by Earl
VIA VENUS
The First Expedition to a New World Finds Another Link in a Cosmic Chain of Mystery—Pyramids on Venus!
FORTIETH Day.
Hello, Earth! Venus Expedition Number One reporting to Earth via etherline radio. We’re on Venus, safe. Our ship cushioned down on soft, muddy soil an hour ago. Operator Gillway speaking.
Karsen, our rocket man, planned the descent expertly. Once we hit the atmosphere of Venus, successive bursts of the retarding jets warped our course into a narrowing spiral. Thus, we eliminated the danger of dropping down through Venus’ steamy air-envelope too quickly.
Believe me, that atmosphere is really blinding. Visibility—only twenty-five feet! We felt as though we were sealed off from the rest of the Universe, in a bubble of fog. We all kept strict watch for first signs of terra firma, or rather Venera firma, and finally saw the glint of water. It was the surface of an ocean that extended for about three thousand miles. We were certain Venus was all sea!
But we finally sighted this miniature continent we’ve landed on. Beyond it stretch other waters, endless. Undoubtedly Venus’ total land area is far less than its oceanic surface.
All is excitement right now, among us. We are glad to be on a planet after those forty long days in black, monotonous space.
The Venusian landscape is weird, outside our port-windows. We are on a low plateau, overlooking the ocean. About a half-mile back of us rears a thick, towering jungle of alien vegetation. Above us and all around are the veiling mists, obscuring vision. The sun is absolutely invisible behind this sky-curtain.
“Not much like Mars, eh?” Captain Atwell said to us “veterans” of the Mars Expedition—Markers, Greaves, Parletti and myself. We agreed with him.
But perhaps the strangest thing of all in our surroundings is the pyramid that looms at the highest point of the plateau. Yes, a pyramid similar to any of old Egypt. It either means intelligent life once existed, or exists now.
Domberg is already running an archeological fever.
More on that later. Captain Atwell has just ordered us all to bed for a long, hearty sleep. We need it. Somehow, we couldn’t rest much in space. Will resume tomorrow, if my batteries recharge successfully from the air-ion generator specially designed for operation in a water-loaded atmosphere like Venus.
FORTY-FIRST Day.
Chemist Greaves tested the air before we made any move outside the ship today. He found it damp and warm, but definitely breathable. So Earth’s scientists are wrong, and the atmosphere of Venus does possess oxygen. Their long-range speculations only applied to the Venusian stratosphere. Down here at the surface, oxygen composes one-fourth of the air content, and its proportion is richer here than on Earth.
Captain Atwell, naturally, had the honor of being the first to step out and plant the flag of Earth in Venusian soil. When the rest of us followed, he said:
“Earth’s sister world!” He turned to us. “Maybe we are only the first, men, of thousands of Earth colonists to come!”
We have learned a little about conditions. All the ground that isn’t grown with wiry grasses is perpetually muddy. We wear rubber knee-boots. The mud is slippery. Tarnay proved that when he lost his footing and plowed into the mud face-first, nearly strangling. We laughed, but later, for exercise and in the spirit of fun, we all stripped and ran a relay race down a sloshy stretch. Before we were done, we were covered with mud from head to foot. A convenient rainfall then washed it off.
Venus seems to be a planet of clock. The temperature hovers uniformly within a degree of 105 Fahrenheit. Humidity is at saturation. So, uncomfortable as it may be, we’ll have to tolerate that hot sticky feeling every hour of our stay on this planet.
Periodically, after every five hours, a veritable cloudburst deluges down for about seventy minutes. It is like a hot shower. After each rain spell, a slight but blessed breeze blows for a while. Nothing else varies.
Wilson, our physicist, believes from these observations that Venus keeps this day-side eternally toward the sun, or else rotates very slowly. We won’t know until we’ve had a chance to locate the sun’s position, or observe a sun-tide of the ocean, if any. It is rather a peculiar situation, not knowing if there is to be a night.
Your etherline messages come through with strong echoes. Evidently Venus has an ionic shell, similar to Earth’s Heaviside Layer, that reflects certain wave harmonics.
FORTY-SECOND Day.
We took out the folded partitions of light but strong beryl-alloy and set up our “accordion” house, working at it all day. We sealed the edges with vacu-wax, to keep out the rain. It offers far roomier quarters than the ship, thanks to those who designed it on Earth. We moved in our bunks. Tarnay and Markers, our engineering team, are working out a way to install the ship’s gyroscope, fitted with vanes, as a huge fan for our comfort.
We have seriously begun to consider our position. We do not have to worry about air and pure water supplies. But the third essential of continued existence in an alien environment—food—may be a problem.
We did not notice it the first two days, but this morning, when we broke open a barrel of flour, the white surface instantly discolored. As fast as Domberg, our official cook as well as archeologist, scooped out the contaminated material, the exposed layer discolored. Swinerton used his microscope and reported it as a mold, an almost incredibly rapid-acting form. It probably exists in the atmosphere of this planet. Some of it seeped into our ship’s air, entering when we used the lock.
Swinerton made a test with a protein-stick, taking it out of its sealed cellophane wrapper in open air. It discolored instantly. In five minutes it was crawling with a purplish-green mass. The stuff thrives on organic matter of any kind, Swinerton reported, though it is apparently harmless to our lungs and bodies.
Captain Atwell frowned thoughtfully. We went without a meal all day until Wilson, Markers and Swinerton had rigged up an ultra-violet bath. The rays kill the mold satisfactorily. Domberg will have to prepare all meals under the ray, wearing thick-glass goggles and tanning deeply all over his skin. To eat, we have to snatch spoon and forkfuls of food from under the ray and gulp it down swiftly.
It is a hardship like that, however, that builds morale. Our science has conquered a budding menace to our existence. We are ready to face any new mysteries this damp, hot world has to offer.
Thanks from all of us for the special program dedicated to us last night. And particularly for your “surprise.” It gave us a greater thrill than most of you on Earth can imagine to hear our relatives and friends say hello and extend their wishes from our loudspeaker.
FORTY-THIRD Day.
Life is rampant on Venus. The jungle is an impenetrable tangle of vines, fronds and immense trees. We have seen dark forms, some of them huge, lurking in the shadows. Gleaming eyes peer out at our ship and at us. We found what must be the equivalent of the Earthly rat scampering in our bunkroom today. Lord knows what strange diseases it might carry.
Down at the beach, Tarnay says he saw a giant crablike creature, at least three feet high. He took a shot at it and it scrabbled back into the water. We carry pistols and rifles at all times. And Atwell has ordered that none of us wander any distance from the ship alone.
Dick Swinerton, naturally, is nearly wild with excitement. He is much like his brother Charles was—God rest him!—on the Mars Expedition. As biologist, he sees before him a complete new world of life-forms to study. He claims he measured the rate of growth of a vine near our ship and overnight it added six feet to its length!
But most of all, we hope eventually to contact some sort of intelligent life!
We are almost sure there are quasi-intelligent beings here. While descending in the ship, and shooting over the ocean, we saw vague forms on the surface that might have been sailing vessels. Several times we saw smoke on small islands. Anything that can produce fire on this ultra-wet world must be intelligent.
Captain Atwell says if things go smoothly the first week or so,
we will then organize an exploring party across the plateau, and look for intelligent life. And that pyramid—it looms like a gigantic question mark.
FORTY-FOURTH Day.
It appears that intelligent life is looking for us! At least, this “morning” a dim shape hovered in the mists just a half-mile or so from the cliff on which our ship stands. It might be wishful thinking, but it seemed to be a small boat. It’s hard to tell in this fog-bound air. However, it finally retreated back into the mists. We called out, of course, for it to come nearer, but our shouts had no effect. Perhaps it was just a marine monster.
Markers has located the sun. It was a neat bit of clever calculation. Periodically, after the regular five-hour rain, the whole misty bowl of Venusian sky breaks out in a spangle of rainbows. Brilliant rainbows of all shapes and configurations, some spiral, some arched, some straight as an arrow. It is a sight more breathtaking and beautiful than Earth’s Aurora Borealis.
The phenomenon lasts only a few minutes. Markers, sketched a series of them on paper and finally figured out, from geometrical arrangement, where the sun must be to make such designs. The sun lies halfway down the sky from the zenith. But whether it is setting, rising, or standing still, Markers can’t say. Venus has no magnetic poles, we’ve discovered. We have no “east” or “west” here, except by our own definition.
Wilson took out his physicist’s balance and determined the force of gravity as exactly eighty-three and five-tenths percent of Earth’s. Just enough saving of weight to make us feel like dancers on our feet. Wilson also estimated the ionic-content of the air as four times that of Earth, indicating high radioactivity in the soil. For one thing, I know that my ionic-charger juices up my batteries at a terrific pace. In fact, one battery burned out completely from overcharge.
Greaves made flash tests of a sample of sea-water. It is far more saline in content than Earth’s ocean water, paradoxically, and is fairly loaded with gold, silver and radium. Perhaps some day, when space-travel passes into its eventual boom, the oceans of Venus will be exploited as a chemical treasure-chest.
And so we are finding out, little by little, what a world Earth’s sister is.
Tarnay collapsed today, apparently from the humidity. He had not slept well since our arrival. None of us does, really. Parletti—as good a doctor as he is a geologist—dosed Tarnay with quinine, to reduce his fever, and put him to bed. He is in no danger. We would give a fortune for an air-conditioning unit.
We have just finished our dinner and are lying around in a mood for music. Can you give us some?
FORTY-FIFTH Day.
Yes, there are intelligent beings here on Venus!
Today, at least a dozen sailing vessels dissolved out of the ocean mist and hovered off-shore. One came so near we could distinguish figures on the deck. They are observing us, probably amazed and wondering who or what we are. We called to them and gestured for them to approach, but they made no move to accept the invitation.
Captain Atwell sums them up as being quite backward. Their ships look crude. No engines are apparent. Perhaps they are little-more than savages, at the beginning of civilization as we know it They vanished again, in their mysterious way.
Another thing has happened today that rather upsets us. Wilson, strolling outside the house for exercise, slipped in the mud and cut his finger slightly on a sharo stone when he fell. He came in, laughing over his own awkwardness. When Parletti started to apply iodine to the slight cut, he started. The wound’s edges had discolored.
Parletti swabbed on the iodine, but a few minutes later Wilson’s arm began to swell and he complained of feeling sick. Parletti let out a yell and fairly dragged him to the UV unit. He snapped on the UV power. The swelling stopped after an hour, but Wilson’s whole arm is blistered from the burn. He will be laid up at least three days.
“At the slightest cut, fellows,” warned Parletti, “get it under the UV rays. There is some kind of mold, or germ, in this Venus air that poisons human blood. And at the same swift rate that the food-mold attacks our food!”
We are getting an inkling of the rapid pace of life and death on Venus. Swinerton theorizes that it is only natural on a world of super prolific life. There is swift death, he says, swift decay and swift life again, because Nature has crammed this rich environment to the limit.
As another illustration, our first attempt to procure fresh meat was also our last. Captain Atwell had a clear shot at some jungle creature that looked like a deer, and downed it. By the time he approached its still twitching body, a blackish mold had blossomed around the wound. He left, shaking his head.
When he turned and looked back, reaching the ship, a horde of small creatures were tearing at the flesh and gulping it down as fast as they could. Several vulturelike birds also joined the feast, scaring the rodents away. Then a bearlike creature took over what was left of the carcass, gulping it down, mold and all.
In ten minutes there was nothing left but bones, with insects swarming around them.
SWINERTON carried the thing a step forward, for experiment’s sake. He shot a small animal, watched the mold develop. He shooed away scavengers until the corpse had become crusted with the black mold, and swelled. Then he stepped back. But now the scavengers shunned it, even the insects. In fact, a weasel-like creature that sniffed too close suddenly rolled over and went into convulsions.
Swinerton, in realization, held his nose and mouth tight and even closed his eyes as he left. The swiftly acting decay-mold is obviously virulent in concentrated form, even in the lungs.
We caught a glimpse of the sun today. For just a few seconds the cloud-envelope parted, like a deep tunnel, and blinding sunlight poured through. Those of us outside felt as though hot branding irons had been touched to our naked skins. It would be impossible to live on Venus under the constant radiations of that giant sun.
Then we heard a shout of alarm from Domberg, inside the ship. We ran in to find him beating out a small flame that had started among clothes in one of the rooms. The terrific direct rays of the sun, focuses through a port-window, had started the fire. And those clothes had been damp from humidity.
We are almost certain of one thing now. Venus does not rotate on an axis. The sun seems no higher or lower in the sky than Markers had originally computed. Thus, this hemisphere we are on faces the sun constantly. The “day” is eternal. And on the other side, the night never ends. What it is like there, we don’t know.
NEAR-tragedy struck today the Forty-Sixth!
It was at noon of our Earth-regulated day that five gigantic beasts lumbered out of the jungle nearby. Ten feet high, naked-skinned, built like bears, but with two huge crablike pinchers instead of arms, the nameless carnivores charged us.
We ran for the safety of the house, but Tarnay slipped in the muddy ground and lay stunned. Karsen was the first to see. He ran back and stood before Tarnay, pumping lead at the monsters. The rest of us stopped and opened fire with our rifles. Two of the killer-beasts faltered and fell back, but the other three kept on, clashing their huge pinchers together like cymbals. Our bullets seemed futile against their great bulk.
Tarnay managed to stagger to his feet and run for the house. Karsen quickly followed, but seemed about to be overtaken by the foremost creature. One vicious pincher sliced at his back. He dodged, but his upflung hand was cut. We were horrified, Slinking he was doomed. Luckily, at that moment, Captain Atwell emerged from the house with our submachine-gun. Firing over Tarnay’s head, Atwell’s deadly hail routed them. Four of them lay twitching and moaning. The fifth staggered a hundred feet before it too fell, weighted with lead.
We rushed Karsen inside, knowing what delay meant. Already discolorations circled his gashed wrist. Parletti ran the UV rays over the wound at full power, but it was too late. Karsen’s hand swelled and blackened. With a nod from Captain Atwell and from Karsen himself, Parletti grabbed up instruments and amputated, under the UV rays. It was over in two minutes. Karsen fainted with pain. The rest of us were sic
k. But it was the only way we could save Karsen’s life.
OUTSIDE, hordes of scavengers from the jungle fought over the bodies of the beasts. They were little naked-skinned creatures like weasels, gorging themselves as though there was a time-limit. And there was. Fifteen minutes later, as though at a signal, they scampered back to their normal haunts, bellies distended. What remained of the corpses now became purple-black with mold and swelled. The mold was the final scavenger. The air filled with clouds of deadly spores.
Swinerton told us it would be worth our lives to venture out and breathe those concentrated, flesh-attacking mold-cells. We waited, flashing the UV rays all about us for our own protection. The periodic rain and the following breeze came to disperse the cloud. In an hour, there were only deserted bones, and the space before our ship and house lay quiet and serene again.
I have described all this like a rapid nightmare. That’s just the way it was. That is the tempo of life and death on Venus. The swiftness of the episode left us stunned.
After the operation, when Karsen revived, Tarnay gripped his hand—his remaining hand—feelingly, thanking him for saving his life.
“Forget it,” said Karsen weakly, “Any of you would do the same for any one of us.” Which, though perhaps true, does not detract from Karsen’s heroism.
Swinerton says the queer pincher-bear creature is probably the king of the Venusian beasts, and ranges far and wide, foraging for food, when its usual prey is scarce. But we do not shudder so much at them as at the thought of the vicious mold, lurking in the air about us, waiting for its grim chance. Bullets cannot harm it.
Venturing out, we noticed, looking down over the cliff, that the boats had again appeared, with figures crowding the decks. Perhaps the natives had watched the whole episode. We are wondering when they will get up enough courage to land at our beach and approach within presence. We can hardly await the event ourselves.
FORTY-SEVENTH Day.
