren't you? We'll be on Venus before the sixty-fourth day."
Planter saw Disbro shift over in his hammock. "I'm going to shave. Then
eat."
Disbro turned a stud in the wall. His electric razor began to hum.
Planter opened a locker-valve and brought forth his own rations--a
package of concentrated solid, compounded of chocolate, meat extract,
several vitamin agents. It would sustain him for hours, but was
anything but a fill to his hunger. He chewed it slowly to make it last
longer, and sipped from a snipe-nosed container of water, slightly
effervescent and acidulated. A few drops escaped between snout and lip,
and swam lazily in the gravityless air of the cabin, like shiny little
bubbles.
"Planter," said Disbro, suddenly pleasant, "we're going to fool 'em."