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The
Native
Soil
by Alan E. Nourse
Before the first ship from Earth made a landing on Venus, there was much
speculation about what might be found beneath the cloud layers obscuring
that planet's surface from the eyes of all observers.
One school of thought maintained that the surface of Venus was a jungle,
rank with hot-house moisture, crawling with writhing fauna and
man-eating flowers. Another group contended hotly that Venus was an arid
desert of wind-carved sandstone, dry and cruel, whipping dust into
clouds that sunlight could never penetrate. Others prognosticated an
ocean planet with little or no solid ground at all, populated by
enormous serpents waiting to greet the first Earthlings with jaws agape.
But nobody knew, of course. Venus was the planet of mystery.
When the first Earth ship finally landed there, all they found was a
great quantity of mud.
There was enough mud on Venus to go all the way around twice, with some
left over. It was warm, wet, soggy mud--clinging and tenacious. In some
places it was gray, and in other places it was black. Elsewhere it was
found to be varying shades of brown, yellow, green, blue and purple. But
just the same, it was still mud. The sparse Venusian vegetation grew up
out of it; the small Venusian natives lived down in it; the steam rose
from it and the rain fell on it, and that, it seemed, was that. The
planet of mystery was no longer mysterious. It was just messy. People
didn't talk about it any more.
But technologists of the Piper Pharmaceuticals, Inc., R&D squad found a
certain charm in the Venusian mud.
They began sending cautious and very secret reports back to the Home
Office when they discovered just what, exactly was growing in that
Venusian mud besides Venusian natives. The Home Office promptly bought
up full exploratory and mining rights to the planet for a price that was
a brazen steal, and then in high excitement began pouring millions of
dollars into ships and machines bound for the muddy planet. The Board of
Directors met hoots of derision with secret smiles as they rubbed their
hands together softly. Special crews of psychologists were dispatched to
Venus to contact the natives; they returned, exuberant, with
test-results that proved the natives were friendly, intelligent,
co-operative and resourceful, and the Board of Directors rubbed their
hands more eagerly together, and poured more money into the Piper
Venusian Installation.
It took money to make money, they thought. Let the fools laugh. They
wouldn't be laughing long. After all, Piper Pharmaceuticals, Inc., could
recognize a gold mine when they saw one.
They thought.
* * * * *
Robert Kielland, special investigator and trouble shooter for Piper
Pharmaceuticals, Inc., made an abrupt and intimate acquaintance with
the fabulous Venusian mud when the landing craft brought him down on
that soggy planet. He had transferred from the great bubble-shaped
orbital transport ship to the sleek landing craft an hour before, bored
and impatient with the whole proposition. He had no desire whatever to
go to Venus. He didn't like mud, and he didn't like frontier projects.
There had been nothing in his contract with Piper demanding that he
travel to other planets in pursuit of his duties, and he had balked at
the assignment. He had even balked at the staggering bonus check they
offered him to help him get used to the idea.
It was not until they had convinced him that only his own superior
judgment, his razor-sharp mind and his extraordinarily shrewd powers of
observation and insight could possibly pull Piper Pharmaceuticals, Inc.,
out of the mudhole they'd gotten themselves into, that he had
reluctantly agreed to go. He wouldn't like a moment of it, but he'd go.
Things weren't going right on Venus, it seemed.
The trouble was that millions were going in and nothing was coming out.
The early promise of high production figures had faltered, sagged,
dwindled and vanished. Venus was getting to be an expensive project to
have around, and nobody seemed to know just why.
Now the pilot dipped the landing craft in and out of the cloud blanket,
braking the ship, falling closer and closer to the surface as Kielland
watched gloomily from the after port. The lurching billows of clouds
made him queasy; he opened his Piper samples case and popped a pill into
his mouth. Then he gave his nose a squirt or two with his Piper
Rhino-Vac nebulizer, just for good measure. Finally, far below them, the
featureless gray surface skimmed by. A sparse scraggly forest of twisted
gray foliage sprang up at them.
The pilot sighted the landing platform, checked with Control Tower, and
eased up for the final descent. He was a skillful pilot, with many
landings on Venus to his credit. He brought the ship up on its tail and
sat it down on the landing platform for a perfect three-pointer as the
jets rumbled to silence.
Then, abruptly, they sank--landing craft, platform and all.
The pilot buzzed Control Tower frantically as Kielland fought down
panic. Sorry, said Control Tower. Something must have gone wrong. They'd
have them out in a jiffy. Good lord, no, _don't_ blast out again, there
were a thousand natives in the vicinity. Just be patient, everything
would be all right.
They waited. Presently there were thumps and bangs as grapplers clanged
on the surface of the craft. Mud gurgled around them as they were hauled
up and out with the sound of a giant sipping soup. A mud-encrusted
hatchway flew open, and Kielland stepped down on a flimsy-looking
platform below. Four small rodent-like creatures were attached to it by
ropes; they heaved with a will and began paddling through the soupy mud
dragging the platform and Kielland toward a row of low wooden buildings
near some stunted trees.
As the creatures paused to puff and pant, the back half of the platform
kept sinking into the mud. When they finally reached comparatively solid
ground, Kielland was mud up to the hips, and mad enough to blast off
without benefit of landing craft.
He surveyed the Piper Venusian Installation, hardly believing what he
saw. He had heard the glowing descriptions of the Board of Directors. He
had seen the architect's projections of fine modern buildings resting on
water-proof buoys, neat boating channels to the mine sites, fine
orange-painted dredge equipment (including the new Piper Axis-Traction
Dredges that had been developed especially for the operation). It had
sounded, in short, just the way a Piper Installation ought to sound.
But there was nothing here that resembled that. Kielland could see a
group of little wooden shacks that looked as though they were ready at a
moment's notice to sink with a gurgle into the mud. Off to the right
across a mud flat one of the dredges apparently had done just that: a
swarm of men and natives were hard at work dragging it up again. Control
Tower was to the left, balanced precariously at a slight tilt in a sea
of mud.
The Piper Venusian Installation didn't look too much like a going
concern. It looked far more like a ghost town in the latter stages of
decay.
Inside the Administration shack Kielland found a weary-looking man
behind a desk, scribbling furiously at a pile of reports. Everything in
the shack was splattered with mud. The crude desk and furniture was
smeared; the papers had black speckles all over them. Even the man's
face was splattered, his clothing encrusted with gobs of still-damp mud.
In a corner a young man was industriously scrubbing down the wall with a
large brush.
The man wiped mud off Kielland and jumped up with a gleam of hope in his
tired eyes. "Ah! Wonderful!" he cried. "Great to see you, old man.
You'll find all the papers and reports in order here, everything ready
for you--" He brushed the papers away from him with a gesture of
finality. "Louie, get the landing craft pilot and don't let him out of
your sight. Tell him I'll be ready in twenty minutes--"
"Hold it," said Kielland. "Aren't you Simpson?"
The man wiped mud off his cheeks and spat. He was tall and graying.
"That's right."
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Aren't you relieving me?"
"I am not!"
"Oh, my." The man crumbled behind the desk, as though his legs had just
given way. "I don't understand it. They told me--"
"I don't care what they told you," said Kielland shortly. "I'm a trouble
shooter, not an administrator. When production figures begin to drop, I
find out why. The production figures from this place have never gotten
high enough to drop."
"This is supposed to be news to me?" said Simpson.
"So you've got troubles."
"Friend, you're right about that."
"Well, we'll straighten them out," Kielland said smoothly. "But first I
want to see the foreman who put that wretched landing platform
together."
Simpson's eyes became wary. "Uh--you don't really want to see him?"
"Yes, I think I do. When there's such obvious evidence of incompetence,
the time to correct it is now."
"Well--maybe we can go outside and see him."
"We'll see him right here." Kielland sank down on the bench near the
wall. A tiny headache was developing; he found a capsule in his samples
case and popped it in his mouth.
Simpson looked sad and nodded to the orderly who had stopped scrubbing
down the wall. "Louie, you heard the man."
"But boss--"
Simpson scowled. Louie went to the door and whistled. Presently there
was a splashing sound and a short, gray creature padded in. His hind
feet were four-toed webbed paddles; his legs were long and powerful like
a kangaroo's. He was covered with thick gray fur which dripped with
thick black mud. He squeaked at Simpson, wriggling his nose. Simpson
squeaked back sharply.
Suddenly the creature began shaking his head in a slow, rhythmic
undulation. With a cry Simpson dropped behind the desk. The orderly fell
flat on the floor, covering his face with his arm. Kielland's eyes
widened; then he was sitting in a deluge of mud as the little Venusian
shook himself until his fur stood straight out in all directions.
Simpson stood up again with a roar. "I've told them a thousand times if
I've told them once--" He shook his head helplessly as Kielland wiped
mud out of his eyes. "This is the one you wanted to see."