Trapped on Venus (7 page)

 
“If I can... just...
get this lens off,” he said, struggling to twist it, “I think we can use it...
to focus the Sun on them. We can use it... like... a magnifying glass – focus
it on them until they heat up... until they can’t stand it.”

 
He twisted the lens
again, frantically trying to break it free from the camera body. “I think the
Sun’s the reason they have to keep moving. If they didn’t, it’d probably dry
them out like the rest of the planet. So, if we can increase the heat on them,
focus the Sun more directly on them, I don’t think they’ll be able to take it.
They’ll have to... Here! Give me a hand, Marty. I... I can’t get it by myself.
I can’t get a good enough grip on it.”

 
Marty was already
shuffling across the surface, filled with new enthusiasm. It’s a possibility,
he thought. It just might work! He stopped within arm’s reach of Scott, taking
a quick glance at his watch. Two and a half minutes remaining.

 
“I can’t... seem to
get a good... grip on it. It... it’s on there too... tight,” Scott gasped as he
struggled desperately to get the lens off. “It... it’s too...”

 
“Wait a minute, Scott.
Try prying it off on my converter unit. Maybe you can get some leverage on it.”

 
“We can’t Marty! It
might tear a hole in your suit.”

 
“Forget about the
suit! We haven’t got enough time left to worry about it. It’s not going to do
me any good, anyway, if we can’t get back to the ship!”

 
Scott ceased his
struggling. “All right. Turn around!”

 
Marty turned and Scott
worked the camera in between the metal oxygen transfer unit and the suit mount.
There was just enough room for it. Then, using it like a bottle opener, Scott
jerked back with all the strength he could muster. The lens snapped free. But,
there was a dent in Marty’s converter.

 
“Are you all right?”
Scott asked. “There’s a....”

 
“Forget about it! Get
the lens, Scott! Yes, I’m all right. There’s nothing we can do, anyway! Just
get the lens!”

 
Scott stooped to pick
the lens up from between them. It was difficult to bend in the stiff suit, but
he was able to reach it. He smudged his glove across the face of the lens,
dusting it clean, then tried to focus the thin, blinding beam of light
emanating from it onto the creature in the center pool. The harsh, white light
narrowed on the creature’s pulsing form, looking almost like a rod of solid
glass stretching between the two. But, there was no change.

 
“It’s not working,
Scott! It’s not doing anything!”

 
“Maybe I’ll have to move
closer,” he said, continuing to focus the light on the same spot as he
advanced. “It has to work. It just has to.” His words were as much a prayer as
they were an attempt to concentrate all his energies on the creature in front
of him.

 
“Move closer, Scott!
Keep moving!” Marty cried hysterically. “You’ve got to get closer!”

 
Scott was less than
ten feet from the creature now, but still continued to advance. The monstrous
glob of pulsating jelly loomed like a cliff wall in front of him; moving,
rolling, swaying malevolently in an undiminished tempo. Slowly he edged his way
forward, concentrating every instinct, every thought, on the organism which
stood between them and the ship. Then, he stopped.

 
The creature yawned
upward, then began to turn darker and slowed its undulations, deepening more
and more until it was nearly the color of charcoal. Scott steadied the beam
even more, watching as the creature withered smaller and smaller, slowly
dissipating into the pool. Then, like a pond quickly drying up, the surface of
the pool crusted over. It was as if the creature was forced to seek refuge,
relief from the Sun, beneath the surface. Then, the brilliance of the Sun
quickly baked the no longer moving pool into a wafer hard crust. All that
remained was a ruffled blanket of powder.

 
Scott turned the beam
toward the other two, aiming the Sun’s beastly white heat at their mushrooming
shapes. They bloated, blackened, then oozed into the pools, leaving behind only
a sedimentary topsoil of bleak terrain. The way was clear!

 
Scott stepped to where
the rim of the pool had been, tested it cautiously, then continued on toward
the ship. Marty needed no coaxing to follow.

 
Their oxygen levels
had dipped dangerously low, leaving them with less than a minute before they
completely exhausted their supplies. They drew their breaths sparingly, at
times even gasping for more oxygen as they made their way quickly toward the
ship. It was only a little farther. Just a few breaths away. Stay calm, they
thought. Stay calm. You’ll make it. Just another step or two...

 
They reached the
ladder of the ship not a second too soon.

 
“Scott... My unit just
went dead.”

 
The deathly calm in
Marty’s voice froze Scott on the first rung of the ladder. His unit was dead.
That meant that Marty was no longer having oxygen pumped into his suit, that
the cooling unit would now rapidly begin to heat up, leaving him without
protection from the searing Sun. Only the oxygen left in his suit could keep
him alive, and yet, the more of it he used, the greater would become the
pressure of the atmosphere on his body.

 
Scott wasted no time
sorting through the avalanche of alternatives which flashed through his mind.
He acted blindly, instinctively, stepping from the rung to allow Marty to go
first. Marty grabbed the ladder, but knew that he wouldn’t have enough strength
to open the craft door.

 
“No,” was all he said.

 
Scott understood the
cryptic message and clamored up the ladder with a speed inspired by urgency.
Rung after rung he groped his way toward the hatch, feeling Marty’s faltering
movements behind him, but not hesitating to look back.
Just hang on,
he
pleaded.
Just hang on a few more seconds. Just a little farther...

 
His hand reached for
the wheel of the outer door, wavering slightly as he extended his reach,
finally grabbing it firmly and twisting it with abnormal strength. The wheel
rotated once, and the hatch broke free. He swung the door back, and hoisted
himself through the passageway, breathing hard from the strain and exertion.

 
“Scott, I...”

 
Scott barely heard the
weak gasp and choking which followed. He knew Marty was in trouble. He pivoted
in the craft with as much haste as the small area would allow, and caught a
glimpse of Marty’s hand trembling only a few inches from the hatch. He lunged
for it.

 
His own strength was
leaving him now, and the bulky gloves on his hands prevented him from squeezing
as tightly as his panic demanded, but he grabbed and held on. Marty’s suit
sagged under the grip, slowly and steadily collapsing from the atmospheric
pressure. Scott pulled with all his strength, straining, clenching his teeth,
tensing every fiber of his body until he thought he would burst from the
effort, trying desperately to pull his friend inside the craft.

 
Marty’s body was limp,
but he strained to help – choking, wheezing, gasping until only a hush of
silence flowed eerily through Scott’s helmet.
Was he dead? Had he been
crushed by the tremendous pressure of the atmosphere?
Inch by inch, Scott
dragged him the last few feet into the cabin.

 
Quickly, he grabbed
the hose from the ship’s oxygen exchange system and forced it into Marty’s
adapter. He twisted the seal and watched anxiously as the needle of the gauge
creeped upward, pressurizing then maintaining the flow of oxygen. Then, as
quickly, he attached a second hose to his own unit and breathed deeply as the
cool air filtered through his suite. It was as if an air conditioner had
suddenly been turned on, blowing the air sweetly and refreshingly through his
lungs. But, there was little more he could do. He would have to hope that the
oxygen would be enough to revive Marty.

 
Scott leaned over him,
and swung the cabin door closed. He twisted the thick wheel with tired,
exhausted hands, feeling as if the weight of the world had suddenly been lifted
from his shoulders. They were safe. At last, they were safe from the perilous,
unpredictable world of Venus outside; protected and secure. Scott slumped back
against the cabin wall.

 
So much has
happened,
he thought. So many inconceivable things had taken place, things
that we couldn’t have prepared for or been expected to understand.
It’s so
different out there, so unlike anything I’ve ever seen or experienced before.
So strange... so alien... so incomprehensible. Everything that happened – the
fire, the plant, the pools, the radio failure, the tests, experiments,
struggles, fears, panic, solitude, beauty, haste, apprehension – everything
that happened, everything we felt and did, so unexplainable, so
– he
struggled for a word –
so, unnatural, unreal. And, so many billions of
dollars were spent to get us here, he went on, billions so that we could study
and learn from this planet. But we’ve barely scratched the surface. We have no
way of understanding it, no way of explaining or rationalizing what goes on.
How can we explain fires without oxygen, or life without water? The strange
behavior of the soil, the way it cracks and splinters then seems to weld itself
back together again? And, the creatures... How do they survive? What, or how,
do they eat and nourish themselves? Do they reproduce, or is death an unknown
element here, non-existent and unnecessary?

 
It’s more than
merely a mystery,
he thought,
it’s a challenge to our very sense of
understanding. There’s so much more to the universe, so many intricacies and
contradictions that we don’t even know about, that understanding it is beyond
our comprehension. We’re so small, so young and insignificant in the scope of
things, that we aren’t even capable of considering life other than our own. We
breathe, so we assume that everything else must also breathe in order to
survive. We talk and walk, build factories, submarines, automobiles,
spaceships, hotels, resorts – so many millions of things – always assuming that
to be our purpose, our goal, our reason for living without ever assessing the
alternatives, without ever considering other means of existence.

 
Why do we live as we
do? Why do we continue in the same directions with the same unwavering goals,
year after year, always building more without understanding why, or for what
purpose? Could the Earth – could we, the human race – be the only planet in the
solar system to insist upon laboring in the shadows of our own productivity;
hoarding this, owning that, perpetually struggling between ourselves over what
belongs to who, and who belongs to what? Our own kind – people – fighting,
killing, cheating, lying, stealing from one another, destroying one another in
a senseless onslaught toward extinction. All this, all this to learn from and understand;
yet, how often do we even appreciate the things we have?

 
Scott’s mind sagged
under the burden of questions. His own experience, the frustration and
inadequacy of his knowledge when called upon to reevaluate, reappraise
everything he had ever known or learned, was like a sudden jolt to his system.
It left him fatigued, confused, awed and overwhelmed in the same moment.

 
He tugged the liner
from across the cabin interior, folded it, tucked it away, and sank back into
the contours of his chair. He was tired, but thoughtful – confused.
There’s
so much to know, so much yet to learn,
he thought as his eyes slowly began
to close.
So much to do, to find out, so many things still a mystery,
still... Scott’s eyelids fell heavily together. Still... still....
His eyes
closed, and he slept.

 
Only fifteen minutes
passed before Marty regained consciousness. His head cleared slowly, and he was
able to push himself upright. He recognized the cabin, then the gauges and dials
surrounding him, the slight buzzing in his head, the coolness of his suit, the
gloves bloated full of air on his hands, then his eyes focused on Scott
stretched limply in the chair, sleeping.

 
“Scott?” he said.
“Scott, can you hear me?”

 
His voice was soft,
almost humble as he spoke, but it was enough to awaken him. “Scott? Wake up,
it’s me, Marty. We’ve got a lot to do, yet. Have you contacted Stimson?”

 
“Huh?” Scott stirred.
“What? Oh, no... no, I didn’t.” He raised up to look at Marty. “I must’ve
fallen asleep. I was going to see if I could fix the hook-up, but I never got
to it. Too tired, I guess.”

 
“Well, give me a hand,
then,” Marty said, “and I’ll see if I can get it fixed. I think it’s the relay,
again. The thing never worked right after I fixed it the first time. Maybe it’s
gone for good. I’ll give it a try, though.”

 
“Right,” Scott
answered. He placed his feet on the floor of the cabin and looked over at Marty
beginning to remove the panel from the receiving unit. It was only a short time
ago that Marty was sprawled across the cabin, nearly dead, Scott remembered.
“Are you all right, Marty?” he asked, hesitantly. The question was almost too
obvious, but he had to ask it.

 
Marty turned. “Yeah,
I’m all right. I was a little scared for a minute there, but then I must’ve
blacked out. I don’t remember anything after that. Just sleep... a dream or
something. I’m all right, now, though. By the way,” he went on, turning back to
the panel, “since I didn’t get a chance to thank you before, let me thank you
now. If it hadn’t been for you, I’m afraid I might’ve been the first man to die
on Venus. Thanks, Scott. I mean that.”

 
“Don’t thank me,
Marty. It was just a matter of self-preservation. You don’t think I could fly
this thing alone, do you?”

 
“Well, thanks, anyway.
I appreciate it, whatever your reasons!” He smiled back over his shoulder at
Scott, then resumed his work. They were both grateful just to be alive.

 
As they talked, Marty
had removed the cover of the audio relay receiving unit, and now stood hunched
over the circuits looking for the problem. It wasn’t long before he found it –
a small circuit board had shorted out just as it had in space.

 
“I’ll have to bypass
this relay again, Scott,” he said, poking inside the unit. “That means we might
lose the cabin lights if this thing blows again, but it’s the only way we’ll be
able to reach Stimson and Grayson. I’m not sure if it will even work, but I’ll
give it a try. What do you think? Should I go ahead?”

 
“Sure. We can do
without the lights, but we’ve got to have the receiver. Go ahead. Give it a
try.”

 
“All right. Cross your
fingers.”

 
Marty delicately
fished through the wires of the electronic cabinet, rerouting the circuit with
careful and meticulous precision. It was not an elaborate patch job, but he was
hopeful it would at least provide them voice communication with Earth Control
One and Grayson orbiting overhead. He withdrew his hands.

 
“Try it, Scott.”

 
With that cue, Scott
flipped several switches on the guidance panel in front of him, diverting power
back to the receiving unit. Several lights glowed brightly, and the green
indicator light blinked on showing that the system was operational. He
activated the transmitter.

 
“Earth Control One...
Earth Control One, this is Venus twelve. Earth Control One, do you read me?
Over...”

 
There was a lag, then
the receiver snapped to life.

 
“Scott! Fisk! Yes,
yes, we read you, Probe!” Stimson was ecstatic. “We read you loud and clear!
We’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour. Are you all right? What
happened? What were those things out there? Did you...”

 
Scott interrupted the
transmission with the flip of a switch.

 
“Earth One... Earth
One, this is Probe ...” He paused, waiting for Stimson to pick up the
broadcast. There was a metallic click over the unit. “John, you’ve got to slow
down,” he kidded. “You’re going to overload our receiver! Take it a little
slower. We’ve got time. We’re all right now. Over.”

 
“Jennings, what was
going on out there?” he asked with some irritation in his voice. “We could hear
everything, but couldn’t get through to you. What were they? What was going
on?”

 
Scott paused. “I can’t
say. I really don’t know, John. It... it seemed almost as if they were alive,
as if they were holding us captive, or studying us. But, we couldn’t be sure.
We couldn’t be sure of anything! They were just there – moving, sliding around,
blocking us off.”

 
“Yes, we know all
that,” he responded, then turned his microphone down from in front of his mouth
so they couldn’t hear him. One of the lab aides was questioning him. Stimson
listened, grunted several times in agreement, then turned back to Scott. “Did
you get any data on those creatures, readings of any kind?”

 
“Negative, John. We
didn’t have time, and didn’t have the right equipment. We even lost the photos
we took.”

 
“Can you give us any
observational data? Anything you noticed, or remember about them – size, shape,
composition, anything at all?”

 
“Not much more than
you probably got from listening to us. They were just pools of some heavy kind
of oil or sludge. I couldn’t tell what it was. The pools were probably eight or
nine feet across and just sprang up out of nowhere! No warning, no reason, just
all of a sudden everything started cracking up, breaking apart. Then, these
things appeared. It really surprised us!”

 
“Stimson?” Marty
interrupted. “John? We do think we might be able to communicate with them if we
had some kind of color spectrogram. That seemed to be the most distinctive
thing about them; their color, and the way it changed when they moved. But, we
aren’t equipped for anything like that. Can any of your men come up with
something else, maybe something we can convert? I know it sounds crazy, but I’m
almost certain we can make contact with them – that is, if we even see them
again.”

 
“I can’t think of
anything off-hand, Marty, but I’ll get some people on it right away. If you can
communicate with them, this landing will be more significant than anything we
ever dreamed possible.”

 
Marty moved to his own
chair and pushed it back, thinking more deeply about the creatures and their
possible importance to science. It would be a tremendous achievement, he
thought.

 
“Scott,” Stimson
continued. “Scott, why don’t you two take your rest period now. We’ll get back to
you in a few hours after we’ve had time to go over the recordings we have of
your walk. There’s a lot there. We’ll need some time. So, get some rest if you
can. We’ll give you a few hours of sleep before your second excursion. Do you
think you can still make it?”

 
The thought of going
out again was almost frightening. A chill raced through the men as they
rehashed the events which had already taken place. What else could happen? they
wondered. What other dangers awaited them on this desolate globe of dust and
powder? Would the creatures reappear, possibly keeping them from ever returning
to the ship?

 
These questions
plagued the most excited desires of the astronauts. Yet, it was their duty,
their obligation, to offer even their lives in this quest for more knowledge,
for more information if necessary. Scott tried to relax as he answered.

 
“Affirmative, John.
Give us a few hours and we’ll be ready.”

 
“Roger, Probe. We’ll
begin looking over the information right now and see what we can make of it.
See if you can get a little rest in the meantime.

 
Stimson finished the
conversation and turned from his desk, eager to see if his men had come up with
anything yet. He stalked across the room to the data banks where several
engineers and chemists were conferring.

 
“... I’m sure of it,
Dr. Phillips,” said one of the researchers boldly. “It can’t be anything else.
With the test data Fisk collected and our own readings, I’m certain it’s a
strain of amino acids of some kind.”

 
“But, if it were, why
would it be so unstable?” he replied. “It can’t be. It’s more likely to be a
result of the heat. Some foreign combination of chemicals bonded together for
efficiency’s sake. You’re wrong, Dr. Andrews. You’re way off the mark.”

 
Stimson stopped at the
fringe of the debate, listening as he turned to an associate beside him.

 
“What is it, Frank?
What are they arguing about?”

 
“Oh, they’ve been
going at it for the last thirty-five minutes. Nothing serious, John. Just a
difference of opinion. Blair’s convinced that the creatures – the things Fisk
and Jennings saw – are intelligent life forms of some kind; still in the
primitive stages of development, of course, but none-the-less alive. And,
Andrews disagrees. I don’t think you can convince either of them one way or the
other. They’re both bull-headed.”

 
“What do you make of
it? Have you formed an opinion yet?” Stimson asked.

 
“Well, they’ve both
got a point. I agree, in part, with both of them. It’s still too early to tell,
though. I don’t think we have enough information to pass judgment, yet.”

 
“But, what about the
colors and the heat? Do you think it’s at least possible to communicate with
them?”

 
“I’m certainly not
going to rule it out, John. Sure, there’s a possibility that we can communicate
with them, but I doubt it. Circumstances aren’t right for the kind of
development we’re accustomed to. If they are alive, they’re certainly in the
infant stages of growth. It’s beyond the wildest stretch of the imagination to
think of them other than that, to think of them consciously, rationally,
stalking Fisk and Jennings. It’s unheard of!”

 
“Why the reaction to
the heat, then? Why would they just disappear when they focused the lens on
them? To have reacted like that, they must have had some sensory warning, some
susceptibility to pain or discomfort. If they were just globs of protoplasm,
just ‘things’, surely they wouldn’t have reacted like that. There must be some
correlation, some connection between the two points.”

 
“That’s what’s got us
stumped, John. That’s what Phillips and Andrews are arguing about. See how it
started?” He smiled generously, knowing that Stimson was as confused and full
of questions as any of the rest of them. Stimson returned the smile and walked
away.

 
On and on the debate
raged as each scientist tried to outguess and out argue his colleagues. What
was the crust composed of? How was it formed? Were the conditions right for
life to exist? Could they communicate with the creatures? How? When? Where?
Why?... It had now nearly become a battleground for the best scientific minds
of the decade – debating, arguing, challenging each other on every point, on
every issue. But, one thing was emphatically decided – the mission would go on!

 
Fifty-six minutes
passed since Scott and Marty terminated contact with Earth Control One, and the
arguments were more volatile now than when they had begun. Yet, resting
peacefully in a probe 26 million miles away, the astronauts were unaware of the
disagreements they had spawned. They were asleep.

 
It was a struggle for
them to keep their eyes closed in the early minutes of the rest period, each
still deeply engrossed in the problems which confronted them – the
uncertainties, the doubts, the hazards which lingered longer and with greater
abundance as they sought to dismiss them from their minds. But also, the
possibility of great achievements, great contributions, great strides forward
for the field of science and the hope of humans loomed ahead of them. The early
moments of their rest period were mixed with apprehension and excitement, fear and
relief, solitude and dismay as well as a gamut of emotions reaching from
disdain to triumph. Still buried beneath the overwhelming weight of confusion,
silence, and uncertainty, the astronauts were able to hide their anxieties in
the sanctity of sleep. They rested.

 
A few more minutes
passed – fifty-six... fifty-eight... seventy-two minutes into the rest period –
when the scientists at Earth Control One came up with something. The long,
arduous debates had finally paid off. All the data supported it, all the
observations concurred; the planet could sustain life! Dr. Phillips was quick
to add emphasis to the word ‘could’ when they announced their findings, but the
point was really irrelevant. He, as well as the others, was finally convinced
that a strong possibility existed that life – intelligent life at that – could
exist under the conditions on Venus. Yet, even more startling was their
proposition that the creatures could live, survive – breed! – under the
Venusian crust. The planet could very well be an aquatic wonderland beneath the
surface! As Dr. Daniels explained it: