Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

They both stared eagerly into the telescope's fluorescent screen, while the ship hovered, penetrating the mists.

  "Land, all right. Probably the so called Lost Continent." But there was no enthusiasm in Gerry's voice. The Arkette was not in sight.

  "I'll change the condenser capacity, shorten the range. Then we'll move slowly in one direction. If there's no response, we return and try another direction, until the alarm registers again. By repeatedly shortening the range, we'll find the plane."

  It didn't take long. Methodically casting about in the fog like a hound after a lost scent, they spotted The Arkette. It bore little resemblance to an airplane. Surrounded by a seething mass of strange six-legged furies, pitted and scored and completely broken in toward the rear where acids had eaten deep, splotched from nose to tail with hundreds of ugly bacteria colonies, it looked like nothing more than a nasty fester spot in the heart of a Venusian morass.

  Gerry Carlyle ordered The Ark down, then looked the situation over with iron-nerved calm. The sequence of events was not clear. The Intellectuals were an unrecognizable mess of decay already. Twelve-legs kicked feebly nearby as the drug wore off, bouncing gently around, apparatus dangling. While the Emotionals, tireless as machines, bit by bit were tearing the plane apart.

  "They can hardly be alive,' Gerry observed without a quaver. "But get the broadcasting room, Michaels. Have them try to get in touch with the plane. The Arkette has no receiver, so send the message on the beam carrier frequency. They'll pick it up through the acousticon, if -- " She swallowed. "Tell Tommy to waggle the elevators if he -- if he's alive."

  The message was sent, repeatedly. Gerry and every man in the crew watched intently for the answering signal from The Arkette. Minutes passed, and it did not come. It never came.

  Sharp lines gradually etched themselves across the clear skin of Gerry's face.

  "Well, apparently I've killed the thing I love -- " She spoke casually, too casually to deceive Michaels.

  "That's rot, Miss Carlyle," he said. "The fault is not --"

  Gerry whirled on him, and the chief pilot drew back suddenly embarrassed at the wild grief in her eyes.

  "None of your namby-pamby sympathy, Michaels!" she cried. "Tommy wasn't one for tears and soft words. He was a fighter, and if he's gone he'd want a fighter's epitaph. We're going to blast this hellhole back into the sea! Kranz!" she called into the annunciator. "Bring one of the cathode cannon to bear on that mob outside!"

  Michaels leaped forward.

  "Hold it, Kranz!" he snapped, and turned to his superior. "Wait, Miss Carlyle. They may be alive but unconscious. If you use the cathode cannon, it'll wipe out the plane and everything."

  Gerry bit her lip indecisively, almost carried away by her lust for revenge.

  "You're right, Mike. Same thing would hold true for the heat-ray, too. Best we could do would be to pick off one every now and then as he stepped back out of line with the plane."

  "The paralysis ray?"

  "Even worse. It's fatal to humans at very low power. And surely Tommy would have tried the hypo rifle."

  "Anesthetic gas?"

  "In this wind? Don't run wild, Mike; you're not thinking straight."

  Michaels subsided. After momentary silence, Gerry spoke half to herself.

  "A decoy would be useless. Because those devils have completely ignored that twelve-legged nightmare bouncing around out there. From the moment we arrived, they haven't been diverted an instant from their assault on the plane. But if something were to attack them-Michaels! Didn't one of the parties bring in some rotifera at the last minute?"

  "You mean those Venusian buzzardlike jiggers that eat everything? Yes, Miss."

  "Well, why not let one of 'em loose? It'll finish off those things out there and won't injure the plane."

  "An excellent idea, Miss, except that I fear even a rotifer would meet his match out there. Look at that armor plating over their bodies. Those claws. And judging from the plane's appearance, they secrete an acid, too. No, although the rotifer will tackle anything within reason, I'm afraid this job's too much."

  "Well, we're going to try it, anyhow."

  "Righto. But why not provide for defeat in advance?"

  "How so?"

  "If those beauties are going to eat the rotifer, instead of vice versa, let's give them a real bellyful. Pump the rotifer full of some poison that won't work immediately on the rotifier itself!"

  "Mike, you're marvelous!" Gerry turned to the annunciator. "Kranz! Have you heard what we've been saying? Then hop to it. Rout out all the poisons you can find in the stockroom. And hurry!"

  In five minutes Kranz' voice came fearfully over the wire.

  "Sorry, Captain. No poisons aboard, no lethal drugs. Just medicines."

  For an instant it seemed as if someone were about to suffer the wrath of Gerry Carlyle. But she controlled herself with an effort.

  "Of course there's no poison. We catch 'em alive. What use would we have for poisons. But there must be something, something-Medicine! There's gallons of lurninal in the store-room. The standard space-sickness remedy. You know what lurninal does, Mike? Affects strongly the autonomic nervous system, counteracts adrenaline. It destroys emotion. And if emotion is gone, all desire to kill is gone, too! Kranz? You --"

  "Coming up, Miss Carlyle," said the annunciator hollowly.

  The scheme was quickly put into effect. A huge hypodermic poured charge after charge of lurninal into the giant six-foot dough-gray ball. A gangway was thrust out from one of the rear ports, and the rotifer rolled quietly down. Once free, it paused uncertainly with its forest of stout cilia delicately exploring the air for vibrations. Then unerringly the blind devourer, the scavenger of Venus, rumbled straight toward the tumult that marked the wreck of The Arkette.

  Never in all their experience had the crew of The Ark seen a jungle battle carried on with such unbridled and appalling ferocity. The rotifer, though plainly functioning subnormally with so much lurninal inside it, took the initial advantage by virtue of surprise. There was a sharp clashing as the armored Emotionals were struck by the chitinous lorica of the rotifier, and two of the former vanished into the rotifer's vast gullet.

  The ruthless attack forced the Emotionals reluctantly to transfer their fury from the plane to the new enemy. When they did so, the conclusion was foregone. A hundred savage claws knifed into the chinks in the rotifer's, armor, ripped him apart in a dozen places. Acid seethed on the chitinous covering; being protein, it turned yellow and began to break down slowly. The rotifier fought like a bulldog, never moving backward an inch, but vicious fangs quickly devoured his exposed soft parts. Shortly all that remained were a few scattered chunks of flesh.

  The Emotionals, not relaxing in their fantastic fury an instant, returned to the crumbling plane. But perceptibly now they lost enthusiasm for the job. Presently one of them slumped quietly down in the mess and sat with face utterly blank, devoid of expression. Two or three others wandered aimlessly off into the fog.

  Emotion, for the time being, had completely left them; their intelligent counterparts were dead. They had no brains, no desires, no impulses of any kind. Their existence was a complete blank, save for simple nerve-responses to pain or heat or cold or hunger and the like.

  They stared foolishly at the havoc they had wrought, and drifted away without purpose into the fog.

  Gerry led the grim party of men and women from The Ark, but before they had covered half the distance the tangled mass of The Arkette suddenly shook violently and burst apart. A mighty shout went up as two disheveled figures staggered into view. They were dirty, bloodied where questing claws had found a mark, scorched where acids had seared them-but very much alive. Behind them frolicked a fuzzy gray duncerabbit, delirious with joy.

  In a devastating rush all the bitterness, the pent-up grief, the self-castigation, the hatred and determination for vengeance, drained away from Gerry's soul and left her weak and gasping with reaction. For one of her rare, brief moments, she was fra
gile and fearful and trembling for the man she loved.

  "Tommy!" she shrieked, and ran headlong into his arms. Strike's antiseptic helmet, which had protected his face from acid as well as infection, fell apart with the shock. He took every possible advantage of the situation, immediately and competently, while the crew stood around grinning. They quizzed and felicitated Barrows, who explained through chattering teeth that they'd been unable to signal as requested because the control wires had been eaten through with acid.

  The years of training reasserted themselves, however. Gerry pulled free and turned on her crew.

  "Discipline," she remarked frigidly, "must be maintained. You know the rule about leaving the ship during the periodic winds without antiseptic protection. You're all docked two days' pay, including myself. Now get back to the ship at once."

  The crew departed in haste.

  "As for you," Gerry scanned Strike in disapproval, "you've disobeyed your captain, broken practically every rule we have by going off on an unauthorized trip, insufficiently equipped, without even a radio. You've disrupted the expedition, thrown us off our schedule, very nearly cost us two lives."

  Strike nodded. "I deserve your very best tongue lashing. Loose the vials of your contumely."

  "This is, no joking matter, Tommy. Look at that plane. A total loss. Do you think even the London Interplanetary Zoo can afford to throw a few thousand away on every expedition just to convince some young hothead he's wrong? No, indeed. That's coming out of your salary."

  Strike squirmed. Gerry's clear voice was being heard and enjoyed by the entire crew. She continued with eloquence, cataloguing his sins with devastating point and accuracy.

  "And now I want your word of honor that you'll never try a stunt like this again. No more lone-wolfing?"

  "All right, Gerry. But don't yell."

  "I'm not yelling. Furthermore, you're working for me only. No more contracts with Von Zorn?"

  "So you guessed that?" He sighed a bit. "All right; no more divided loyalties."

  "And no more --"

  Strike glanced at his watch, miraculously still working, and interrupted. "Time's up, Gerry. I've rated this verbal message, and I've taken it like a little gentleman. I've promised everything you want, but now the lecture is over."

  "Oh, is it? Tommy, I've just begun to tell you --"

  "Oh, no. You've finished telling me, because I'm about to employ the one sure method I know to stop you." He grinned.

  "Oh." Gerry was a little breathless. "Oh, dear, you're going to kiss me, aren't you?"

  * * *

  Contents

  THE HOTHOUSE WORLD

  By Arthur K. Barnes

  The Ark

  Day again -- one hundred and seventy dragging hours of throttling, humid heat. An interminable period of monotony lived in the eternal mists, swirling with sluggish dankness, enervating, miasmatic, pulsant with the secret whisperings of mephitic lifeforms. That accounted for the dull existence of the Venusian trader, safe in the protection of his stilt-legged trading post twenty feet above the spongy earth -- but bored to the point of madness.

  Tommy Strike stepped out from under the needle-spray antiseptic shower that was the Earthman's chief defense against the myriad malignant bacterial infections swarming the hothouse that is Venus. He grabbed a towel, made a pass at the lever to turn on the refrigeration unit that preserved them during the hot days, shut off the night heating system and yelled:

  "Roy! Awake! Arise! Today's the great day! The British are coming! Wake up for the event!"

  Roy Ransom, Strike's assistant staggered into view, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  "British?" he mumbled. "What British?"

  "Why, Gerry Carlyle! The great Carlyle is coming today. In his special ship, with his trained crew, straight from the Interplanetary Zoo in London. The famous 'Catch-'em-alive Carlyle' is on his way and we're the lucky guys chosen to guide him on his expedition on Venus!"

  Ransom scratched one thick hairy leg and stepped under the shower with a sour expression. "Ain't that somethin'?" he inquired.

  "You don't look with favor on Mister Carlyle?" Strike chuckled.

  "No, I don't. I've heard all I want to hear about him. Capturing animals from different planets and bringing them back alive to the Zoo in London is all right. I'd like the job myself. But any guy that rates the sickening amount of publicity he does must have something phony about 'im." He kicked toward the short-wave radio in one corner of the living room.

  "Bein' so close to the sun, we're lucky if we bring in a couple of Earth programs a day through the interference. An' it seems to me every damn' one of 'em has somethin' about the famous Carlyle. Gerry Carlyle eats Lowden's Vita-cubes on expedition. Gerry Carlyle smokes germ-free Suaves. Gerry Carlyle drinks refreshen' Alka-lager. Pfui!

  "An' now we're ordered to slog around this drippin' planet for 'im, doin' all the work of baggin' a bunch of weird specimens for the yokels t' gape at, while he gets all the glory back home!"

  Tommy Strike laughed good naturedly.

  "You're all bark and not much bite, Roy. You're just as glad as I am something's turned up to relieve the monotony." He brought out his daytime clothes, singlet and trousers of thin rubberized material and the inevitable broad-soled boots for traversing the treacherous soft spots on Venus' surface.

  "Yeah?" retorted Ransom. "I can tell you one thing this visit'll turn up, an' that's trouble. Sure as you're born, Tommy, that guy's comin' here to get two or three Murris -- he hopes! An' you know what that'll mean!"

  Strike's eyes clouded. There was truth in Ransom's remarks. Hunting for the strange little creatures called Murris never had resulted in anything but trouble since the day Sidney Murray co-leader of the first great Venusian exploration party, the Cecil Stanhope -- Sidney Murray Expedition, first set eyes upon them.

  "Well," he shrugged, "we can stall until just before he's ready to leave and have some fun at least. Maybe he'll listen to reason."

  Ransom snorted in wordless disgust at this fantastic hope.

  "Anyhow," insisted Strike, determined to see the cheerful side, "even if there is any disturbance, it always blows over in a few days. I'm heading for the landing field. They're just about due."

  Tommy stepped outside into the breathlessly hot blinding mist, thick with the stench of rot and decay. Earthly eyes could not penetrate this eternal shroud for more than a hundred feet at a time, even when a wind stirred the stuff up to resemble the churning of a weak solution of dirty milk. Strike grimaced and thoughtlessly filled and lit his pipe.

  Thirty seconds later the air was filled with the thin screams and bangings of dozens of the fabulous whiz-bang beetles as they hurtled their armored bodies blindly against the metal walls of the station, attracted by the odor of tobacco. Strike flinched and hurriedly doused the pipe. A man couldn't even have the solace of a smoke on this damned planet. His life would be endangered by the terrific speed of those whiz-bangs.

  A few steps took him to the safety of the rear of the station, where abandoned calcium carbonate tanks loomed like metal giants in the fog. There was a time when it had been necessary to pump the stuff to the miniature space-port a safe distance away whenever a ship was about to land.

  There, sprayed forth from thousands of tiny nozzles high into the air, its tremendous affinity for water carved a clear vertical tunnel in the fog for the approaching spaceship pilot. New telescopic developments, however, rendered the device obsolete.

  Strike paced deliberately along the trail that paralleled the ancient pipeline -- Earthlings soon learn not to overexert in that atmosphere -- and before he had covered half of it his quick ears caught the shrill whine of a spacecraft plunging recklessly into the Venusian air-envelope.

  It rose to a nerve-rasping pitch, then dropped sharply away to silence. Presently, sounding curiously muffled and distorted through the clouds, came the noise of opening ports, the clang of metal upon metal, voices. Gerry Carlyle and company had arrived.

 
He increased his pace somewhat and shortly entered the clearing that served as space-port. He paused to let amazed eyes roam over the unaccustomed sight. Gerry Carlyle's famous expeditionary ship was an incredible monster of gleaming metal, occupying almost the entire field, towering into the air further than the eye could reach in that atmosphere. Its green glass portholes were glowing weirdly from the ship's lights as they looked down upon the stranger.

  The craft was immense, approaching in size the giant clipper ships that traveled to the furthermost reaches of the System. Strike had never before been so close to a ship of such proportions. He smiled at the sight of the name on her bow -- The Ark.

  The Ark, of course, was one of the new centrifugal flyers, containing in her stem a centrifuge of unbelievable power with millions of tiny rotors running in blasts of compressed air, generating sufficient energy to hurl the ship through space at tremendous speeds. The equipment of The Ark, too, was the talk of the System.

  Carlyle, backed by the resources of the Interplanetary Zoo, had turned the ship into a floating laboratory, with a compartment for the captured specimens arranged to duplicate exactly the life conditions of their native planets. All the newer scientific inventions were included in her operating apparatus -- the paralysis ray, antigravity, electronic telescope, a dozen other things the trader knew by name only.

  His musings were interrupted by the approach of a snappily uniformed man who saluted, smiling.

  "Are you Mr. Strike?" he asked. "I'm sub-pilot Barrows of The Ark and very glad to meet you. Gerry Carlyle will see you at once. We're anxious to get to work immediately."

  This day was to be one of many surprises for Tommy Strike and perhaps the greatest shock of all came when he stood beside the sloping runway leading into the brightly lighted bow of the ship. For, awaiting him there, one hand outstretched and a cool little smile on her lips, stood the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

  "Mr. Strike said Barrows, "this is Miss Gerry Carlyle."