"We'll land at the north pole."
Planter shook his head. "We can't. This rocket is set at mid-point on
the Venusian disk."
"We can. I've tinkered with the controls. A break for us, no break for
the Foundationeers at home. They're watching us through telescopes.
What they want is our crash on Venus, with a great upflare of the
exploding fuel. Then they'll know that we landed, and can shake hands
all 'round on a 'successful advancement.' But we're curving away, then
in. I've fixed that. We'll not blow off and make any signal; but we'll
live."
"North pole," mused Planter, pensively.
"No spin to Venus up there. We'll land solidly. We'll land where it's
coolest, and none too cool. Her equator must be two degrees hotter than
Satan's reception hall. The pole may be endurable."
"What then?" asked Planter.
"We'll live, I say. Don't you want to live?"
Planter hadn't thought about it lately. But suddenly he knew that he
did want to live. His was a family of considerable longevity. His
grandfather had attained the age of one hundred and seven, and had
claimed to remember the end of the Second World War.
"Six days to study it over," Disbro was saying. "Then we'll have a try.
If we land alive, we'll laugh. If we die trying, we'll have nothing to
worry about. Float up here, will you? Take over. I'm going to have a
little sleep."
* * * * *
Through choking steam, white and ever-swirling, drove the silvery
cigar that was the ninth rocket ship to attempt to voyage across
space. From its snout blossomed sudden flame, blue and red and blue
again--rocket counter-blasts that were designed to act as brakes. They
worked, somewhat. The speed cut from bullet-rate to falling-rate. From
falling-rate to flying-rate. Then, of a sudden, partial clarity around
it. Within an upper envelope of blinding vapors, Venus had a thinner
atmosphere, partially transparent. Below showed a surface of fluffy
greens, all sorts of greens--lettuce, apple, olive, emerald, spinach,
sea greens. Vegetation, plainly, and lots of it. The ship, steadying in
its plunge like a skilled diver, nosed across toward a wet, slate-dark
patch that must be open ground. From the stern, where rocket tubes had
ceased blazing, broke out a massive expanse of fabric--a parachute.
Another and another. Down floated the craft, thudding, at last, upon
its resting place.
Planter felt a cramping pain. He realized that to feel pain one must
be alive. Then his head throbbed--it hung head downward. Gravity was
back. He groped for his hammock fastenings, loosened them, and lowered
himself to a standing position beneath, on the round port that had been
forward. Disbro hung in his hammock, motionless but moaning faintly.
Planter hurriedly freed him and laid him flat on his back. He fumbled a
locker open, brought out a water-pot. A little spurt between Disbro's
short, scornful lips brought him back to consciousness.
"We made it," was Disbro's first comment, full of triumph and savagery.
"Help me up. Thanks. Whoooh! We seem to have socked in somewhere, nose
first."
He was right. No sign of light or open air showed through the forward
port, nor the side ports from which Planter had been wont to study
the reaches of space. Disbro looked up. The after bulkhead, now their
ceiling, had a hatchway. "Hoist me," he said to Planter, who made a
stirrup of his hands and obliged. The slightly lesser gravitational
pull of Venus made Disbro more active than on Earth. He caught
Planter's hammock, got his foot on a side-bracket for steadiness, and
climbed up to the hatch. A tug at the clamps opened it, and he wriggled
through.
"Wake up, you big buffalo," Planter heard him snarling. Max was
evidently unconscious up there. Planter, without a helper to lift him,
made shift by climbing Disbro's hammock, then his own, to gain the
compartment above.
"He'd have died if he had an ounce of brains," commented Disbro,
pointing. Max lay crumpled against the bulkhead, close to the great
bank of levers he had been working. In his hands were grasped broken
pieces of network from his hammock.
"He was out of the lashings when we landed," Disbro went on. "We were
about to hit, and he grabbed hold. Must have passed out. But the big
lump's single-minded--abnormally so. He hung on without knowing, and
the breaking of those strands kept him from crashing full force."
Planter knelt and pulled Max straight. Max was tremendous, a burly
troll in his coveralls. His shoulders were almost a yard wide, his
hands like oversize gloves. His big face, with its broad jaw, heavy
dark brows and ruddy cheeks, might have been handsome, was not the nose
smashed in by a blow taken in some old ring battle.
"Don't waste water," cautioned Disbro as Planter hunted for the
food-locker. "I'll bring him out of it." He knelt and slapped the
inert face sharply.
Max's mouth opened, showing a gap where his front teeth had been
beaten out. He gave a grumbling yell, then sprang erect so suddenly
that Disbro, starting away, almost fell through the hatchway. Max saw
Planter, scowled and snorted, then fell into a boxing stance. He inched
forward, his mighty fists fiddling hypnotically.
"Time!" yelled Planter at once. "This isn't a fight, Max! We've
landed--safe and alive--on Venus!"
Max's eyes widened a little. He grinned loosely, and pulled off his
helmet. His skull was thatched with bushy, black hair. "Uhh," he said,
in a deep, chiding tone. "I forgot. Uhhh."
"Forgot!" echoed Disbro scornfully. "He sounds as if he had the ability
to remember."
Planter studied the ports in this compartment. They, too, were obscured
by wet-looking grail soil. The ship must be well buried in the crust of
Venus. What if it was completely submerged, a tomb for them? He glanced
upward to another hatchway, one that would lead past the rocket engines.
"Don't go up," Max cautioned him throatily. "Hot up there."
"Brilliant," was Disbro's ill-humored rejoinder. "Max actually knows
that the engines will be hot."
Planter clapped Max on the big shoulder. "It'll be all right," he
reassured the giant. "Get me a wrench, will you? That long-shanked one
for tightening tube-housings will do."
* * * * *
He scrambled up along the levers, which made a ladder of sorts. The
hatch to the engines had to be loosened with the wrench. Beyond, as
Max had sagely warned him, it was stiflingly hot. He avoided gleaming,
sweltering tubes and housings, scrambling to where a four-foot circle
of nuts showed in the bulkheading. This would be the plate that closed
the central stern, among the rear rocket-jets. He began to loosen one.
"Stop that, you fool!" It was Disbro, who had climbed after him and was
watching. "Who knows about this lower atmosphere of Venus?"
"I'm going to find out about it," replied Planter, a little roughly,
for he did not like Disbro's manner. He gave the nut another turn.
"Wait, wait," cautioned Disbro. He climbed all the way into view,
holding up a glass flask with a neck attachment of gauges and pipings.
"I got a sample, through the lock-panel--plenty of air-bubbles were
carried down with us. Let me work it out before you do anything heroic."
Disbro was right. He was usually right, about technologies. Planter
mopped his brow on the sleeve of his coverall, and waited.
"Yes," Disbro was commenting. "Oxygen--nice article of that, and
plenty. Nitrogen, too. Just like Earth. Quite a bit of carbon dioxide.
It'll be from all that vegetation. Certified breathable. Go on and
unship that plate."
Planter did so. He loosed the last net, and pushed against the plate.
It stirred easily--the after part of the ship would still be in the
open. Disbro, climbing after him, caught his elbow.
"I go out first," he announced. "They marked me down as senior of the
expedition. One side."
Planter stared quizzically, and once again did as Disbro told him. The
lean man thrust up the plate like a trapdoor, and crept out.
"At last!" he yelled back. "Men on Venus! Come on, Planter!"
Planter called back to Max, who was bringing up a bundle of articles
Disbro had chosen for the venture outside--two repeating rifles, two
pistols, several tools, and tins of food, coils of rope. Planter helped
him with the load, and they got outside with it.
Disbro had slid down the step bulge of the hull. He clung to a
grab-iron, his feet just above the gray muck into which they had
plunged. He stared up.
"First man to set foot on Venus," he was saying. "Who was second of you
two?"
"We didn't stop to bother," Planter replied. "What now?"
He stared around, to answer his own question. Venus was dull, like
a very cloudy day at home. The air was moist, but fresh, and little
wreaths and veils of mist kept one from seeing far. But he made out
that they had found lodgment in a sterile-looking clearing with a muddy
floor that might or might not sustain a man's weight. All around was a
crowded wall of vegetation--towering high above the range of his vision
into upper fog, tight grown as a hedge, and vigorously fat of twig and
leaf. Planter, no botanist, yet was aware at once of strangeness beyond
his power to describe. He knew that specimens should be gathered and
preserved to take home.
To take home? Home to Earth? But the ship was almost buried in this
mud. He remembered Disbro's dry comment--"Our little gray home in the
west." They were on Venus. Undoubtedly to stay.
Max, beside him, gave a sort of gurgling bellow of surprise and fear.
"Uhhh! Something's got Mr. Disbro!"
* * * * *
For once, Max was being articulate. For once, Disbro was being silent.
Glancing down, Planter saw the slender, elegant figure writhed close
against the metal hull, clutching with both hands the grab-iron. Disbro
stared groundwards, and what could be seen of his face was as white as
a wood-boring grub. One of his legs was drawn up, knee bracing upon the
plates, the other stretched out grotesquely, as if to point a toe at
something in the muck.
It took a second staring study to realize that a whiplike strand of
something that gleamed and tightened was snapped around Disbro's ankle.
"Rope, Max," snapped Planter. He made a quick hitch around a
rocket-tube, and lowered himself in a rush. His free hand grasped a
heavy automatic pistol. He paused in his descent just above Disbro,
studying the black, shiny tether.
It protruded from the semi-glutinous mud, which stirred and quivered
around the protrusion. A sense was there of rigid grasp and slowly
contracting pressure. It was squeezing the captured ankle, it was
shortening itself to pull Disbro down. Disbro said nothing because he
had caught his breath for an effort at wrenching free. But he could not
do that. His strong, lean fingers were beginning to slip on the grab
iron. He turned horror-widened eyes toward Planter.
"Hang on," muttered Planter, and aimed his pistol. No sure shot, he
nevertheless was close to his target. He fired a .50 caliber slug,
another and another. Two of them hit the tail, tentacle or proboscis.
At once it let go of Disbro, gesticulating wildly. Blood sprang forth
on its shiny integument--Venusian blood was red, mused Planter, even
as Venusian herbage was green. Disbro gave a choking gurgle that might
have been thanks, relief or effort. A moment later he was swarming up
Planter's rope like a monkey.
But Planter did not follow. The appendage he had wounded was drawing
out of sight, like a worm into its hole; but two more just like it had
fastened upon his foot and knee.
He lost his grip and fell into the mud. It was like a dip into thick
gravy. The stuff lapped and closed over his head, and he let go of the
pistol to try to swim. A couple of laborious strokes brought him back
to the surface, gasping and blowing away thick lumps from nose and
mouth. A moment later two more tentacles were groping and seizing at
his shoulder and waist. Four bonds now tightened upon him, like lariats.
Planter seemed to be thinking in two compartments. One set of thoughts
dictated his floundering, desperate struggle. The other considered the
situation with a curiosity dispassionate and almost mild. The creature
that snared him was just what he might have expected--something on the
octopus order. How many science fiction stories had dealt with such
monsters on strange worlds? The creepy writhings of tentacles appealed
to fantasy writers--the neat, simple, active structure of the brute was
logical to the great mechanic who devised Nature. The thing had him, in
any case, if he could not kick or struggle or cut free.
_Cut free!_ That was it. He had a knife, in the side pocket of his
coveralls.
He dug for it, almost dropped it from his muddy fingers, then yanked
open the biggest blade. He slashed at the nearest tentacle, the one
around his waist. It parted like a cane-stalk before a machete. The
other arms quivered and slackened, plainly shocked by pain. Planter
rolled out of their grip, started to swim away anywhere.
He looked over his shoulder and saw his enemy as it humped itself
partially into view.
Not such an octopus, after all.
The dispassionate part of Planter's brain called the thing an animated
tall tree. The slender tentacles sprouted from a thicker trunk,
that could curve and writhe and wallow, but not so readily. It was
of a rubbery gray-brown, and at the upper end, nested among the
tentacle-roots, was what must be its mouth. That mouth opened and shut
in almost wistful hunger. Planter swam furiously. He wanted to reach
and climb the stern of the rocket ship, but the thing knew his wish,
and moved to head him off. He kicked and fought his way toward the far
mass of leaves that bordered this mud-pit.
From among those leaves glowed for an instant a sort of splinter of
yellow light. A small object sang over Planter's helmeted head like a
bee, and struck behind him with a little _chock_. It must have found
lodgment against the hall-tree thing, which paused in its pursuit
to flop and spatter the mud with its tentacles. Planter blessed the
diversion, whatever it was, and strove nearer to the shore.
The forest was alive, he suddenly decided. Out of its misty tangle
a great leafy branch swung knowingly toward him. He clutched at it,
brought away a fat, moist handful of strange-shaped leaves. His other
hand made good its hold on the branch itself, and with the last of his
strength he dragged himself to where roots hummocked above the mud.
Then he saw where the branch had come from. A slim, active figure stood
among the stems, pressing with both hands upon the base of the branch
to make it move into the open. As Planter scrambled to safety, the
figure relaxed its helpful shoving, and the branch moved back toward
the perpendicular.
Planter gazed in utter lost unbelief at this stranger.
It was a woman, young, fair, fine-limbed. She wore the briefest of
garments, belted around with strange weapons, and her feet were shod in
cross-gartered buskins. Upon her tumble of golden curls rode a metal
helmet that reminded him of Grecian antiquity. Her bare arms, round
but strong, cradled something with a stock and butt of a musket, but
with a short, tight-strung bow at its muzzle--surely the pattern of a
medieval crossbow.
Her face was of a flawless pink-and-white beauty, just now stamped with
utter disdain. Its short, rosy mouth opened, and formed words.
Words that Planter understood!
"You fool," said the girl with the crossbow. "You scurvy fool."
* * * * *
Disbro, barely able to stir for shock and weariness, climbed only a
few hand's breadths out of danger before he must stop and wheeze for
breath. At last he could make himself heard:
"Max! You pighead, help me!"
"Uhh," came the grunt of assent from above, as the big fellow slid
down in turn. He slipped a thick arm around Disbro, hoisting the tall,
slender body as if it were a bundle of old clothes, and slid it across
a shoulder like the jut of a crag. Then Max scaled the rope once again,
to the safe top of the nosed-over rocket ship.
Disbro found his own feet, and shakily wiped his clear-cut face, still
pale from exertion and terror. "That was close."
"Say," ventured Max, "Mr. Planter, he's gone."
Disbro looked around. The mud expanse around them was stirred up as if
by boiling struggles, but there was no sign of Planter or the thing
with the tentacles.
"That thing got him," decided Disbro, but Max shook his heavy head.
"Huh-uh," he demurred. "No. The girl, she got him."
"Girl?" echoed Disbro, and scowled.
"What girl?"
Max pointed with a finger like the haft of a hammer. "She was in the
trees. Got him."
Disbro peered at the trees, then at Max. His scowl deepened. "What are
you drivelling about?"
"The girl," said Max.
Disbro snorted and skinned his teeth in scorn.
"How," he demanded of the misty skies, "do I get mixed up with minus
quantities like this? A girl, the man says! Here on Venus!"
"A girl," repeated Max firmly.
Disbro wheeled upon him.
"Come off of that!" he commanded sharply. "Planter's gone. Dead. You're
all I have to associate with. You'll act sane, whether you are or not."
Max's big, pained eyes faltered before the glittering accusation of
Disbro's gaze. "All right," he conceded.
"There wasn't any girl there, you idiot!"