The Best of (7 page)

"Metallic Industries, you mean?.

"Yes, and others. No one knows what may be the outcome of this voyage. There are a lot of people who find the world very comfortable as it is and would like to keep it so. Suppose they had planted one of those men aboard?.

I shook my head doubtfully. "It wouldn't do. It'd be suicide. One man couldn't get this ship back to Earth...

"Nevertheless I'm convinced that either Willis or Trail was planted here to stop us from succeeding...

The idea that both the men were genuinely scared and wanted only to get back to Earth had never struck him. I saw no reason to let it.

"Anyway," he added, "we've settled with the murdering swine now—at the cost of three good honest men...

He took some charts from a drawer. "Now come along, Gratz. We must get to work on this navigation. Who knows but that all our lives may soon depend on you...

"Who indeed, sir," I agreed.

Another fortnight passed before the Nuntia at last dipped her nose into the clouds which had always made the nature of Venus' surface a matter for surmise. By circling the planet several times, Captain Tanner contrived to reduce our headlong hurtling to a manageable speed.

After I had taken a sample of the atmosphere—(which proved almost identical with that of Earth)—I took my place close beside him, gaining a knowledge of how the ship must be handled in the air. When the clouds closed in on our windows to obscure the universe we were travelling at a little more than two hundred miles an hour. Despite our extended wings we required the additional support of vertical rockets.

The Captain dropped cautiously upon a long slant. This, he told me, would be the most nerveracking part of the entire trip. There was no telling how far the undersides of the clouds were from the planet's surface. He could depend on nothing but luck to keep the ship clear of mountains which might lurk unseen in our path.

He sat tensely at the control board, peering into the baffling mist, ready at a moment's notice to change his course although we both knew that the sight of an obstacle would mean that it was too late. The few minutes we spent in the clouds seemed interminable.

My senses drew so taut that it seemed they must snap. And then, when I felt that I could not stand it a moment longer, the vapours thinned, dropped behind and we swept down at last upon a Venusian landscape.

Only it was not a landscape, for in every direction stretched the sea—a grey, miserable waste. Even our relief could not make the scene anything but dreary. Heavy rain drove across the view in thick rods, slashing at the windows and pitting the troubled water.

Leadgrey clouds, heavy with unshed moisture, seemed to press down like great, gorged sponges which would wipe everything clean. Nowhere was there a darkling line to suggest land. The featureless horizon which we saw dimly through the rain was a watery circle.

The Captain levelled out and continued straight ahead at a height of a few hundred feet above the surface. There was nothing for it but to go on and hope that we should strike land of some kind. For hours we did, and for the difference it made to the scene we might have been stationary. It was just a matter of luck.

Unknowingly, we must have taken a line on which the open sea lay straight before us for thousands of miles. The rain, the vastness of the ocean and the reaction from our journey combined to drive us into depression. Was Venus, we began to ask ourselves, nothing but a sphere of water and clouds? At last I caught a glimpse of a dark speck away to starboard. With visibility so low I could not be certain what it was. We had all but passed it before I drew the Captain's attention. Without hesitating he swerved towards it and we both fixed our eyes on it and anxiously watched it grow.

As we drew closer it proved to be a hill of no great size, rising from an island of some five or six square miles. It was not such a spot as one would have chosen for a first landing but he decided to make it. We were all thoroughly tired of our cramped quarters. A few days of rest and exercise in the open air would put new heart in us.

It would be absurd for an Earthman to describe Venus to Venusians but there are differences between your district of Takon and the island where we landed which I find very puzzling. Moreover, the conditions which I found elsewhere also differ from those which abide here. I know nothing about the latitude of these places but it seems that they must be far removed from here to be so unalike.

For instance, our island was permanently blanketed beneath thick clouds. One never saw the sun at all, but for all that the heat was intense and the rain, which seldom ceased, was warm. Here in Takon, on the other hand, you have a climate not unlike that of our temperate regions—occasional clouds, occasional rain, warmth that is not too oppressive.

When I look round and observe your planets and trees I find it hard to believe that they can exist on the same planet with the queer jumble of growths we found on the island. I know nothing of botany, so I can only tell you that I was struck by the quantities of ferns and palms and the almost entire absence of hardwood trees.

Two days were occupied in minor repairs and necessary adjustments, varied by occasional explorations. These were not pleasure trips, for the rain fell without ceasing, but they served to give us some muchneeded exercise and to improve our spirits.

On the third day the Captain proposed an expedition to the top of the central hill and we agreed to accompany him. We were all armed, for though the only animals we had seen were small timid creatures which scuttled from our approach, there was no telling what we might encounter in the deeper forest which lay between the hill and the beach where Nuntia rested. We assembled shortly after dawn, almost in a state of nudity. Since the heat rendered heavy waterproofs intolerable we had decided that the less we wore the better. It would be hard enough work carrying heavy rifles and rucksacks of supplies in such a climate.

The Captain shepherded us out into the steady rain, pushed the outer door to behind us and we began our tramp up the beach. We had all but crossed the foreshore scrub which bordered the forest proper when I stopped abruptly.

"What is it?" asked the Captain. "Ammunition," I told him. "I put it aside, ready to pack, and forgot to put it in...

"Are you sure?.

I hauled the rucksack off my back and looked through the contents. There was no sign of the packet of cartridges he had given me. In order to travel light we had only a few rounds each. I could not expect the others to share theirs with me in the circumstances. There was only one thing to be done.

"I'll go back for them. It will only take a few seconds," I said.

The Captain grudgingly agreed. He disliked inefficiency but could not afford to weaken his party by taking a member of it unarmed into possible dangers. I hurried back to the ship, stumbling along through the sand and shingle. As I pulled open the airlock door I glanced back. The three, I could dimly see, had reached the edge of the forest and were standing under such shelter as they could find, watching me.

I jumped inside and threw down my rifle and rucksack with a clatter. First I rushed for the engines and turned on the fuel taps, then I went forward to the navigation room. Hurriedly I set the controls as I had been shown and pulled over the ignition switch.

With my fingers above the first bunch of firing keys, I looked once more out of the windows. The Captain was pounding across the beach, followed by the others. How he had guessed that there was anything wrong I cannot say. Perhaps his glasses enabled him to see that I was in the control room. Anyway, he meant business.

He passed out of my line of sight and a moment later I pressed the firing keys. The Nuntia trembled, lurched and began to slither forward across the sand. I saw the other two wave despairing arms. It was impossible to tell whether the Captain had managed to scramble aboard or not.

I turned the rising ship towards the sea. Again I looked back, just in time to see the others running towards a form which lay huddled on the sand. Close beside it they stopped and looked up. They shook wild, impotent fists in the direction of my retreating Nuntia.

After a few hours I began to grow seriously worried. There must be other land on this planet but I had seen none as yet. I began to have a nasty feeling that it would end with the Nuntia dropping into the sea, condemning me to eventual death by starvation should I survive the fall.

She was not intended to be run singlehanded. In order to economize weight many operations which could easily have been automatic were left to manual control on the assumption that there would always be one or more men on engine room duty. The fuelpressure gauge was dangerously low, but the controls required constant attention, preventing me from getting aft to start the pressure pumps.

I toyed with the idea of fixing the controls while I made a dash to the engine room and back but since it was impossible to find a satisfactory method of holding them the project had to be abandoned. The only thing I could do was to hold on and hope land would show up before it was too late.

In the nick of time it did—a rockbound inhospitablelooking coast but one which for all its ruggedness was fringed to the very edges of the harsh cliffs with a closepressed growth of jungle. There was no shore such as we had used for a landing ground on the island.

The water swirled and frothed about the cliffbottom as the great breakers dashed themselves with a kind of ponderous futility against the mighty retaining wall. No landing there. Above, the jungle stretched back to the horizon, an undulating, unbroken plain of tree tops.

Somewhere there I would have to land, but where? A few miles in from the coast the Nuntia settled it for me. The engines stopped with a splutter. I did not attempt to land her. I jumped for one of the spring acceleration hammocks and trusted that it would stand the shock.

I came out of that rather well. When I examined the wrecked Nuntia, her wings torn off, her nose crumpled like tinfoil, her smooth body now gaping in many places from the force of the impact, I marvelled that anyone could sustain only a few bruises —acquired when the hammock mountings had weakened to breaking point—as I did.

There was one thing certain in a very problematical future— the Nuntia's flying days were done. I had carried out Metallic Industries' instructions to the full and the telescopes of I.C. would nightly be searching the skies for a ship which would never return.

Despite my predicament (or perhaps because I had not fully appreciated it as yet) I was full of a savage joy. I had struck the first of my vengeful blows at the men who had caused my family such misery. The only shadows across my satisfaction was that they could not know that it was I, not Fate, who was against them.

It would be tedious to tell in detail of my activities during the next few weeks. There is nothing surprising about them. My efforts to make the Nuntia habitable—my defences against the larger animals—my cautious hunting expeditions—my search for edible greenstuffs—were such as any man would have made. They were makeshift and temporary.

I did only enough to assure myself of moderate comfort until the Metallic Industries ship should arrive to take me off. So for six months by the Nuntia's chronometers I idled and loafed and though it may sometimes have crossed my mind that Venus was not altogether a desirable piece of real estate, yet it was in a detached impersonal way that I regarded my surroundings.

It would be a wonderful topic of conversation when I got home. That 'when I got home' coloured all my thoughts. It was the constant barrier which stood between me and the life about me. This planet might surround me but it could not touch me as long as the barrier remained in place.

At the end of six months I began to feel that my exile was nearly up. The M.I. ship would be finished by now and ready to follow the Nuntia's lead. I waited almost a month longer, seeing her in my mind's eye falling through space towards me. Then it was time for my signal.

I had arranged the main searchlight so that it would point vertically upwards to stab its beam into the low clouds and now I began to switch it on every night as soon as the darkness came, leaving it's glare until near dawn. For the first few nights I scarcely slept, so certain was I that the ship must be cruising close by in search of me.

I used to lie awake, watching the dismal sky for the flash of her rockets, straining my ears for their thunder. But this stage did not last long. I consoled myself very reasonably that it might take too much searching to find me. But all day too I was alert, with smoke rockets ready to be fired the moment I should hear her.

After four months more my batteries gave out. It is surprising that they lasted so long. As the voltage dropped, so did my hopes. The jungle seemed to creep closer, making ominous bulges in my barrier of detachment.

For a number of nights after the filaments had glowed their last I sat up through the hours of darkness, firing occasional distress rockets in forlorn faith. It was when they were gone that I sensed what had occurred. Why I did not think of it before, I cannot tell. But the truth came to me in a flash—Metallic Industries had duped me just as International Chemicals had duped my father.

They had not built—never intended to build—a spaceship. Why should they, once I.C. had lost theirs? That, I grew convinced, was the decision which had been taken in the Board Room after my withdrawal. They had never intended that I should return.

I could see now that they would have found it not only expensive but dangerous. There would be not only my reward to be paid but I might blackmail them. In every way it would be more convenient that I should do my work and disappear. And what better method of disappearance could there be than loss upon another planet? Those are the methods of Earth—that is the honour of great companies as you will know to your cost should you have dealings with them. They'll use you, then break you.

I must have been nearly crazy for some days after that realization. My fury with my betrayers, my disgust with my own gullibility, the appalling sense of loneliness and above all the eternal drumming of that almost ceaseless rain combined to drive me into a frenzy which stopped only on the brink of suicide.