Trapped on Venus (15 page)

“I wish it was that easy, John,” Scott said with the sound of
reservation in his voice.

 
But both the men had
started off toward the ship again. It was uneven terrain, made more difficult
by the heavy atmospheric pressure and the persistent haze of sulphuric acid
clouds in the air, but they were determined to get back to the ship. They were
exhausted from the strain of all that had happened to them and the astonishing
experience of all these new discoveries. But there was also a brimming pride
that their work here would mean changes in how Venus was perceived and even how
life in the universe would now be projected.

 
“There it is, Marty!”
Scott said triumphantly when he could make out their craft, still at a slight
distance ahead, sitting on an inclined angle, but looking fully capable of
lifting off from the planet.

 
“I see it!” Marty
acknowledged. And there was a happy, relieved tone in his voice.

 
Stimson was also
relieved to hear that they were so close to the ship. “Keep going, you guys.
We’ll get you up and out of here as soon as we can. Then you can rest.”

 
“What I want to do is
eat, Stimson,” Marty said with both a hint of jest and hunger in his voice. “I
hope Grayson has got a three pound steak up there for me!”

 
“Well, we’ll make sure
we’ve got one for you when you get back to Earth if he hasn’t, Marty,” Stimson
assured him. “We might even have a nice slice of pie for you, too.”

 
There was an uplifting
feeling in the steps of the astronauts as they shuffled their way across the
surface of the planet, but they didn’t realize that the toughest part of their
journey might still be ahead of them.

 
Only about ten or
twelve meters from the ship, Scott stopped his forward movement and pointed to
the ship. “Look at the ship, Marty. Do you see those things on the ladder?”

 
“What is it, Scott?”
Stimson asked.

 
“They’re on the ladder
of the ship,” he said in a calm monotone.

 
“What’s on the
ladder?” Stimson continued.

 
“Those creatures...
the stingray creatures. They’re on the ladder and they’re all over the ship.”

 
“What do you mean?”
Stimson asked more urgently.

 
“John, they’re all
over the ship,” Scott replied, slightly irritated. “They’re like ants clustered
on a piece of candy!”

 
“You mean, you can’t
get in the ship?” Stimson asked in astonishment.

 
“That’s right, John.
That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. They’re crawling all over the ship.”

 
As Scott and Marty
looked at the ship, there must have been 15 or 20 of the creatures moving
around on the outside of the ship. Three of the creatures sat poised on the
rungs of the ladder.

 
“What do you think,
Marty?” Scott asked. “Are they dangerous or just curious?”

 
“I don’t know. I saw
them in action when they were attacking those creatures in the pools, and I
thought they were pretty vicious. But, seeing them like this, they look like chickens
in a chicken coop.”

 
“Do you think we could
just shoo them away?” Scott wondered out loud.

 
“You mean like rush
them and wave our extractor rods at them?” Marty asked skeptically.

 
“Yeah, I guess
something like that,” Scott answered.

 
“Well, we’d better do
something pretty quick, Scott,” Marty advised him, “because I’ve only got about
six minutes of oxygen left.”

 
The thought of getting
back inside the ship took on a more urgent importance as they considered the
limitations of their oxygen.

 
Stimson interrupted
their thoughts of a mad dash at the creatures. “Wait a minute! What about
banging on the tool box... or even the ship? You know what it did last time.
Maybe it will scare them away.”

 
“Hey, it’s worth a
try,” Marty agreed. He took the sample case off the tool box and set it on the
soil to his side, then opened the tool box and took out his hammer. “Here goes
nothing,” Marty advised them, and he took a firm swing at the metal hasp of the
tool box.

 
Clunk! reverberated
the sound of the hammer as it struck the box. It wasn’t a crisp, metal on metal
sound, so he swung several more times until he finally got that higher pitched
clinking sound: CLINK! CLINK!

 
That was all it took.
As soon as the creatures heard that sound, they flew from the ship like pigeons
from a courtyard! But the astronauts were in too big a hurry to analyze what
had just happened.

 
Several of the
creatures flew past Scott and Marty as they fled from the ship. Marty had to
even suddenly dodge to the left to avoid one of them running into him, but his
reflexes were quick enough. He looked at the oxygen indicator on his wrist.

 
“Three and a half
minutes, Scott,” he reported. Scott knew what Marty was talking about. “Quick!
Get to the ladder and get inside the ship,” he instructed. “I’ll take care of
the samples and follow you.”

 
Marty stepped
carefully around the side of the landing module, looking it over cautiously to
make sure none of the creatures were still there, but saw nothing to give him
concern. Even the leg of the lander that had partially sunk into the crust when
they landed, seemed not to have moved anymore.
 
“I’m going up, Scott,” Marty reported as
he placed a foot on the eight foot ladder that led into the craft.

 
“Roger that,” Scott
acknowledged. “I’m going to grab the sample case and secure it in the utility
cabinet.” But it was six or seven feet away from him, where Marty had been
standing, and just as he turned to retrieve it, the ground split and began to
splinter underneath it, leaving the case barely teetering on the edges of the
crack. As the hole widened and liquid rose to fill the open space, the case
floated on top of it.

 
Scott reacted
instantly, grabbing the extractor rod from the clamps on the leg of his suit
and hooked it through the handle of the sample case then pulled it from off the
liquid as the pool began to expand.

 
Not even saying a
word, because things were happening so quickly, Scott dragged the case and the
tools to the utility cabinet, opened it, and lifted each case inside as quickly
as he could. He closed the cabinet door, secured the hatch, then moved to the
ladder of the ship. He looked up to see that Marty was just entering the hatch.

 
Good,
he thought because now he knew that
Marty was safe. Then up the ladder he proceeded. When Scott got to the top
step, he turned for just a moment to look at the terrain around them. He
couldn’t see too far because of the thick atmosphere all around them, but some
of the moments they had experienced flashed through his thoughts. Then he stepped
inside and closed the hatch door behind him.

 
“We’re inside the
ship, Earth Control,” Scott reported. “Marty’s hooked up to the ship’s oxygen
and we’re pressurizing the interior.

 
“Great job, you guys!”
Stimson congratulated them. “And, do you have the samples?”

 
“Affirmative, John.
Locked in the utility cabinet,” Scott reported.

 
There was a loud
“Wahoo!” which came from some of the scientists at Earth Control One as they
were ecstatic about what the astronauts had been able to collect.

 
“You can probably hear
how excited some of the team is about that,” Stimson confirmed. “Now, we’ve
just got to get you guys back here.”

 
“Roger, that,” Scott
said as he sat in the chair at his console. When the green light came on that
indicated the oxygen and pressure levels inside the cabin of the module had
reached the correct settings, both Scott and Marty were able to take off the
helmets that they had been wearing for more than ten hours.

 
“That was a tough
mission,” Scott remarked to Marty with a sense of relief.

 
“But, it’s not over
yet,” Stimson reminded them. “We’ve still got to hook you up with Grayson and,
according to our calculations, that would be in about 22 minutes.”

 
“Twenty-two minutes!”
Marty responded. “Stimson, I’m dead tired. Have him go around the planet a
couple more times and we’ll hook up with him then.”

 
“I wish we could wait,
Marty, but the oxygen in your ship will only hold out for another hour or so.
You seem to forget that we’ve gotten two missions out of this mission instead
of the one that we planned for.”

 
“No, I’m aware of it,
Stimson,” Marty moaned. “Maybe you don’t remember, but Scott and I were the
guys out there on the planet – for both missions! And, we’re tired!”

 
“Tired, yes. But we’ve
got to get you to a place where you can rest. And, right now, Grayson’s the guy
that can do that.” Stimson went on: “See if you can warm up the engines, Scott.
It will take a few minutes to check everything out.”

 
“Roger,” Scott
replied. He reached a tired hand over to the ignition warm up switch and
flipped it. The red caution light went on, and the warm up system began to
function. “Let’s go through the system checks, Marty,” Scott said to his
equally tired partner. “Twenty-two minutes isn’t much time.”

 
“It’s twenty-one
minutes now, gentlemen,” Stimson alerted them.

 
Scott opened the radio
channel with Grayson’s ship which was circling the planet overhead. “Grayson?
Grayson? Venus Orbiter?” he said, trying to open communications. “Do you read
me?”

 
Stimson intervened.
“He’s on the other side of the planet right now, Scott. He should be in
communication range in another eight or ten minutes.”

 
“Roger, Earth
Control,” Scott acknowledged then he and Marty continued their procedures for
blast off.

 
After about six
minutes of checks and confirmations, Scott noticed that the interior of the
ship’s cabin got darker. The interior lights were still on, but something was
covering the outside windows.

 
“Marty?” he called
out. “Are they back?”

 
Marty looked at the
small, porthole style windows on both sides of the ship, but they were dark.
Something was obviously covering them.

 
“It’s either them, or
we’ve got something new to worry about,” Marty remarked.

 
“You mean those
creatures are back?” Stimson asked. “How can you tell?”
 
“Well, there’s something cov... ‘ring
both win... dows, Stim....son.” There were some slight skips in the
transmission.

 
“Can you... con...firm
it, Scott?” But the signal was breaking up.

 
“Ear...th Con...trol
One,” Scott repeated as the static grew and the transmission was garbled. Scott
turned to Marty. “I think those creatures are blocking our signal, Marty. Maybe
that or their bodies are insulators for radio waves.”

 
Scott tried again to
reach Earth Control One, he even tried to reach Grayson: “Commander Grayson,
can you read me?” But all was silent.

 
“Marty, we’ve got to
do something,” he said urgently. As he looked at the digital countdown for
blast off, it read eight minutes, thirty-two seconds. “Can we scare them off
again?” Scott wondered out loud.

 
“How can we make a
loud sound out there?” Marty asked, as much to himself as to Scott.

 
“Maybe we could pound
on the inside. It might transmit to the outside.”

 
“I’m not sure about
that, Marty,” Scott cautioned. “What if we broke a seal or split something?
Let’s not take a chance like that.”

 
There was static over
the radio, but nothing the astronauts could understand. Scott tried again:
“Earth Control One... Earth Control One... Commander Grayson? Can you hear me?”
But, there was no answer.

 
The dial on the
countdown indicator turned to five minutes nineteen seconds and kept going.

 
“What if we started
the engines, Scott?” Marty asked. “Maybe all the noise and flames and things
would scare them.”

 
“That isn’t a bad
idea, Marty,” Scott agreed. “And if it doesn’t work, maybe we should just blast
off. I’m sure they can’t hang on with all that force.”

 
“But we can’t miss
Grayson,” Marty reminded him. “If we miss this hook up, we may not be around
for another chance.”

 
“Well, let’s see what
happens,” Scott said as he waited for the engine ignition light to turn green.
“Three minutes twenty-one seconds to launch. I’m just going to turn the
preliminary boosters on, Marty. Let’s see if that scares them.”

 
Scott pulled a lever back
that brought the engines into a roar and rattle stage; the engines roared while
the ship began to vibrate. Giving it a little more throttle, the spray of flame
from under the ship reflected off the surface of Venus and looked like a spray
of sparks. Almost instantly the creatures flew from the outside of the craft.

 
“I think they’re
gone!” Marty yelled as he noticed the porthole windows become clear again.
“Ease it back, Scott! We don’t want to launch it yet!”

 
“Venus Twelve! Venus
Twelve, do you read me?” came Stimson’s voice over the radio as clear as a
bell.

 
“Yes, John,” Scott
answered. “We hear you. But we’re in takeoff mode. The rockets are running at
ten percent power.”

 
“No! No! Not yet...
you’re too early. You’ll miss Grayson,” came the immediate replay from John
Stimson at Earth Control One. Scott glanced at the countdown indicator: two
minutes twelve seconds.

 
“Scott,” Marty called
out as he looked outside the window. “Scott, I don’t think the ground can take
all this heat. It’s bound to start cracking.”

 
“Stimson, we’ve got to
go!” Scott decided quickly. He revved the engines a little more and they
responded by blasting chunks of crust from beneath them. The craft wasn’t
really launched yet but it was hovering above the Venusian ground and building
up a tremendous thrust. Another movement backward on the throttle and the craft
started to rise. Scott pulled the throttle all the way back and they were
launched upward with a powerful thrust that pinned the astronauts in their
chairs.