Battle on Venus

by William F. Temple

  Events answered with another change of tempo. Silence fell so abruptly that it seemed to have a noise of its own.

  But now the skipper had become too apathetic to investigate. He merely lay waiting dully for whatever manifested itself. Sparks had given up, too, and lay resignedly at his side with a red-soaked handkerchief pressed to the lower half of his face.

  Temperamentally different, George was alert and interested. He gazed boldly at the next surprise item on the program—and was duly surprised. For each and every one of the tanks had performed an about-face. Now they were facing outwards, their long gun barrels radiating like the spokes of a wheel. To the ship and men from Earth they presented only their apparently unprotected backs. And the great horizontal ship on wheels had also swung around to offer them a view of its rear. It stood there not two hundred metres distant, ignoring them, facing an unseen enemy, patiently waiting. The only thing moving appeared to be the slight heat haze rising from its tail. For the rest, it was a still-life picture, painted in low tones, with the motionless grey clouds hanging over all. George spurred his reluctant skipper into taking a look at it. The Captain gazed from under lowered, cynical eyelids. He grunted: “Oh, I see, it’s all only a game, after all. They want us to chase them now. To hell with them! I’m going to see how the other guys are.”

  He shook off George’s restraining hand and climbed out of the pit. He walked at his own pace to the craters where the rest of his crew had gone to ground. But one crater was no longer there. It had become a filled-in double grave.

  The mate and one other crew member were lying full-length at the bottom of their crater, face down. Shrapnel was strewn around like so much street rubbish, but none of it appeared to have touched them.

  “Come on, you men,” said the skipper. “Time for chow.”

  He stood on the crater rim careless of the array of mechanized might not so far beyond it. There had been just too much of everything, and he was beyond caring any more. Egotistically, he looked on it as a personal attack. Fate had always used him as a football, and now he could only accept that and shrug it off.

  Slowly, the mate raised his grimy face. The shells had fallen closer to his refuge and the tide of thick, sooty gas had washed over it many times. There were tear furrows down his cheeks. He might have been crying. It might have been only the gas making his eyes stream.

  “Milman’s dead, sir.”

  The skipper frowned. “Are you sure? He doesn’t look it.”

  “No, it was just one small splinter. In his right eye.”

  Captain Jonah Freiburg sighed. “Barker and Heinz are dead, too. And buried. Which leaves only four of us. Four is just right for bridge. Got a deck of cards on you?”

  The mate sat up. “No, sir.” He was puzzled by this off-hand remark. George got there in time to hear it, and wasn’t puzzled. He realized Freiburg had thrown in his hand. And he knew he would have to take over. He examined Milman, who was stone dead and cooling fast. He clambered out of the crater and took a careful survey of the whole area through his telescope. It was still as lively as a graveyard on a wet afternoon threatening rain.

  Freiburg had perched himself on the rim of the pit, and was swinging his legs idly as he filled his pipe.

  George said: “You just rest there for a while, Skip. I’m going over to that H.Q. set-up to see if I can make contact and learn who’s on who’s side against what”

  Freiburg nodded absently, busy with his pipe.

  The mate asked: “Can I come, Mr. Starkey?”

  “Surely, friend.”

  The two men started out towards the long, dully gleaming hull of the thing like a mounted torpedo. Sparks came doubtfully, at a diagonal, to join them. The blood was drying on his chin.

  “Trying for a truce?”

  “Trying for something,” said George. “Just be ready to duck if anything starts up.”

  Nothing did. They came alongside the wheeled monster. There was no sign of hatches or portholes, and when they’d walked clear around it they’d established that the hull was a completely unbroken surface save for a couple of short, flexible rods, near the nose, back-flung like antennae. George reached up, on his toes. He grabbed one of the rods and pulled at it. It waggled loosely, then sprang back when he released it. The monster didn’t seem offended or in the least perturbed. It ignored him. He picked up a rock and banged it several times against the hull. Circumspectly, the mate and Sparks stood a little way back lest the wheels started turning. But they did not.

  “There’s no one at home,” said George, tossing the rock away. “Or else they’re playing possum—maybe watching us through that hull—some kind of one-way vision.”

  Just in case that were so, he made what he considered to be friendly signs at the ship. It remained totally unresponsive. He threw up his hands.

  “Well, maybe the tank drivers will have something to say. Let’s go see.”

  They plodded over the cracked earth to the nearest tank, half expecting it to swivel and cover them with its gun. (The long guns protruded from the tanks’

  bodies, not their turrets, which were too small to carry them.) But all the tanks remained static in their arc.

  Still, they had slightly more promise than the seamless torpedo craft. Each turret had a lid with a handle to it. George screwed up his courage, clambered onto the first tank, and tried to open it up. It proved easy enough. The lid lifted after a single twist of the handle.

  George looked straight down on the breech of the gun. Plainly, it was self-loading, with an automatic ammunition feed. There was radar apparatus, with a tiny screen. And there was a man-sized driving seat, with an elaborate instrument panel, including an inset TV screen, facing it. Everything was there—except the driver.

  Meanwhile, Sparks and the mate were similarly investigating other nearby tanks. They came back with the same answer. All the tanks were obviously driverless.

  “So what happened to the drivers?” asked Sparks. “They couldn’t have got out: we’d have seen them go.”

  “They can be folded up small and slipped into a dashboard pocket,” said the mate, attempting humor after this anti-climax.

  “Although these tanks have provision for manual control, they must have been operated by remote control,” said George. “Question is, where are the controllers? Lying low in that cigar on wheels? Or maybe in some General Headquarters way over the horizon?”

  “I’ll take a bet they’re in the cigar,” said the mate. “And they’re stuck in there because the power’s failed. Look, that hot-dog on wheels came charging at us bent on murder. Then it changed its mind and turned to go back. Found its batteries were running out or something. And all the tanks had to turn around, too, because they’re powered from that thing. Then they were stuck because it had run out of gas. Could be it’s re-charging its batteries right now. We’ll know about it soon if it is—they’ll all turn on us.”

  “That’s a nice theory,” said George, scratching his head. “Got any theories about that mark?”

  He pointed to a white O painted on the side of the nearest tank.

  “Sort of regimental sign,” said the mate. “All the tanks have got that same letter O.”

  “Or zero,” said Sparks. “More probably, it’s just a circle: you can’t expect Venusians to share our alphabet or figuring system.”

  But the mate wasn’t listening to him, but to something else. There was a distant heavy droning.

  “Its coming from the sky,” George decided. “Airplanes —of a kind.”

  The mate said: “We’d better get back to the craters.”

  They started back. The droning swelled behind them, ballooning up over their heads menacingly. They looked back and up over their shoulders and saw only the grey blank mask of the sky.

  Freiburg was still sitting in the same spot, smoking his pipe reflectively. If he’d heard the droning, he didn’t appear bothered by it.

  “Hello, boys, you’re soon back. Learned anything?”


  “Yes and no,” George replied. The droning worried him. He gazed up.

  “They’re just above the clouds, or in them,” he said, at large. “Doubt if they can see us or even know we exist. They’ll pass over.”

  This opinion was brief comfort to anyone. With a shriek which rose to a crescendo, the first sheaf of bombs dropped on a section of the arc of the tank perimeter. Two tanks went flying through the air like discarded toys. The blast sent the men reeling. They scrambled into the crater alongside the body of Milman.

  The skipper, rocking and looking surprised, still sat on the edge of the crater. George grabbed his legs and pulled him in.

  “My pipe!” exclaimed Freiburg, sounding injured. He scrabbled for it. The meaningless war began again. All around the distant skirts of the plain unseen anti-aircraft guns and rocket batteries opened up, firing at the equally invisible enemy in the sky. But this time the tanks and the big wheeled vehicle took no part in it—except as sitting targets for the bombs. The men in the crater, although they heard plenty, saw little of the action. They were huddled in a petrified heap. They felt horribly exposed to the objects dropping from the grey and poisonous clouds. Mostly these were bombs, but among them were shapeless chunks of flying machines which the ground defenses had hit. Earth and sky thundered, the rain of destruction went on, and there was nothing you could do except lie still and pray. Then the droning, somewhat weakened, passed away to the west. The bombing in this vicinity had ceased, but far off to the west there was a dull rumbling and the thudding of guns.

  Until at last all was quiet again.

  George got to his feet and counted heads. Then sighed with relief, because Milman was still the only dead man among them. There were some nasty bruises, but the only blood was coming from Sparks’ tender lip, which had opened up again.

  Freiburg was looking thoughtful, and George hoped that was a good sign. Sparks said, thickly: “What I really need is a gum-shield, but has anyone got a spare handkerchief?”

  George gave him one, then took stock of the situation outside. All the tanks were still there, but some had been shifted around by blast and four had been overturned. The wheeled torpedo stood squarely and impassively in the same spot, showing no signs of damage: possibly its armor was impervious to bomb splinters.

  In the obscure distance George glimpsed moving shapes. He turned the telescope on them, and groaned aloud. Another tank attack was developing. He warned the others. The Captain shrugged, the mate glowered, and Sparks swore.

  Then, all at once, the tanks nearer to them, which had originally attacked them, showed evidences of life —except the four overturned ones. Their engines started up, and they jockeyed slowly backwards, forming a smaller, tighter circle. They then stopped. The HQ vehicle, however, hadn’t budged.

  “Well, what do you know?” said the mate. “It’s crazy,” said George. “Know what, mister? I don’t think your theory about the power-cut was right. I don’t believe the power was ever off. They formed a laager around us to defend us. The.bombs blew gaps in it Now they’ve just tightened up their defenses again.”

  The mate scratched his head. “I don’t get that. They started in to shoot us to hell. Why should they turn their coats?”

  “Search me,” said George.

  Freiburg made no comment, but he had listened and was becoming interested in events again. He looked intently at the advancing tanks. But it was the tanks in their own circle which opened fire first, beginning a rapid drum-fire.

  There was a reason for this. The attacking tanks, it soon became clear, were smaller and swifter but carried correspondingly smaller armament. So the bigger tanks were taking advantage of their own greater range. However, there were at least twice as many of the smaller tanks. They whirred around like desert beetles, making themselves difficult targets. They began a policy of darting close in to take quick shots with their small guns, then zig-zagging off. But they didn’t always get away with it—several were knocked out and brewing up.

  It was exciting to watch, but dangerous. Shells were flying all ways. But the men in the crater believed that this time they were neutral. Therefore, illogically, they felt safer.

  That feeling was short-lived. A small enemy tank dashed in past one of their own (the Earthmen were beginning to look on them as their own) knocked-out tanks, and once inside the defensive ring came charging on towards them, squirting shells as it came. The small shells whizzed harmlessly over their heads and over the fallen space-ship behind them.

  The tank started to depress its gun elevation. But before it opened fire again, the great torpedo-shaped ship on wheels suddenly came to life with an angry roar of rocket vents.

  With astonishing acceleration it bore down on the small tank and shouldered it out of its path as a maddened bull charges a hapless, dismounted picador. There was a sound like the clash of giant cymbals. The tank rolled helplessly on its back, like a turtle. Its tracks churned the air uselessly. The wheeled monster pulled up within its own length with a shrieking of brakes. It became quiescent again.

  George cheered and, becoming aware of Freiburg beside him, a fellow witness, bawled in the skipper’s ear: “Those guys in the HQ are right on their toes!”

  Freiburg nodded, and pointed to the helpless tank. He shouted some reply, but the din of battle drowned it save for the word “Triangle!”

  George took another look at the tank, and noticed the big green triangle painted on it—just where their own tanks carried the white circle. Sometime, he thought, if he lived, he would try to solve this puzzle. Without provocation, the white circles attacked the terrestrial camp. Then, for no apparent reason, turned to defend it against the green triangles. What was the fighting about, anyhow?

  And who were the combatants? Did it go on like this all of the time all over Venus, or had they happened to drop into the middle of some local war?

  In the midst of his bewilderment, and adding to it, all the small tanks wheeled around simultaneously, as if obeying a single voice. They clattered swiftly back in the direction from which they’d come, leaving behind them dust trails and the dozen of their number which were disabled and burning. The defending tanks ceased to fire.

  Freiburg said, triumphantly: “We’ve beaten ’em off.”

  “We?” echoed George. “What are ‘we?’”

  “A leading question,” said Freiburg, peering at the fleeing tanks. He became suddenly rigid. “Uh-huh. Telescope, George.”

  George gave it to him.

  “There’s no end to it,” said Freiburg, presently. “Unless this is the end coming. It sure looks like it.”

  George strained to try to see what the Captain could see. He could make out, somewhere near the blurred horizon, a dark spot that hadn’t been there before.

  “What is it, Skip?”

  “It’s the grandfather of all tanks, my boy. About five times the size of our friends here. It’s taller than that damn wheel—anything up to ten metres high, I guess. Must be hellish heavy: can’t think why it doesn’t just sink away into the ground. It’s coming this way. Rather slowly. Looks formidable—downright grim. It seems to be alone, though. Hope it hasn’t got any brothers.”

  “Maybe it’s coming to our rescue. Maybe that’s what’s frightened the triangle corps away.”

  “I’d like to think that, too, George, but I’m afraid it just ain’t so. Those beastly little tanks are rushing towards it like lads running to greet their mother. Perhaps it is their mother. Anyhow, it’s not firing at them. What a sight—reminds me of a big, fat, female spider and her brood. They’re forming up behind her now—hanging onto her apron-strings, as it were… Yes, it’s no use, George. It’s carrying their sign: the jolly old green triangle. We’re in for another big headache. Do you have any aspirin on you?”

  He relinquished the telescope to George with a slight smile. George looked at him curiously.

  “You seem to be perking up again, Skip. For a while there I thought you’d given up.”

  “I h
ad, George, and I have again—now I’ve seen what’s coming. That first time I felt that everything and everybody was against us. But when the boys in the HQ over there started carrying a gun for us, I felt a whole lot better. It’s nice to know you’ve someone on your side. But I’m afraid the game’s really up this time.”

  “I see,” said George, and thought he did see something of Freiburg’s strange psychological make-up. Freiburg hated being out on his own, bearing the whole responsibility when he was helpless to do anything about it. He was still helpless now, but not alone; the unknown commander of the wheeled HQ had taken over their defense. He’d acquired an ally at his own level. He seemed to have forgotten that two of his crew had been killed by the white circle tanks. Or else he regarded it as just a mistake.

  Sparks and the mate crouched at the bottom of the pit, beginning to look pale and battle-fatigued.

  A heavy boom sounded from the distance. It was the first ranging shot from the monster tank. The large-caliber shell screamed through the air. George flung himself down beside the mate. He could feel the man trembling in anticipation of the burst.

  It came, an over-shot, some three hundred metres behind the hull of the space-ship. With a sound like the crack of doom, a tremendous gusher of brown earth, squirted towards the dreary sky. Black smoke boiled up around it. Seemingly untroubled, Freiburg remained up on the rim, observing. The white circle tanks began firing, their guns cocked at extreme elevation. Presently, Freiburg reported: “Our shells are falling short. We can’t reach him. He’s stopped just out of range. He’s going to shoot us up from there.”

  Another boom, another wail rising to a scream. Another cracking explosion. It was still plus, but nearer this time.

  Sparks looked sideways at George. His eyes were round and scared above the red-blotched handkerchief he pressed to his face. They confirmed silently what George was thinking: the range was being corrected and it was only a matter of time…