By ALFRED COPPEL, JR.
Stand by for _T.R.S. Aphrodite_, butt of the Space
Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only
her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Winter 1948.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the
Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the
viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a
jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport
for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a
miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across
the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was
dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find
the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus.
Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth
of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together
they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor.
The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship _Aphrodite_ loomed
unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the
ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the
fat spaceship.
"It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp."
Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley--"Cob" to his friends--nodded in
agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship
with the poison personality." Cob was the _Aphrodite's_ Executive,
and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs
on the _Aphrodite_. She generally sent them Earthside with nervous
breakdowns in half that time.
"Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen
that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I
thought...."
"You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski.