Trapped on Venus (6 page)

 
“Hold it, Scott! Stop!
Stop!” He stopped, and Marty breathed a sigh of relief. “Let’s not take any
unnecessary chances. Let’s toss them something instead. We don’t have to get
killed to find out if they’re hostile. Try throwing them your extractor. If
they react, then we’ll know their intentions. But, if one of us goes, Scott,
the other one will be next. Be careful. It takes two men to fly that ship. I
don’t want to try it alone.”

 
“Roger,” Scott
answered. He knew Marty was right.

 
Scott removed the
extractor from the belt of his suit and swung it several times like a pendulum
before releasing it. With a full extension of his arm, he tossed it into the
middle pool, watching it tumble through the air, end over end. The looming
creature in the center ravenously smothered it as if recovering a loose fumble,
then slowly oozed to its normal size. That was the last they saw of the
extractor.

 
“What now, Scott?”
There was depression in Marty’s voice. He glanced down at his oxygen indicator.
“We’ve only got twelve and a half minutes left. We can’t wait. We’ve got to get
back to the ship!”

 
“I know, Marty. I
know...”

 
Scott was aware of the
time. He knew how urgent it was that they return to the ship, but he was also
overwhelmed by the idea of making contact with the creatures. If only they
could establish contact, communicate in some way, make them understand that
they were friendly, that they didn’t want to harm them, it would be the most
dramatic event in the history of mankind.
Think of it – actually
communicating with another, completely different form of life! But, how? How
could they get through to them? They didn’t know if the creatures were friendly
or hostile, if they were even intelligent! Perhaps this was some form of
natural quagmire, something like quicksand on Earth, just a lifeless pit of
sludge spelling doom for anyone trapped in it. Or, the creatures could be
mindless, unthinking, insatiable sponges, feeling no more than the pangs of
their stomachs, seeking no more than growth and nourishment.

 
If only they knew what
was going on in those pools. If they could just understand how, and if, the
creatures communicated. But, Venus was so much different from Earth, so alien
and unpredictable. After millions of years of evolution, humans were finally
beginning to understand the workings of their own planet – its uses and dangers
– and now, were these two astronauts expected to fathom the mysteries of yet
another world in the scope of twelve minutes... or perish?

 
But, this was so
strange, so infinitely different from Earth, that Scott felt fatigue and
frustration at the same time. There was so much he didn’t know, so much still
to learn. Earth wasn’t the only way things could be arranged. There had to be
as many varieties of life in the universe as there were stars in the sky, or
grains of sand on the beach – so many different ways to organize things, to
harmonize, to arrange and rearrange them – yet, there was so little time to
understand even these creatures.

 
What can we do?
Scott thought.
We have to get
back to the ship. But, should we fight them, try to battle our way back? They
may be even more intelligent than we are and retaliate if we attack. But, if
they don’t let us pass, we’ll suffocate out here!

 
Scott looked over at
Marty, seeing him still intently focused on the pools. Both knew that they had
to find an answer and find it fast!

 
“What do you suppose
made them surface in the first place, Marty? Do you think

they were curious, or... hungry? Or maybe both?” Scott was
looking for a clue, some thread that might unravel the entire mystery. He was
trying to remain calm but felt the weight of time pressing ever greater on him.
They had to find an answer!

 
“I don’t know, Scott.
I don’t know. What difference does it make, anyway? We’ve got to get out of
here. We haven’t got time to...”

 
“Marty!” Scott yelled.
Marty was startled by the force of Scott’s voice and broke off in mid-sentence.
“Marty, listen to me! That’s the only way we’re going to get out of here – to
use our heads, to figure out what they are or why they’re here. I’m not playing
a quiz game – we’ve got to know! Think! Don’t just stand there – think! Why are
they here? What do they want? Anything – spill it. Anything you’ve seen, you’ve
noticed...”

 
Marty turned back to
look at the creatures, staring, thinking. “It’s impossible, Scott. There’s no
sense to it, no reason. It’s useless. They must be intelligent, but... how?
What? What does it mean? What good is it up here?”

 
Marty continued to
watch them slowly undulate in the pools, watching closely, thinking, looking
for a clue, an indication of some kind.

 
“I’m sure they’re
intelligent, Scott. At least they must be able to communicate with each other. Look
at them – how they seem to sense each other, how they change colors all the
time. It... it’s like they’re talking, like they’re alive. I think they’re
intelligent, Scott, I really do. And, I’ll bet we can communicate with them if
we try. But, how?”

 
“Colors! Maybe colors
will do it,” Scott suggested. “The way they’re always changing colors, maybe
that’s how they communicate. It’s worth a try, anyway. They seem to...”

 
“But how, Scott? We
don’t have anything out here to make colors with. Besides, what colors? How? We
can’t just...”

 
“Well think, Marty!
Think! There must be something. We don’t have much time left... How about
shapes, or size, or... or... shade? That’s it – shade! If we can use our
shadows, get them to block out the Sun, maybe we can get them to understand
that we don’t want to harm them. Or, maybe it’ll frighten them off and they’ll
leave us alone.”

 
Marty’s eyes skipped
across the surface. “We can’t Scott. The Sun’s almost directly overhead. We’d
have to get above them to do that.”

 
“What about an awning,
or sunshade of some kind? If we could only... The sample bags!” Scott thought
aloud, suddenly. “Marty, we could use the sample bags!”

 
“It would never work,
Scott. We couldn’t get close enough to them to do any good. You saw how they
reacted when we tried it before.”

 
“There’s got to be a
way. We can’t just give up without trying!”

 
They were both aware
of that one, cold, unwavering fact – they had to find a way to

get back to the ship. The bulbous lumps of gelatin continued
to throb in the pools, looming ominously like great quagmires of sludge as they
blocked all hope of escape. Marty and Scott were without ideas, without
comprehension of these mysterious creatures, yet felt the breathless tick of
each second as it swept by.

 
Scott looked out at
the three creatures again, then glanced down at his watch – nine and a half
minutes left....

 
“What about sound,
Marty? Maybe they communicate by sound – some kind of ultrasonic vibrations,
something they don’t need vocal chords for.”

 
“But, the atmosphere
isn’t dense enough to transmit sound, Scott. I’ve checked it out. There isn’t
any....”

 
“The ground! What
about the ground? Vibrations travel through anything solid. Maybe we can get
through to them by stomping on the surface. It might scare them off or at least
make them move! Let’s try it, Marty. Let’s try it! We’ve got nothing to lose.”

 
The astronauts pounded
their feet as vigorously as they could on the dusty crust, watching to see if
there was any response from the creatures – a sudden change of color, a pause
in their rhythm, even a stray ripple through the pool. But, nothing changed.
The creatures remained as unresponsive, as ever-impending, as before.

 
“We’ve got a little
less than eight minutes left, Scott,” Marty said, a painful tinge of fear in
his voice. “Maybe we should just make a run for it.”

 
The idea had
possibilities. Scott knew that it would be difficult to move with any speed or
precision over the bleak, powdery terrain in their space suits, but time for
caution was rapidly disappearing.

 
“All right,” he
agreed. “Let’s try it. You go to the right, and I’ll take off to the left.
Maybe we can confuse them enough to get by.”

 
“Roger,” was Marty’s
tentative reply.

 
In no longer than it
took to agree upon the plan of action, Scott and Marty were off in opposite
directions. Their movements were sluggish, cumbersome in the bulky suits, but
the pressing danger of rapidly diminishing oxygen levels spurred them to a
swiftness they had never before realized. They scuffed through the soil in
determined strides, bucking forward in short hops that splayed the dusty
Venusian crust like the wake of a boat plowing through the water. Their
breathing increased. Grunts and gasps echoed through their helmets in a
pugilistic battle for more oxygen. They labored forward – hurrying.

 
But, as they
approached the perimeter of the pools, the creatures darkened even more until
they became almost black in color. The tempo of their undulations increased and
the masses of jelly-like sludge puffed even larger in size. Then, the ground in
front of both astronauts cracked sharply, splitting as if an earthquake had
trembled beneath, leaving gaping holes in the crust. Again they were blocked
from advancing.

 
“It’s no use, Scott!”
Marty cried out, almost hysterical. “We’ve had it! They’re not going to let us
get by!”

 
Scott knew what the
tone in Marty’s voice indicated as he felt the same tremor of panic explode
inside himself: they were trapped. Still, he fought for self-control.

 
“We can’t give up yet,
Marty. We just can’t! There’s still time left. We’ve got time.” He glanced down
at his oxygen level, seeing that the needle had slipped into the red zone, the
area designating less than five minutes of oxygen left. “We have to communicate
with them, we just have to! We’ve got to make them understand that we can’t
survive out here without oxygen! Think, Marty! Think!”

 
The creatures remained
throbbing in the pools, almost defiantly challenging their escape.
What is
it they want?
Scott thought.
Why are they keeping us here? What will
happen to us now?
Marty thought.
What will they do to us?

 
The questions seemed
to come faster than the answers. Their path was blocked, and all advances were
thwarted by the primitive beings in front of them. They were trapped, stranded,
cut off from their one means of survival – the ship.
Are they holding us
captive to study us, or kill us?
Marty asked himself.
Do they know the
consequences, to us, of what they’re doing?
Scott thought.
Are they even
intelligent enough to know? If they know what they’re doing, this could be
murder!

 
Scott looked down at
the creatures again. He watched the massive glob in the center undulate in that
slow, torturous rhythm that was now so familiar to him; pulsing, throbbing,
growing outward and in with each passing second. He watched the creature change
color, its hues going from a light gray to an almost deep and violent black. He
watched the roll, the constant metamorphosis from one shape and size to
another, the tempo, unwavering as it oozed forward then back; and he watched
the gelatinous layers of the pool grow thicker then thin, seeming almost to
harden at times from the intense heat of the Sun.
These things all mean
something, Scott thought to himself. They’re clues, answers. All the explanations
are right there. But, what? What does it all mean?

 
Marty interrupted his
thoughts.

 
“How much time have
you got left, Scott?” There was a dismal, sad, defeated tone to his words. It
was as if he had given up.

 
“About four minutes,”
Scott answered, hastily.

 
Marty’s own oxygen
level had dipped to three and a half minutes. Apparently, because of his now
excited pulse rate, he was consuming oxygen at a much faster pace than Scott.
He was rapidly running out of the precious substance.

 
“Scott, do something!
We’ve got to get back to the ship!”

 
“Calm down, Marty.
Calm down! The more excited we get, the more oxy...”

 
“I don’t care, Scott!
I don’t care anymore! We’ve got to get out of here! I don’t want to die here! I
don’t want to die without even having a chance to fight back. Do something!
We’ve got to do something!”

 
“Snap out of it!”
Scott snarled. “Snap out of it, Marty! Don’t give up. There’s a way out of
this, I know there is! We’ve just got to use our heads. We’re overlooking
something because we aren’t trying hard enough, aren’t looking at the right
things. We’ve just got to...” He paused, struck by an idea. “Marty... Marty! I
think I’ve got it!”

 
Marty froze. The
conviction in Scott’s voice stirred hope in him. He turned.

 
“It’s got to work,
Marty. It’s just got to... We’ll use fire!” He was already reaching behind him
as he spoke. “We know things will burn out here because of what happened in the
ship. So, all we have to do is use it. I think we can scare them off with it!”

 
“But, how?” Marty
stammered. “How are we going to start a fire out here? We haven’t got time! We
haven’t got anything to burn, nothing to use!”

 
“With this – the lens
from the camera!” Scott answered. He wrenched the camera out in front of him
where he could work with it, then snapped it off the extension rod that
attached it to his cooling unit. It was a very expensive piece of equipment –
with its elaborate focusing mechanism and zoom attachments, and its ability to
withstand these brutal conditions – but, it would now have to serve as their
last hope for survival.