_High Adventure and Strange Romance on a World of Mystery_
When Myles Cabot accidentally transmitted himself to the planet Venus,
he found himself naked and bewildered on a mystery world where every
unguarded minute might mean a horrible death.
Man-eating plants, tiger-sized spiders, and dictatorial ant-men kept
Myles on the run until he discovered the secret of the land—that
humanity was a slave-race and that the monster ants were the real rulers
of the world!
But Cabot was resourceful, and when his new found love, the Kewpie-doll
princess Lilla, called for help, the ant-men learned what an angry
Earthman can do.
AN EARTHMAN ON VENUS is a science-fiction adventure packed with the
excitement of an Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the science-vision of an H.
G. Wells. You won’t be able to put it down once you start it.
AN
EARTHMAN
ON VENUS
{_Originally titled “THE RADIO MAN”_}
by
RALPH MILNE FARLEY
AVON PUBLISHING CO., INC.
119 West 57th Street, New York 19, N. Y.
_Published by Arrangement with the Author_
On the planet _VENUS_ you will meet—
_THIS EARTHMAN_
MYLES CABOT, a good-looking young Boston radio experimenter, who
accidentally broadcast himself bodily to another world.
_THESE GIANT ANTS_
QUEEN FORMIS, a twelve-foot-high monster, who ruled a world from an
egg-laying couch, and could conceive of no mercy for her human
slaves.
DOGGO, who became Myles Cabot’s friend through a curious accident and
who first showed Myles the ropes on that queer planet.
SATAN, who was given that name by Myles for the unpleasant reason that
he deserved it—and who lived up to it.
_THESE VENUSIAN PEOPLE_
PRINCESS LILLA, the lovely girl with the Kewpie wings, who held the
key to the throne of Venus and the key to Myles’ heart
simultaneously.
YURI, the suave scoundrel who wouldn’t hesitate to sell out his whole
race to get Lilla’s hand by force.
TORON, who tipped Myles off to Lilla’s private intentions in order to
save himself from slavery.
BTHUH, the beautiful lady who conspired to win Myles for herself,
though she had to help his deadliest enemies to do it.
[Illustration: COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED: This AVON book contains the
entire text as published in the original edition.]
The Radio Man. Copyright, 1924 and 1939, by Frank A. Munsey Company.
Copyright, 1948, by Ralph Milne Farley.
_Avon Reprint Edition_
An Earthman on Venus. Copyright, 1950, by Avon Publishing Co., Inc.
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
contents
1 The Message in the Meteor 3
2 Stranded in Space 8
3 Out of the Frying Pan 16
4 Go to the Ant, Thou Sluggard 22
5 A Vision 30
6 Radio Plays its Part 37
7 A Hunting Trip 48
8 The Conspiracy 56
9 The Rescue 63
10 Before Queen Formis 73
11 The Valley of the Shadow of Death 81
12 A Victim of Yuri 89
13 Kidnaped 96
14 In Disgrace 104
15 A New Game 110
16 Cabot Tells the World 119
_1_
the message in the meteor
Never had I been so frightened in all my life! It was a warm evening
late in August, and I was sitting on the kitchen steps of my
Chappaquiddick Island farmhouse, discussing the drought with one of the
farm hands. Suddenly there appeared in the sky over our heads a flaming
fiery mass, rushing straight downward toward us.
“Here’s where a shooting star gets me,” I thought, as I instinctively
ducked my head, just as though such a feeble move as ducking one’s head
could afford any possible protection from the flaming terror. The next
instant there came a dull crash, followed by silence, which in turn was
broken by the hired man dryly remarking: “I reckon she struck over to
Cow Hill.” Cow Hill was the slight elevation just back of our farmhouse.
So the meteor hadn’t been aimed exactly at _me_, after all.
If that thing had hit me, some one else would be giving to the world
this story.
We did nothing further about the meteor that night, being pretty well
shaken up by the occurrence. But next morning, as soon as the chores
were done, the hired man and I hastened to the top of Cow Hill to look
for signs of last night’s fiery visitor.
And, sure enough, there were plenty of signs. Every spear of grass was
singed from the top of the hill; the big rock on the summit showed marks
of a collision; and several splinters of some black igneous material
were lying strewed around. Leading from the big rock there ran down the
steep side of the hill a gradually deepening furrow, ending in a sort of
caved-in hole.
We could not let slip such a good opportunity to get some newspaper
publicity for our farm. And so on the following Friday a full account of
the meteoric visitation appeared in the _Vineyard Gazette_, with the
result that quite a number of summer folks walked across the island from
the bathing beach to look at the hole.
And there was another result, for early the following week I received a
letter from Professor Gerrish, of the Harvard Observatory, stating that
he had read about the meteor in the paper, and requesting that I send
him a small piece—or, if possible, the whole meteor—by express, collect,
for purposes of analysis.
Anything for dear old Harvard! Unfortunately all the black splinters had
been carried away by tourists. So I set the men to work digging out the
main body. Quite a hole was dug before we came to the meteor, a black
pear-shaped object about the size of a barrel. With rock tongs, chains
and my pair of Percherons, we dragged this out onto the level. I had
hoped that it would be small enough so that I could send the whole thing
up to Harvard and perhaps have it set up in front of the Agassiz Museum,
marked with a bronze plate bearing my name; but its size precluded this.
My wife, who was present when we hauled it out, remarked: “It looks just
like a huge black teardrop or raindrop.”
And sure enough it did. But why not? If raindrops take on a streamline
form in falling, why might not a more solid meteor do so as well? But I
had never heard of one doing so before. This new idea prompted me to
take careful measurements and to submit them to Professor O. D. Kellogg,
of the Harvard mathematics department, who was summering at West Chop
near by. He reported to me that the form was as perfectly streamlined as
it was possible to conceive, but that my surmise as to how it had become
so was absurd.
While making these measurements I was attracted by another feature of
the meteor. At one place on the side, doubtless where it had struck the
big rock, the black coating had been chipped away, disclosing a surface
of yellow metal underneath. Also there was to be seen in this metal an
absolutely straight crack, extending as far as the metal was exposed, in
a sidewise direction.
At the time the crack did not attract me so much as the metal. I vaguely
wondered if it might not be gold. But, being reminded of Professor
Gerrish’s request for a sample of the meteor, I had one of the men start
chiseling off some pieces.
The natural spot to begin was alongside of the place where the covering
was already chipped. It was hard work, but finally he removed several
pieces, and then we noticed that the crack continued around the waist of
the meteor as far as had been chipped. This crack, from its absolute
regularity, gave every indication of being man-made.
Our curiosity was aroused. Why the regularity of this crack? How far did
it go? Could it possibly extend clear way around? Was it really a
threaded joint? And if so, how could such a phenomenon occur on a
meteorite dropped from the sky?
Forgotten was the second crop mowing we had planned to do that day.
Hastily summoning the rest of the help, we set to work with cold chisels
and sledges, to remove the black coating in a circle around the middle
of the huge teardrop. It was a long and tedious task, for the black
substance was harder than anything I had ever chipped before. We broke
several drills and dented the yellow metal unmercifully, but not so much
but what we could see that the threaded crack did actually persist.
The dinner hour passed, and still we worked, unmindful of the appeals of
our womenfolk, who finally abandoned us with much shrugging of
shoulders.
It was nearly night when we completed the chipping and applied two chain
wrenches to try and screw the thing apart. But, after all our efforts,
it would not budge. Just as we were about to drop the wrenches and start
to chisel through the metal some one suggested that we try to unscrew it
as a left-handed screw. Happy thought! For, in spite of all the dents
which we had made, the two ends at last gradually untwisted.
What warrant did we have to suppose that there was anything inside it? I
must confess, now it is all over, that we went through this whole day’s
performance in a sort of feverish trance, with no definite notion of
what we were doing, or why; and yet impelled by a crazy fixed idea that
we were on the verge of a great discovery.
And at last our efforts had met with success, and the huge teardrop lay
before us in two neatly threaded parts. The inside was hollow and was
entirely filled with something tightly swathed in silver colored felt
tape.
Breathless, we unwound over three hundred feet of this silver tape, and
finally came to a gold cylinder about the size and shape of a gingersnap
tin—that is to say, a foot long and three inches in diameter—chased all
around with peculiar arabesque characters. By this time Mrs. Farley and
my mother-in-law and the hired girl had joined us, attracted by the
shouts which we gave when the teardrop had come apart.
One end of the cylinder easily unscrewed—also with a left-handed
thread—and I drew forth a manuscript, plainly written in the English
language, on some tissue-thin substance like parchment.
Everyone clustered around me, as I turned to the end to see who it was
from, and read with astonishment the following signature: “Myles S.
Cabot.”
But this name meant nothing to anyone present except myself.