* * * * *
Thousands of miles away, on the surface of Sol's second planet, a
heavy, milky fog crept like a sentient thing up the side of a towering
apartment dwelling. In and out of window recesses it stole, climbing
higher and higher as if seeking entrance.
Soundlessly, mysteriously a window slid open. The fog gained momentum
before a sudden wind and swept into the dimly lighted chamber. The
silvery-haired young man on the bed did not awaken. His slender
form turned and twisted beneath thin coverings and the jargon of
astronautics came thickly from his lips.
A nightmare possessed him within which he was plunging down into Venus'
clouds in a small spaceship. Suddenly his ports were shattered in a
head-on collision with a high-flying native pterodactyl. In the dream
as in actuality the great dampness of Venus poured chokingly into his
lungs.
Almost instantly the urgent buzzing of a televisor signal brought him
struggling upright, coughing thick, humid air from congested bronchial
tubes.
Half drunken from the high oxygen content of the surface atmosphere,
Frederic Ward slipped from his bed and reeled over to shut the
port-like window. Damn these Venusians anyhow, he thought, meanwhile
wheezing, coughing and spitting. Probably thought one of their clique
was sleeping here instead of a decently-evolved native of Pittsburgh,
Earth. That froglike brute down in Air Control probably had the
atmospherics switchboard all awry. Well, I'll buzz him when I get this
telecall answered. I'll tell him off proper. He has my temperature and
humidity chart. Of all the nerve!
Still grumbling, Ward turned to the television transceiver, clicking on
the audios and videos.
"Engineer Ward, Astronautics Authority, speaking."
The sight of Ward's room caused a grin to light up momentarily the fat,
tired face on the receiving grid.
"What's up, Silvy? Getting acclimated to our lovely Venus?"
"What's on your mind, Wagner?" Ward snapped back, in no mood for joking
even if the buzzing of the televisorphone had probably saved him from
an oxy-hangover or, perhaps, even drowning in the early morning tidal
mists.
"Plenty. Get out here soon's you can. One of the trajectory beams is
out and there are a couple of earth cruisers nearing perihelion from
Mars. If they don't get a signal at zero-one-three-zero they're liable
to coast on into Sol. Surface weather here's damned near zero-zero,
too. I need you badly."
"Where in the name of the twenty-seven local fish-gods is Portiz? He's
emergency man, isn't he?"
Wagner's moonface dropped down six lines on the 441 line kinescope grid.
"Portiz," he explained lamely, "is incapacitated."
"You mean drunk!" Ward retorted sharply. "Isn't he on constant call
just like the rest of us? Just because he's a cousin of somebody back
in Washington is no sign that he can establish a semi-permanent site
in Gasuki's Grill. And just because he's your immediate superior is no
sign you have to whitewash his doings. I've seniority here. What _I_
say matters! Give him the emergency call. We'll sober the lug up if we
have to dunk him in the Draka Malarga. If a couple of those plesiosaurs
got on his tail he'd swear off for good. If he doesn't show up, I'll
report it to H. Q. and--"
"Okay, Silvy, okay," Wagner said tiredly. "Now get out here, please,
sir. Oops! There goes the patrol signal!"
"Leave the circuit on!" Silvy Ward snapped and stood watching the video
grid as Wagner jacked up the power in the distant radio receiver.
"... are two ships trajecting in which are not listed on the incoming
flights. One on an A-orbit coming in at terrific velocity from
base-direction Mars; one on a C-orbit out of Earth. Approximate
distances, six and five thousand miles respectively. Should hit
atmosphere simultaneously, thus endangering themselves and other
incoming ships. Advise."
More trouble. Ward began to grumble again as he snapped off the
televisor and began dressing. Always somebody who says to hell with
the Authority and plots his own Hohman orbit. Unusually an eccentric
millionaire with a luxurious spaceyacht filled with a swan-necked crew
of "Oh, r'ally? You don't say?" debutantes and matrons, boyfriends,
gigolos, etc. If they arrive in one piece without benefit of the AA's
trajectory beams, range and landing beams, okay; if they get into
trouble and the Authority doesn't get them to surface in one place,
well then the Authority takes it in the neck and the paperwork is
terrific over in General Inspection.
Ward was disgruntled. Leave it to Portiz to get plastered. Leave it to
Wagner to let a keying device, a teletype, a station location marker,
a transmitter, the instrument landing beams or something go blooey
in zero-zero weather. Sure! Silvy Ward, old faithful Silvy's here to
handle it and get a few more gray hairs thirty years ahead of Mother
Nature's usual schedule. Back in HQ on Earth a radio engineer is
considered something like a Martian maharajah; he just doesn't have to
get down on his knees and fool around with leads and circuits, keeping
one eye cocked on an oscillograph and the other on a multi-wave meter.
But leave it to HQ to send me to this bronchitis-stimulating hole
called Pali-Vanyi, Venus, with a drunkard and an inexperienced college
graduate for my only assistants when the Old Man damn' well knows I
should have at least four old timers.
Good man, Portiz, but he lets his reputation and connections carry him.
Let Venus get him worn down to a frazzle and then started to drink like
a native squid. Wagner's a good man, too. Fooled around with coeds and
rocket polo too much in Astrotech, that's all. Boned for exams and
passed them, but his knowledge is mostly theoretical. Usually blows up
in a pinch, like now.
The air conditioning apparatus had practically straightened out
the previously cockeyed atmospherics, and Silvy was waking up. But
he was still a bit rankled as he zipped on rubberoid coveralls,
donned a filtration mask, went out to the garage and drove his
caterpillar-treaded fog flivver out into the nearly-liquid ground
atmosphere of dear, damp Venus.
The fog certainly was settling in on Pali-Vanyi port! Usually the Hump,
the five thousand foot mountain range which runs along the east of
the field, breaks the storm winds which blow in intermittently from
Draka Malarga, the mighty eastern sea. Sure, sometimes there's a real
typhoon ripping beyond the mountain, chopping Malarga into thousand
foot waves, at the same time there'll be a four thousand foot ceiling
at the spaceport and probably ten miles visibility to north, south and
west. But take tonight: the weather broadcasts said that Draka Malarga
was practically calm and the plesiosaurs and their girl friends were
probably sporting on the waves; Pali-Vanyi was completely fogged in!
Ah, Venus, weatherman's headache and Authority's dire pain!
Visibility _was_ nil. Even Frederic Ward's infrared headlights and
special goggles could not cut the fog. He spent a good half hour on the
fifteen mile trip northwestward and glimpsed the station barely in
time to jam down the hydraulics and squish to stop in the sloshy mire
deposited by a recent typhoon.
* * * * *
Wagner was looking blankly at the great bank of keying devices on the
trajectory transmitters when Silvy walked in through the airlock.
He turned around forlornly, laying a fat hand suggestively on a
complicated blueprint.
"You look tired, Wag," the engineer stated; then his alert eyes caught
the reason why. The flight chart explained that: a series of entries on
the incoming flights column. In this weather that meant work for the
operator at the station. Traffic Control normally brought the ships
in by voice contact after said ships had consecutively swung off the
trajectory beams and radio range beams; but with zero-zero weather,
the Authority men had to concentrate upon the instrument landing beams
as well. Wherefore Ward didn't reprimand Wagner. After all, if a keyer
breaks down, it isn't necessarily because a human being has failed.
"I'm half dead," Wagner acknowledged with a forced grin. "Twenty ships
came in in the last hour. Twenty of 'em off twenty different trajectory
beams. Twenty of 'em on the landing beams. I just got the bulk of 'em
in properly when a keyer goes out with Earth's two cruisers swinging
into perihelion near the sun!"
"What're all those ships here for?" Ward asked as he stripped
off dripping coveralls and proceeded to the multitrajectory beam
transmitter.
"Usual thing. Owing to the present tense situation which has developed
between Venus and dear old Red, the representatives of Earth and Venus
have decided to have a conclave to effect measures against our dear
Martian cousins. Everybody's afraid things will go smash when Mars and
Venus are in opposition two Earth years hence."
"Oh," grunted Silvy Ward. Political wrangling wasn't his forte.
Removing the transparent cover from the silent keyer, Ward made a
cursory examination. The keying device proper seemed to be okay. He
promptly got out the circuit tester and started checking the continuity
of the circuits.
Wherewith things started to happen with a vengeance. Traffic Control
called, stating that a freighter was dropping in over the field and
asking for the north-south landing beams. Wagner hurried over to cut in
the juice on the remote controls.
Immediately the open receiver which was tuned to the Patrol frequency
snarled out:
"Patrol V-11 calling Pali-Vanyi base."
The base station over in Traffic Control cut in on the same wavelength.
"Okay, V-11. Report."
"The ship on A-orbit from direction Mars is a destroyer. Not near
enough to read markings. Refuses to answer our signals or to cut
velocity. Advise."
"Contact ship," was the smug advice.
"Doing our best!" Patrol V-11 snapped back.
Wagner had his head half turned from the landing indicators to hear the
patrol communications. From the corner of his full-lipped mouth he shot:
"What in the devil's going on up there, Silvy?"
"Dunno," Ward answered. An inexplicable chill was running along his
spine. A conclave here in the twin city of Pali-Vanyi to effect
measures against Mars--A destroyer coming in, refusing to answer the
Patrol queries--
The inner door opened behind him. Ward spun around. Anger darkened his
face as he glared at the tall, dark skinned man who had unsteadily come
to rest against the door jamb.
The dark one looked owlishly at Wagner and Ward, twisted a loose mouth
open and mumbled:
"Portiz reporting for duty."
"In _that_ condition?" Silvy Ward snapped.
"I'm sober as a king," Portiz answered.
"King Henry the Eighth," Wagner said softly.