“Right ho, Greeves! All hands, abandon ship!” Then a thought occurred. “If we’ve lost Slithy, who will operate the rocket?”
“I closely observed Mr. Tove-Whippley’s activities on the outward voyage, sir,” Greeves said. “I believe the task is not one that would pose difficulties to an agile mind.”
“You think I’ll be able to manage a takeoff, Greeves?” I said.
“I was thinking rather, sir, that you would minister to Mr. Spotts-Binkle.”
“Ah, yes,” I said, regarding the proposed object of my tender care. “Baldie? Are you with us?”
But Baldie was present in name only. He had even stopped blinking. Greeves proposed that we each take an arm and walk him toward the rocket ship. I agreed, and we took up our stations and proceeded toward the door. But then Greeves bid us stop and went to the drinks cabinet, where he snaffled up a large bottle of something.
“Good thinking, Greeves,” I said. “I’m sure we’ll need a stiffener somewhere along the line.”
“Indeed, sir,” he said. “Now, sir, if I may advocate a certain rapidity of gait?”
“Advocate away, Greeves. I’m with you.” Then, as we went through the door onto the mossy lawn, I let out a short note of laughter.
“Sir?”
“I just thought, Greeves, well … what we’re doing with poor old Baldie.”
“The situation excites humor, sir?”
“Well,” I said, savoring the moment to come, “it’s a frog-march, isn’t it? I mean to say: frogs, newts; march, marsh. It works on many levels.”
“Indeed, sir. Most droll. Now, we are coming within range. If I may recommend that you concentrate your mind in a way that will resist the female’s siren call. A brick wall, perhaps. Or large earmuffs.”
“Oh, for beeswax, eh, Greeves?” I said.
“Oh, indeed, sir.”
But then his voice faded into the background cacophony that was rising all around us, the swamp dwellers letting the night know that they were all present and open for business. We struggled on, with Baldie doing a rather convincing impression of a sack of potatoes between us, angling our course away from the pond toward where the little bridge spanned the stream that trickled through the marsh. Beyond the stone arch, on the swamp’s only other elevation, I could see the dull sheen of Slithy’s rocket ship. Its hatch was open, with a bit of a ladder leading up to it.
As we neared the crossing, I felt a tickling between my ears. I’d been expecting another rendition of the slow and sultry number Shilistrata had been playing at our earlier tryst, but it seemed that, in the presence of other anglers, she had gone for a straightforward gaffing of the Gloster fish. The tickle grew quickly into an unbearable itch; I would have gladly torn off the top of my skull just for a chance to scratch it. Accompanying the maddening sensation was the certain knowledge that it would stop the moment I turned toward the pond.
“I say, Greeves,” I said, “I’ve got this awful—”
“Itch, sir?” he said, and I saw that his face was almost registering a strong expression, rather like one of Hesiod’s Titans acknowledging an earache.
“An itch to end all itches,” I said.
“Very apt, sir, inasmuch as giving in to it would soon bring about the end of existence.”
“I believe I’ll put it out of my mind, Greeves.”
“Do endeavor to do so, sir,” he said, “although I fear it is about to become more difficult.” He had only his chin to point with, like Achilles before the walls of Troy, and he used the appendage to indicate that Shilistrata had come out of the pond to take up a position at the near end of the bridge. She had spread her arms wide to bar our passage while narrowing her eyes to slits. She was also giving us an uninhibited view of those rows of glistening needles along her pale, pink gums.
“Sirening be dashed,” I said, the itch in my brain having suddenly ceased, “she’s going for brute force!”
“More than that, sir,” Greeves said. “Professor Gillattely believed that the creature’s bite is poisoned.”
“Um,” I said, “so simply booting her out of the way will invite peril?”
“Hence this, sir.” He raised his free arm, which contained the item he’d picked up from the drinks cabinet.
“Planning to render her squiffy?” I said.
“No, sir,” he said, advancing on the newtess, with Baldie and me perforce marching in his train. When we neared the hissing creature, Greeves let fly. It seemed that he had not brought along a flagon of Gillattely’s hooch, but the full soda bottle. He now depressed its lever and sprayed Shilistrata from her head to her nonexistent navel with a stream of clear, bubbly liquid.
One often sees soda bottles thus used in the cinema, where, along with the tossing of custard pies, they are a staple of Mr. Sennett’s comedies. On the newtess, however, the effect was more in a tragic vein: where the sparkling water touched her, her green skin turned first a pale yellow, then bleached to a leprous white. Her hiss became a yawp. She scrubbed at her front with her paws, and the contact made her paws exhibit the same color change.
She bent over, emitted a series of yips, and abandoned her bridge-blockading strategy in favor of a quick plunge back into the pond. Greeves and I, with Baldie still hung between us like an oddly shaped rug on a clothesline, tramped onto the bridge.
But at the far end we saw a new obstacle: another newtess, big enough to make Shilistrata look like the runt of the litter, had dredged herself up from the creek and was giving us the same dentist’s-eye-view of her pointed gnashers.
“Onward, sir, if you please,” Greeves recommended, and we thundered down the slope of the arch like a three-man version of the Scots Greys’ charge at Waterloo, a painting of which my aunt Dahlia had over her bed. Greeves gave the enemy a thorough dousing with soda water, with much the same effect as on the first occasion. In a moment, the way lay clear and we crossed to dry—well, dryish—land and struggled up the slope to where the rocket stood.
“That’s the spirit, Greeves,” I said.
“I regret, sir, that the curtain is not yet down,” he said, waving the bottle to indicate that a passel of newts were rising from the water to pursue us. “May I again counsel speed, sir?”
“No need,” said I, putting on the best I was capable of. Together, we slogged up to the top of the knoll and thrust Baldie bodily through the hatch.
“After you, sir,” Greeves said, as he turned to play Horatio at the bridge.
“Never you mind that,” I said, taking the soda bottle from him. “Go in and get the engine warmed up or whatever one does.”
A gape-mouthed newtess hove into view and I let her have a splash of soda large enough to have ruined a snifterful. Another one came right behind her, and I let fly again. The same color change and expression of horror came over both of them, and they beetled off to wherever they’d come from.
“Don’t care for it at all, do they, Greeves?” I called over my shoulder. I could hear clicks and flicks from behind me as he did things with the ship’s controls.
“Their skins are covered in an acidic slime,” he said as he continued to work. “The bicarbonate of soda neutralizes the acidity, causing them much the same discomfort as you and I would feel if someone poured acid on us.”
I gave another comer a faceful of fizz. “I say, Greeves,” I said, “we’re running low on soda.”
I heard a fresh series of switch-snappings, then I felt two strong hands under my arms. “Please forgive my manhandling you, sir,” he said as he hoisted me backward through the hatch and kicked the door closed. He led me to a sort of chaise longue fitted with straps and buckles and made me secure, then did the same for Baldie.
Something banged on the hatch. “If I may, sir?” he said, gesturing to the control console.
“Please, Greeves,” I said. “Venus has lost whatever charms it may once have held.”
He sat in a chair and moved a lever. The ship began to vibrate. Then I began to feel strangely heavy.
Sometime later, Greeves hove into view with a pot of tea and the necessary accoutrements. He undid my buckles, then informed me that he had administered a draught of the sleeping potion to Baldie, who would now lie in the arms of that Morpheus chap throughout the long journey home.
“Would you care to sleep, too, sir?” he asked.
“Wouldn’t that leave you all alone for, I don’t know, weeks?”
“Months, sir, in fact.”
“Good grief in garters, Greeves. I couldn’t let you do that all alone.”
“Very good of you, sir.”
I took a sip of the brew and thought for a moment, then said, “Greeves, I came to Venus because Slithy Tove-Whippley slipped me a mickey. But how did he trick you?”
“The gentleman did not trick me, sir. When I saw that he meant to abscond with you, I insisted that he take me, too.”
“Wide-awake, Greeves?”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Must have been a dashed boring trip, though, eh?”
“Mr. Tove-Whippley was kind enough to teach me a card game called pinochle. He learned it while working with Mr. Ford in America.”
“Good game, Greeves?”
“Quite engaging, sir. And even when played for small stakes, the winnings from several months of constant pinochle-playing can add up.”
“Won a packet, did you, Greeves?”
“I won the Lulu, sir.”
“The Lulu?”
“It is the name of this rocket ship, sir.” He took thought for a moment. “Though I may change it.”
“Good for you, Greeves,” I said. “Now, how about one more cup of tea, then we’ll cut the cards.”
“Very good, sir.”
“And Greeves?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you for …” I made a gesture that took in all of Venus and its manifold trials.
“Not at all, sir.”
GWYNETH JONES
Here’s the story of an intrepid explorer who volunteers to be the test subject for a radical new scientific experiment, and finds himself very far away from home—and up to his hips in trouble!
One of the most acclaimed British writers of her generation, Gwyneth Jones was a cowinner of the James Tiptree, Jr., Award for work exploring genre issues in science fiction, with her 1991 novel The White Queen, and has also won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, with her novel Bold As Love, as well as receiving two World Fantasy Awards—for her story “The Grass Princess” and her collection Seven Tales and a Fable. Her other books include the novels North Wind, Flowerdust, Escape Plans, Divine Endurance, Phoenix Café, Castles Made of Sand, Stone Free, Midnight Lamp, Kairos, Life, Water in the Air, The Influence of Ironwood, The Exchange, Dear Hill, The Hidden Ones, and Rainbow Bridge, as well as more than sixteen Young Adult novels published under the name Ann Halam. Her too-infrequent short fiction has appeared in Interzone, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Off Limits, and in other magazines and anthologies, and has been collected in Identifying the Object: A Collection of Short Stories. She is also the author of the critical study, Deconstructing the Starships: Science, Fiction and Reality. Her most recent books are a new SF novel, Spirit: Or the Princess of Bois Dormant and two collections, The Buonarotti Quartet and The Universe of Things. She lives in Brighton, England, with her husband, her son, and a Burmese cat.
A Planet Called Desire
GWYNETH JONES
1. JOHN FORREST, ADVENTURER
THE LABORATORY WAS ON AN UPPER FLOOR. ITS WIDE WINDOWS looked out, across the landscaped grounds of the Foundation, to the Atlantic Ocean. One brilliant star, bright as a tiny full moon, shone above the horizon, glittering in the afterwash of sunset.
“My grandfather’s people called her Hawa,” said the scientist.
“Is that a Dogon term, PoTolo?” asked John Forrest: a big man, fit and tanned, past forty but in excellent shape. He wore a neatly trimmed beard and moustache; his vigorous red-brown hair brushed back and a little long; his challenging eyes were an opaque dark blue. “You’re Dogon, aren’t you?”
They were alone in the lab: alone in the building aside from a few security guards. Dr. Seven PoTolo, slight and dark, fragile and very young-looking beside the magnate, was uncomfortable with the situation, but there was nothing he could do. Mr. Forrest, the multibillionaire, celebrity entrepreneur/philanthropist, environmentalist, lover of life-threatening he-man stunts, owned the Foundation outright. His billions financed PoTolo’s work, and he was ruthless with any hint of opposition.
PoTolo shook his head. “I’m afraid my ancestry is mixed: Cameroon is a melting pot. My maternal grandfather spoke one of the vanishing languages of the Coast. But ‘hawa’ is a loan-word. I think it’s Arabic, and means desire.”
“Sensual desire, yes,” agreed Forrest. “The temptation of Eve.”
He turned to survey the untried experimental apparatus.
“What will conditions be like?”
“Conditions on the surface could be remarkably Earthlike,” said PoTolo. “The tectonic-plate system hasn’t yet broken down, the oceans haven’t boiled away, atmospheric pressure hasn’t started to skyrocket, the atmosphere is oxygenated. Rotation should be speedier too. Much longer than our twenty-four-hour cycle, but a day and a night won’t last a local year …”
Forrest studied the rig. Most of it was indecipherable, aside from the scanning gate and biomedical monitors introduced for his benefit. A black globe with an oily sheen, clutched in robotic grippers inside a clear chamber, caught his eye: reminding him somehow of the business part of a nuclear reactor.
“But no guarantees,” he remarked, dryly.
“No guarantees … Mr. Forrest, you have signed your life away. Neither your heirs, nor any other interested parties, will have any legal recourse if you fail to return. But the risks are outrageous. Won’t you reconsider?”
“Consider what?” Forrest’s muddy blue eyes blazed. “Living out my life in some protected enclave of a world I’d rather go blind than see? The trees are dying, the oceans are poisoned. We’re choking on our own emissions, in the midst of a mass extinction caused by our numbers, while sleepwalking into a Third World War! No, I will not reconsider. Don’t tell me about risk. I know about risk!”
PoTolo nodded carefully, more physically intimidated than he liked to admit by this big rich white man, disinhibited by great power and famous for his reckless temper.
“My apologies. Shall we proceed?”
“I take nothing? No helmet full of gizmos, no homing beacon?”
“Only the capsule you swallowed. If conditions are as we hope, the probe will be retrieved, bringing you along with it. There’ll be an interval, I can’t tell you exactly how long, the variables are complex. You don’t have to do anything. You can move around, admire the scenery, then suddenly, you’ll be back here.”
“Amusing, if I’m in the middle of a conversation … One more question. You’ve staked your career on this, PoTolo, as much as I’m staking my life. What’s in it for you?”
“Habitable zones,” said the scientist. “Ancient Venus is, in effect, our nearest accessible exoplanet. If we can confirm the existence in space-time of the Venusian habitable zone we’ve detected, that’s a major confirmation of our ability to identify viable alternate Earths. We may not be able to use this method to send probes across the light-years, to distant systems; there may be insuperable barriers to that, but—”
“Bullshit. Your motive was glory, and the glory is mine now.” Forrest grinned. “You lose, I win. That’s what I do, PoTolo. I see an opportunity, and I take it.”
“Are you quite ready, Mr. Forrest?”
“I am.”
Forrest assumed the position, standing in the gate, arms loosely by his sides. He turned his head for a last glance at that bright star. The world disappeared.
He stood in a rosy, green-tinged twilight, surrounded by trees. Most seemed young, some had boles thicker than his body. Fronds like hanging moss hung around him; the groun
d underfoot was springy and a little uncertain, as if composed entirely of supple, matted roots. No glimpse of sky. The air was still, neither warm nor cold; the silence was absolute, uncanny. He looked at himself, checked the contents of belt loops and pockets. He was dressed as he had been in West Africa, complete with a sturdy, familiar, outdoors kit. This struck him as very strange, suddenly, but why not? What is a body but a suit of clothes, another layer of the mind’s adornment? And his body seemed to have made the trip. Or the translation, or whatever you called it. No pack. PoTolo had told him he couldn’t carry a pack.
PoTolo!
The name rang like a bell, reminding him just what had happened. What an extraordinary feat! He took a few steps, in one direction, then another: keeping himself oriented on the drop zone. Pity he didn’t have a ballpark figure for the “interval.” Ten minutes or ten hours? How far was it safe to stray? Grey-green boles crowded him, the hulk of a dead giant or two lurking, back in the ranks. He suddenly wondered if he was dreaming. Yes, probably he was. The PoTolo narrative, the apparatus, the act of standing in that gate, feeling absurd in his wilderness kit, folded up like a telescope, became implausible as a dream. Only the twilit jungle remained concrete, but how did he get here?
He heard nothing. He simply became aware of a rush of small, purposeful movement, closing in. The creatures were highly camouflaged, about the size of ground squirrels: long, flexible snouts, shaggy, apparently limbless bodies. Their swift appearance seemed uncanny, the dream turned to nightmare, but of course they had smelt his blood. He fled, grabbing at appropriate defense, spun around and pepper-sprayed them. Which did the trick. Hell, they weren’t armor-plated, and they liked the taste of their own kind, a useful trait in aggressive vermin. Inevitably the drop zone was now out of sight, but before he could think about that, a new player arrived. Shaggy four-legged things: bigger than the first guys and smart, organized pack-hunters. He ran, but they had him outflanked. Forced to climb, he shot up the first three or four meters of his chosen refuge in seconds, and went on climbing, easy work, to a knot of boughs high above the ground. There he perched, assembling his pellet gun, thrumming with adrenaline and almost laughing out loud.
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