by Earl
Even Parletti’s queer actions failed to disturb our apathy. He went alone to the pyramid, after the following night period, and came back with a thermos bottle which he opened without a word. He poured out an oily liquid—part of our watered fuel supply—into a dish. Touching a match to it, it flared up with a bright, hissing puff. Exactly as though it were dried!
And it was. Parletti explained. His numerous hours in the pyramid had called something to his attention—that the interior was bone-dry. It held dry air, though it had an outlet to Venus air, dripping with water. And that air had been dry for twenty thousand years!
Parletti had dried a thermos bottle full in two hours, simply by exposing the liquid to the desert-dry air in the pyramid. It had sucked up the moisture greedily.
We were all thunderstruck for a moment, then let out a whoop of frantic joy. If a pint could be dried that way, why not the rest?
It was just fifty-two Earth days ago that this ray of sunshine lightened our gloomy future. Since then we have worked like beavers, transporting our watered fuel to the pyramid and bringing it back dried.
Wilson has calculated that we will finish in four days, barely in time to shoot Earthward during conjunction. If we miss the time by a few days, Venus will be ahead of Earth in its orbit, an4 our ship would not have enough reserve fuel to backtrack. We would then have to wait for the next conjunction. We are determined to finish in time.
Another thing that lends haste to our labors is this—our UV apparatus is about shot to pieces. It barely gives enough radiation to protect our minor cuts and bruises from the frightful, lurking death-mold. The apparatus will be useless soon. After that the slightest break in our skin will mean certain death, as the natives of Venus have been resigned to for all their history.
FOUR Hundred Sixty-Fourth Day.
The drying of our fuel is going on apace.
To go into a little detail, we transport a can at a time, carried by one man to the pyramid. Here, in the central chamber, it is poured into a pan of sheet alumalloy, twenty feet in diameter. We tore down our metal house to construct the pan. This inch layer of the fuel is stirred continuously by shifts of three men. And, surprisingly, Jimmy. He has been helping us like a trooper, evidently with a keen sense of gratitude. The dry air sucks up the moisture from the stirred liquid.
Just why the process works, we’re not sure. We have dried tons of liquid, and yet the chamber’s air has not become saturated with moisture. Tarnay, examining a series of stone-grated flues, surmises that these lead into a space between the chamber and the outer wall of the pyramid. By some miracle of air convection, rising water vapor is sucked into these flues and condensed somewhere below, perhaps underground.
Martian genius devised this air-conditioning system, built to last for ages. Their motive is understandable, since the Martians came from a dry world and probably could not bear the least humidity. At any rate, however and why ever it was done, we can silently thank a vanished race for their pyramid. It and any other pyramids they built are probably the only truly dry spots on all of wet, wet Venus. It is our salvation.
And so, for twenty-four Earth days, we’ve been drying the fuel. We started fifty-two days ago, but a Venusian night of twenty-eight days intervened. It was impossible to visit the pyramid during that ceaseless downpour. We would not have found our way in the utter dark. We stayed in the ship, fidgeting, worrying whether our dried fuel would in the meantime again become impregnated with water. But we had sealed the tanks thoroughly this time. Dawn came at last, and more trips to the pyramid.
It has been backbreaking, grinding labor. I can hardly punch these keys. My whole body is stiff and sore. But we work with a will, for it means escape from Venus. The margin is close, but we will make it. Karsen, rechecking his course and orbit figures, says the deadline for our departure is still three days off. We should be finished with the fuel in two.
FOUR Hundred Sixty-Fifth Day.
Something unforeseen, and pretty close to disaster, has struck!
Three men are entombed in the pyramid!
It happened just five hours ago. I had been at the camp, just preparing to hoist a can of fuel to my shoulder, to bring it to the pyramid. Karsen, our cook and camp attendant because he is unable to do heavy labor with his one hand, first saw the stumbling, shouting figure of Parletti approaching, from the pyramid.
“Tarnay, Markers, Wilson—trapped in the pyramid!” he gasped.
We hastily wakened Captain Atwell and Swinerton, whose sleeping period it was, and listened to Parletti’s half-incoherent story. Jimmy stood beside him, having followed.
I’ll go back a ways, to make this clear. Jimmy had become a devoted satellite to Parletti, his savior. Parletti, in turn, had developed a sort of sign language and could vaguely communicate with the Venusian youth. Jimmy had revealed to him, this morning, that there was another entrance to the pyramid, to another chamber. Still intrigued by the history of the structure, Parletti had followed Jimmy to the other entrance, after their stirring shift was over. It proved to be a blind alley, a hundred feet in. But then Parletti saw there was a stone door. Also, in a wall niche, there was a balanced stone, which might be the key to unlock it. Parletti shoved against the balanced stone.
Sure enough, there had been a rumble of giant stone counterweights, somewhere below, and an enormous block of stone—the door—moved upward into a hollowed space.
Parletti had a glimpse of strange objects within. He was about to step in eagerly, when it happened. At this point in the telling, Parletti’s face turned pale in remembrance.
Hardly had the rumble of counterweights for this door ceased when another, similar rumble sounded from below—from the other entrance. It was followed by a powerful thump that vibrated through the stones under his feet, and all through the pyramid.
Alarmed and wondering, Parletti and Jimmy went back to the other entrance—to find it sealed! A great stone block had moved down, blocking the way. Not a sound came from within. Tarnay, Wilson and Markers were on the other side, perhaps beating their fists against the barrier and shouting, but no sound worked through.
Captain Atwell listened with set lips. He didn’t censor the pitiful Parletti, told him to buck up. It wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t known it would happen. Parletti, half-crazed with remorse, straightened up.
We all hurried to the pyramid, except Karsen, to see what must be done. On the way, Captain Atwell made the supposition that the two doors were connected in some way, by a system of age-lasting stone counterpoises. The Martian builders had had some reason of their own for the arrangement. When one door closed, the other automatically opened. Therefore, to open the fuel-drying chamber, we would simply have to close the one Parletti had opened.
When we arrived, we saw why Parletti’s white lips were pressed so painfully together. The balancing-stone mechanism he had operated was useless for the reverse process. The stone had cracked in half, weakened no doubt by the ages since its installation.
The ghastly fact faced us that the stone door could not be lowered, to open the one entombing our men!
We went below, searching, but found no similar operating mechanism for that door. To cheer the men inside, Captain Atwell tapped a Morse code signal through the rock with his gun-butt. A clicking message came back, saying they were all right, and knew we would get them out soon.
But the question is—how?
And this delay, on top of it, may slow up the fuel-drying beyond the deadline for our departure from Venus!
FOUR Hundred Sixty-Sixth Day.
The three men are still entombed. Twenty-four hours now. And the inexorable time for our departure twenty-four hours nearer.
We’ve tried everything we can think of. We tried prying up the stone block sealing the men, with levers of metal. We couldn’t budge it an inch. It probably weighs tons. Only great counterweights of equal tonnage could swing the stone up. The Martians had evidently planned against penetration. But why the two doors connected in that
way? It is a secret lost in the remote past.
We tried charges of our rocket fuel, of course, hoping to shatter the stone block. The explosions only chipped its surface. We had to stop, when cracks appeared ominously in the ceiling. It would be worse to have the whole passage collapse about our ears, burying the three men forever. We also tried chiseling by hand, but even big Swinerton’s most powerful hammer blows barely flicked off tiny bits.
We’re pretty discouraged. We wonder how the men inside must feel. There’s that old story of a curse hanging over pyramids on Barth. We almost feel there’s something to it, even here on Venus.
Four Hundred Sixty-Seventh Day.
No results as yet. Men still entombed. Deadline for leaving Venus at this conjunction within twenty-four hours.
We won’t leave while they’re alive, though they’ve insisted on it, by code through the stone block.
Captain Atwell sent Swinerton and Parletti to examine every inch of the pyramid’s faces, walking along each successive ledge, for another possible entrance. They found none. Jimmy told us we wouldn’t, by gestures. Incidentally, we don’t blame Jimmy either, for what has happened, though he led Parletti to the other door. Yet somehow, Jimmy understands the situation and seems to have an air of penitent guilt. We like him for it.
Well, Earth, we haven’t given up hope entirely, but it’s hard to be optimistic. Thanks for your voiced sympathies, and the encouraging messages from all over the world, transmitted to us.
FOUR Hundred Sixty-Eighth Day. The men are out, thank God! Parletti had the idea, early today, of taking a look in the room revealed by the newly opened door. We followed. We almost forgot our bleak situation in looking over what lay in here.
It seems to have originally been some gigantic machine. Most of the metal is gone, but a skeleton framework remains. A tube of some sort pointed straight up out of the pyramid. Parletti says it is probably the main reason why the pyramid was built. And it may be the link as to why pyramids were built on Earth, Mars, and possibly other planets. For what purpose? Time’s mouth is closed.
But then suddenly Parletti found what he had been vaguely hoping for. Another balanced-stone mechanism, possibly a second key to the door system! If we had known two days ago, but no use to think of opportunity lost.
Parletti started to shove the pivoted stone over, but Captain Atwell jerked his arm away. If the first mechanism had fallen apart, after use, this one might too, sealing us in here.
We looked at each other.
Obviously, that was an ominous possibility. Yet the thing had to be tried, to release the men below. Therefore, one man had to do it—and take his chances.
At the worst, it would be one life for three.
It was a tense moment. Who should it be? Captain Atwell called us all into the corridor, to discuss the matter. Swinerton suggested drawing lots. We had done that on the Moon, once—
Parletti very calmly refused, and demanded the right to do it himself. He had unwittingly put those men in their trap. What more right, he asked, than that he risk his life to undo the deed?
He started for the room, as soon as he said it, and then at that moment there was a scraping rumble of stone against stone.
The door was going down, as if by some form of magic!
It clamped shut in seconds, while we stared pop-eyed. Then we heard the answering rumble from below. The tomb of Tarnay, Wilson and Markers opening!
We ran below. They met us half way, throwing their arms around us in joy. They were haggard, starved, thirsty, but otherwise none the worse for their three days of burial. We tried to explain the miracle of the doors working by themselves.
“Where’s Jimmy?” Parletti suddenly shouted.
And then we knew. Jimmy had pushed the balanced-stone! He was in that other room, beyond any power to save him. He had divined the situation, slipped in while we were talking, sacrificed himself. We had saved his one life. He had saved four of ours.
In the annals of space pioneering, the name of Jimmy, son of Venus, must be included. We have all solemnly pledged that. Parletti, I might add, wept openly for a being he had known as friend, though an alien.
FOUR Hundred Sixty-Ninth Day. Good-by, Earth, for the time being!
No matter how often Karsen figures it, we can’t take-off for Earth now. The episode in the pyramid shoved us past the deadline. The planets wait for no man. If we rocketed into space now, we’d reach Earth’s orbit too soon. Venus has an orbital velocity six miles greater than Earth’s. We can’t cut down that difference with our limited fuel supply.
Our situation, frankly, is grim. Before the next conjunction, fourteen months from now, our fuel may again be water-logged. Our UV apparatus will be useless. We will have no sure protection against the deadly molds.
If Providence is kind, we will resume etherline contact in fourteen months.
Venus Expedition Number One signing off.
WATERS OF DEATH
A DEJECTED human figure stood in the lonely wastes of Titan, Saturn’s sixth moon, under the ringed planet’s moonlike glow. The air was thin, but life-supporting. The surrounding vegetation was thorny and tangled, almost as difficult to work through as barbed wire.
And that had proved “Lifer” Pete Larn’s downfall. Thrusting through the wild vegetation, trying desperately to put as much distance between the prison and himself as possible, it had happened. A whiplike vine had snared the neck of his water canteen and ripped it cleanly from his belt. His body had jerked half around and he had fallen, stunned. Then an ominous gurgling sound propelled him to his feet.
It was his canteen—spilling! But by the time he had found it, parting gnarled thorns that drew blood from his hands, the last drop of water had oozed into the soil, vanishing!
Larn kicked at the bushes with his heavy boots, swearing blackly. Rage consumed him, a greater rage than even the murderous frenzy that had driven him to kill two men, on Ganymede. He trampled the bush flat.
Then he calmed. And with the calm came—fear! He had another five hundred miles to go, two weeks’ travel at the least, even in Titan’s light gravity. Two weeks—and without water! A man could go that long without food, but water was essential. Especially in this arid atmosphere that seemed to suck moisture out of his body. It never rained on Rhea.
There was the river, whose course he was following. But one did not drink of Titan’s rivers. A picture loomed unbidden in Larn’s mind, like an evil specter. The face of the last man who had tried to escape. After only a month in the prison, this man had made his break, scoffing at the tales of poisoned waters. A search party had brought in his body a week later—bloated, twisted by terrible convulsions. And the look that was stamped on his face was one of haunting insanity!
The waters of Titan were, and had always been, impregnated with some dread ingredient, a diabolical natural drug that first brought intoxication and then death, in swift succession. The prison’s purifying plant extracted all but slight traces that left only a mildly bitter taste.
Larn stared at the empty canteen that gaped mockingly. Go back? Back to lifelong imprisonment in the grim jail from which he had escaped? “No!”
He shouted the word defiantly. He had planned this too long—five years. He had made the canteen bit by bit, with scraps of sheet metal garnered from the prison’s machine-shop, soldering them together over a candle flame in his cell, with pellets of lead. The rest had been comparatively easy, since he had planned so thoroughly. A guard quietly strangled, who had entered his cell to investigate Larn’s pretended moaning.
A quick trip to the main water supply, in the guard’s uniform, to fill his improvised canteen. Finally escape over the wall, boldly walking past a guardhouse, protected by the shadows of true night, when both Saturn and the sun had set.
By dawn, when the weak sun had spattered anemic sunlight over the dreary satellite, Larn had put fifty miles between himself and the prison. They would never find him now. It had all worked perfectly up until this moment. Bu
t now . . . he kicked at the useless canteen that had been his symbol of freedom. He’d go on. He’d make it somehow.
TITANOPOLIS, mining city, and its space docks lay five hundred miles eastward. There, in its somewhat lawless quarters where hardbitten spacemen drank and gambled, he could easily ship aboard some freighter, no questions asked.
Pete Larn tramped along, still following the narrow river that he knew led straight into Titanopolis. He eyed the water and shuddered. He’d never take a drink of that!
But five days later the pangs of thirst arose, and became a growing torture. Hourly his torment increased, and he knew then, in the back of his mind, that he could never reach his goal. His eyes kept turning to the lure of the softly coursing river near-by.
The water sparkled invitingly in the sunlight. But within it lurked dissolved madness and death! “Moon of Intoxication,” Titan was often called, for dissolute spacemen added a drop of its waters to their liquors to revel in its extraordinary intoxication. More than a drop brought death.
Larn cursed bitterly through parched Ups as he staggered along. A haunting phrase came up from his youthful reading—what was it?—“Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink!”
He knew he was going mad. Beads of sweat trickled from his brow as he pushed through the wiry plant-growths, and drop by drop his body was being drained dry. His throat was raw torture. A horrible, unwanted thought hammered in his dazed mind—one little drink! One little drink wouldn’t hurt! How sweet it would taste. . . .
With a little shock, he suddenly found himself at the river’s edge, kneeling in the mud. An alien force seemed to have gripped him and was forcing him to bend his head toward the water. Some part of his mind had snapped and had gained control of his body. Drink! He must drink!
“I won’t!” he screamed, breaking from the mad spell. He jerked the gun from his belt, the gun of the guard he had strangled. He pressed the cold muzzle against his temple. Better the quick death than the lingering one of intoxication, insanity, and final convulsion.
