Before The Golden Age - A SF Anthology of the 1930s

by Edited By Isaac Asimov

  In the few moments that Ham had paused to look back, ropy creepers had already entangled his legs; transkin was impervious, of course, but he had to cut the things away with his knife, and the black, nauseating juices that flowed out of them smeared on his suit and began instantly to grow furry as the molds sprouted. He shuddered.

  “Hell of a place!” Ham growled, stooping to remove his mudshoes, which he slung carefully over his back.

  He slogged away through the writhing vegetation, automatically dodging the awkward thrusts of the Jack Ketch trees as they cast their nooses hopefully toward his arms and head.

  Now and again he passed one that dangled some trapped creature, usually unrecognizable because the molds had enveloped it in a fuzzy shroud, while the tree itself was placidly absorbing victim and molds alike.

  “Horrible place!” Ham muttered, kicked a writhing mass of nameless little vermin from his path.

  He mused; his shack had been situated rather nearer the hot edge of the twilight zone; it was a trifle over two hundred and fifty miles to the shadow line, though of course that varied with the libration. But one couldn’t approach the line too closely, anyway, because of the fierce, almost inconceivable, storms that raged where the hot upper winds encountered the icy blasts of the night side, giving rise to the birth throes of the ice barrier.

  So a hundred and fifty miles due west would be sufficient to bring coolness, to enter a region too temperate for the molds, where he could walk in comparative comfort. And then, not more than fifty miles north, lay the American settlement Erotia, named, obviously, after that troublesome mythical son of Venus, Cupid.

  Intervening, of course, were the ranges of the Mountains of Eternity, not those mighty twenty-mile-high peaks whose summits are occasionally glimpsed by Earthly telescopes, and that forever sunder British Venus from the American possessions, but, even at the point he planned to cross, very respectable mountains indeed. He was on the British side now; not that any one cared. Traders came and went as they pleased.

  Well, that meant about two hundred miles. No reason why he couldn’t make it; he was armed with both automatic and flame-pistol, and water was no problem, if carefully boiled. Under pressure of necessity, one could even eat Venusian life—but it required hunger and thorough cooking and a sturdy stomach.

  It wasn’t the taste so much as the appearance, or so he’d been told. He grimaced; beyond doubt he’d be driven to find out for himself, since his canned food couldn’t possibly last out the trip. Nothing to worry about, Ham kept telling himself. In fact, plenty to be glad about; the xixtchil pods in his pack represented as much wealth as he could have accumulated by ten years of toil back on Earth.

  No danger—and yet, men had vanished on Venus, dozens of them. The molds had claimed them, or some fierce unearthly monster, or perhaps one of the many unknown living horrors, both plant and animal.

  Ham trudged along, keeping always to the clearings about the Jack Ketch trees, since these vegetable omnivores kept other life beyond the reach of their greedy nooses. Elsewhere progress was impossible, for the Venusian jungle presented such a terrific tangle of writhing and struggling forms that one could move only by cutting the way, step by step, with infinite labor.

  Even then there was the danger of Heaven only knew what fanged and venomous creatures whose teeth might pierce the protective membrane of transkin, and a crack in that meant death. Even the unpleasant Jack Ketch trees were preferable company, he reflected, as he slapped their questing lariats aside.

  Six hours after Ham had started his involuntary journey, it rained. He seized the opportunity, found a place where a recent mudspout had cleared the heavier vegetation away, and prepared to eat. First, however, he scooped up some scummy water, filtered it through the screen attached for that purpose to his canteen, and set about sterilizing it.

  Fire was difficult to manage, since dry fuel is rare indeed in the Hotlands of Venus, but Ham tossed a thermide tablet into the liquid, and the chemicals boiled the water instantly, escaping themselves as gases. If the water retained a slight ammoniacal taste—well, that was the least of his discomforts, he mused, as he covered it and set it by to cool.

  He uncapped a can of beans, watched a moment to see that no stray molds had remained in the air to infect the food, then opened the visor of his suit and swallowed hastily. Thereafter he drank the blood-warm water and poured carefully what remained into the water pouch within his transkin, where he could suck it through a tube to his mouth without the deadly exposure to the molds.

  Ten minutes after he had completed the meal, while he rested and longed for the impossible luxury of a cigarette, the fuzzy coat sprang suddenly to life on the remnants of food in the can.

  * * * *

  II.

  An hour later, weary and thoroughly soaked in perspiration, Ham found a Friendly tree, so named by the explorer Burlingame because it is one of the few organisms on Venus sluggish enough to permit one to rest in its branches. So Ham climbed it, found the most comfortable position available, and slept as best he could.

  It was five hours by his wrist watch before he awoke, and the tendrils and little sucking cups of the Friendly tree were fastened all over his transkin. He tore them away very carefully, climbed down, and trudged westward.

  It was after the second rain that he met the doughpot, as the creature is called in British and American Venus. In the French strip, it’s the pot à colle, the “paste pot”; in the Dutch—well, the Dutch are not prudish, and they call the horror just what they think it warrants.

  Actually, the doughpot is a nauseous creature. It’s a mass of white, dough-like protoplasm, ranging in size from a single cell to perhaps twenty tons of mushy filth. It has no fixed form; in fact, it’s merely a mass of de Proust cells—in effect, a disembodied, crawling, hungry cancer.

  It has no organization and no intelligence, nor even any instinct save hunger. It moves in whatever direction food touches its surfaces; when it touches two edible substances, it quietly divides, with the larger portion invariably attacking the greater supply.

  It’s invulnerable to bullets; nothing less than the terrific blast of a flame-pistol will kill it, and then only if the blast destroys every individual cell. It travels over the ground absorbing everything, leaving bare black soil where the ubiquitous molds spring up at once—a noisome, nightmarish creature.

  Ham sprang aside as the doughpot erupted suddenly from the jungle to his right. It couldn’t absorb the transkin, of course, but to be caught in that pasty mess meant quick suffocation. He glared at it disgustedly and was sorely tempted to blast it with his flame-pistol as it slithered past at running speed. He would have, too, but the experienced Venusian frontiersman is very careful with the flame-pistol.

  It has to be charged with a diamond, a cheap black one, of course, but still an item to consider. The crystal, when fired, gives up all its energy in one terrific blast that roars out like a lightning stroke for a hundred yards, incinerating everything in its path.

  The thing rolled by with a sucking and gulping sound. Behind it opened the passage it had cleared; creepers, snake vines, Jack Ketch trees—everything had been swept away down to the humid earth itself, where already the molds were springing up on the slime of the doughpot’s trail.

  The alley led nearly in the direction Ham wanted to travel; he seized the opportunity and strode briskly along, with a wary eye, nevertheless, on the ominous walls of jungle. In ten hours or so the opening would be filled once more with unpleasant life, but for the present it offered a much quicker progress than dodging from one clearing to the next.

  It was five miles up the trail, which was already beginning to sprout inconveniently, that he met the native galloping along on his four short legs, his pincerlike hands shearing a path for him. Ham stopped for a palaver.

  “Murra,” he said.

  The language of the natives of the equatorial regions of the Hotlands is a queer one. It has, perhaps, two hundred words, but when a trader has
learned those two hundred, his knowledge of the tongue is but little greater than the man who knows none at all.

  The words are generalized, and each sound has anywhere from a dozen to a hundred meanings. Murra, for instance, is a word of greeting; it may mean something much like “hello,” or “good morning.” It also may convey a challenge—”on guard!” It means besides, “Let’s be friends,” and also, strangely, “Let’s fight this out.”

  It has, morever, certain noun senses; it means peace, it means war, it means courage, and, again, fear. A subtle language; it is only recently that studies of inflection have begun to reveal its nature to human philologists. Yet, after all, perhaps English, with its “to,” “too,” and “two,” its “one,” “won,” “wan,” “wen,” “win,” “when,” and a dozen other similarities, might seem just as strange to Venusian ears, untrained in vowel distinctions.

  Moreover, humans can’t read the expressions of the broad, flat, three-eyed Venusian faces, which in the nature of things must convey a world of information among the natives themselves.

  But this one accepted the intended sense. “Murra,” he responded, pausing. “Usk?” That was, among other things, “Who are you?” or “Where did you come from?” or “Where are you bound?”

  Ham chose the latter sense. He pointed off into the dim west, then raised his hand in an arc to indicate the mountains. “Erotia,” he said. That had but one meaning, at least.

  The native considered this in silence. At last he grunted and volunteered some information. He swept his cutting claw in a gesture west along the trail. “Curky,” he said, and then, “Murra.” The last was farewell; Ham pressed against the wriggling jungle wall to permit him to pass.

  Curky meant, together with twenty other senses, trader. It was the word usually applied to humans, and Ham felt a pleasant anticipation in the prospect of human company. It had been six months since he had heard a human voice other than that on the tiny radio now sunk with his shack.

  * * * *

  True enough, five miles along the doughpot’s trail Ham emerged suddenly in an area where there had been a recent mudspout. The vegetation was only waist-high, and across the quarter-mile clearing he saw a structure, a trading hut. But far more pretentious than his own iron-walled cubicle; this one boasted three rooms, an unheard-of luxury in the Hotlands, where every ounce had to be laboriously transported by rocket from one of the settlements. That was expensive, almost prohibitive. Traders took a real gamble, and Ham knew he was lucky to have come out so profitably.

  He strode over the still spongy ground. The windows were shaded against the eternal daylight, and the door—the door was locked. This was a violation of the frontier code. One always left doors unlocked; it might mean the salvation of some strayed trader, and not even the most dishonorable would steal from a hut left open for his safety.

  Nor would the natives; no creature is as honest as a Venusian native, who never lies and never steals, though he might, after due warning, kill a trader for his trade goods. But only after a fair warning.

  Ham stood puzzled. At last he kicked and tramped a clear space before the door, sat down against it, and fell to snapping away the numerous and loathsome little creatures that swarmed over his transkin. He waited.

  It wasn’t half an hour before he saw the trader plowing through the clearing—a short, slim fellow; the transkin shaded his face, but Ham could make out large, shadowed eyes. He stood up.

  “Hello!” he said jovially. “Thought I’d drop in for a visit. My name’s Hamilton Hammond—you guess the nickname!”

  The newcomer stopped short, then spoke in a curiously soft and husky voice, with a decidedly English accent. “My guess would be ‘Boiled Pork,’ I fancy.” The tones were cold, unfriendly. “Suppose you step aside and let me in. Good day!”

  Ham felt anger and amazement. “The devil!” he snapped. “You’re a hospitable sort, aren’t you?”

  “No. Not at all.” The other paused at the door. “You’re an American. What are you doing on British soil? Have you a passport?”

  “Since when do you need a passport in the Hotlands?”

  “Trading, aren’t you?” the slim man said sharply. “In other words, poaching. You’ve no rights here. Get on.”

  Ham’s jaw set stubbornly behind his mask. “Rights or none,” he said, “I’m entitled to the consideration of the frontier code. I want a breath of air and a chance to wipe my face, and also a chance to eat. If you open that door I’m coming in after you.”

  An automatic flashed into view. “Do, and you’ll feed the molds.”

  Ham, like all Venusian traders, was of necessity bold, resourceful, and what is called in the States “hard-boiled.” He didn’t flinch, but said in apparent yielding:

  “All right; but listen, all I want is a chance to eat.”

  “Wait for a rain,” said the other coolly and half turned to unlock the door.

  As his eyes shifted, Ham kicked at the revolver; it went spinning against the wall and dropped into the weeds. His opponent snatched for the flame-pistol that still dangled on his hip; Ham caught his wrist in a mighty clutch.

  Instantly the other ceased to struggle, while Ham felt a momentary surprise at the skinny feel of the wrist through its transkin covering.

  “Look here!” he growled. “I want a chance to eat, and I’m going to get it. Unlock that door!”

  He had both wrists now; the fellow seemed curiously delicate. After a moment he nodded, and Ham released one hand. The door opened, and he followed the other in.

  * * * *

  Again, unheard-of magnificence. Solid chairs, a sturdy table, even books, carefully preserved, no doubt, by lycopodium against the ravenous molds that sometimes entered Hotland shacks in spite of screen filters and automatic spray. An automatic spray was going now to destroy any spores that might have entered with the opening door.

  Ham sat down, keeping an eye on the other, whose flame-pistol he had permitted to remain in its holster. He was confident of his ability to outdraw the slim individual, and, besides, who’d risk firing a flame-pistol indoors? It would simply blow out one wall of the building.

  So he set about opening his mask, removing food from his pack, wiping his steaming face, while his companion—or opponent—looked on silently. Ham watched the canned meat for a moment; no molds appeared, and he ate.

  “Why the devil,” he rasped, “don’t you open your visor?” At the other’s silence, he continued: “Afraid I’ll see your face, eh? Well, I’m not interested; I’m no cop.”

  No reply.

  He tried again. “What’s your name?”

  The cool voice sounded: “Burlingame. Pat Burlingame.”

  Ham laughed. “Patrick Burlingame is dead, my friend. I knew him.” No answer. “And if you don’t want to tell your name, at least you needn’t insult the memory of a brave man and a great explorer.”

  “Thank you.” The voice was sardonic. “He was my father.”

  “Another lie. He had no son. He had only a——” Ham paused abruptly; a feeling of consternation swept over him. “Open your visor!” he yelled.

  He saw the lips of the other, dim through the transkin, twitch into a sarcastic smile.

  “Why not?” said the soft voice, and the mask dropped.

  Ham gulped; behind the covering were the delicately modeled features of a girl, with cool gray eyes in a face lovely despite the glistening perspiration on cheeks and forehead.

  The man gulped again. After all, he was a gentleman despite his profession as one of the fierce, adventurous traders of Venus. He was university-educated—an engineer—and only the lure of quick wealth had brought him to the Hotlands.

  “I—I’m sorry,” he stammered.

  “You brave American poachers!” she sneered. “Are all of you so valiant as to force yourselves on women?”

  “But—how could I know? What are you doing in a place like this?”

  “There’s no reason for me to answer your questions, but”�
�she gestured toward the room beyond—”I’m classifying Hotland flora and fauna. I’m Patricia Burlingame, biologist.”

  He perceived now the jar-enclosed specimens of a laboratory in the next chamber. “But a girl alone in the Hotlands! It’s—it’s reckless!”

  “I didn’t expect to meet any American poachers,” she retorted.

  He flushed. “You needn’t worry about me. I’m going.” He raised his hands to his visor.

  Instantly Patricia snatched an automatic from the table drawer. “You’re going, indeed, Mr. Hamilton Hammond,” she said coolly. “But you’re leaving your xixtchil with me. It’s crown property; you’ve stolen it from British territory, and I’m confiscating it.”

  He stared. “Look here!” he blazed suddenly. “I’ve risked all I have for that xixtchil. If I lose it I’m ruined—busted. I’m not giving it up!”