Spacewrecked on Venus Part 1

s.p.a.cewrecked on Venus.

by Neil R. Jones.

NEIL R. JONES

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Interplanetary commerce, if and when it begins, will be fraught with all of the dangers that accompany pioneering expeditions. There will be the terrible climatic conditions on other worlds to be faced, strange beasts and plants; and perhaps desperate and greedy men.

That was the case when every new land was opened on earth and it may be expected to be true when we conquer the solar planets.

Mr. Jones understands these things well. His vivid imagination, his sense of a good story and his knowledge of what may be expected upon other worlds combine to make this a novel and exciting yarn. And, as is always desired, it comes to a smas.h.i.+ng finish with a surprising ending.

His scientific weapons are quite novel, but so realistically does he portray them, that they strike one as being quite possible and likely to be used at some future time.

I stood looking from the s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p into the dense fog banks which rolled about us. We were descending through the dense cloud blanket of Venus. How near we actually were to the ground I did not know. Nothing but an unbroken white haze spread mistily, everywhere I looked.

With jarring suddenness, a terrific shudder throbbed the length of the _C-49_, rattling the loose articles on the desk nearby. The dictatyper, with which I had lately been composing a letter, crashed violently to the floor. I reeled unsteadily to the door. It was nearly flung open in my face.

"Hantel!"

Captain Cragley steadied himself on the threshold of my room. The captain and I had become intimate friends during the trip from the earth. In his eyes I saw concern.

"What's wrong?" I queried.

"Don't know yet! Come--get out of there, man! We may have to use the emergency cylinder!"

I followed Cragley. The crew, numbering seven, were gathered in the observation chamber. Most of the pa.s.sengers were there too.

The _C-49_ carried twelve pa.s.sengers, all men, to the Deliphon settlement of Venus. In the earlier days of s.p.a.ce travel, few women dared the trip across s.p.a.ce.

Several of the crew worked feverishly at the controls above the instrument board.

"What's our alt.i.tude?" demanded Cragley.

"Fifteen thousand feet!" was the prompt reply. "Our drop is better than a hundred feet a second!"

Worried wrinkles creased the kindly old face of Captain Cragley. He debated the issue not one moment.

"Into the emergency cylinder--everybody!"

Herding the pa.s.sengers ahead of them, Cragley's men entered a compartment shaped like a long tube, ending in a nose point. When we were buckled into a spiral of seats threading the cylinder, Cragley pulled the release lever. Instantly, the cylinder shot free of the doomed _C-49_. For a moment we dropped at a swifter pace than the abandoned s.h.i.+p. After that, our speed of descent was noticeably decreased.

Peering at the proximity detector, Cragley announced that we were quite safe from a collision. The _C-49_ was far below us and dropping fast.

"No danger now," he a.s.sured the pa.s.sengers. "We'll come down like a feather. Then all we have to do is radio Deliphon to send out a s.h.i.+p for us."

Cragley was equal to the situation. In this year of 2342, when the days of pioneer s.p.a.ce flying were commencing to fade into history, it required capable men to cope with interplanetary flight. If Cragley brought his crew and pa.s.sengers safely through this adversity and also salvaged the valuable cargo of the _C-49_, it was another feather in his cap.

Quentin, second to Cragley in command, labored over the sending apparatus. Quentin looked up at his superior officer with an uneasy expression. The captain was quick to sense trouble.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't like the looks of this," was Quentin's reply. "The sender refuses to function properly. I can do nothing with it."

Cragley's face bore a troubled look. He stepped to the side of his subordinate for a hasty inspection of the radio sender.

"The receiver plate doesn't light up, either," said Quentin. "Looks to me as though someone has been tampering with this."

In their spiral of seats, the pa.s.sengers looked silently and gravely upon the cylinder base where Cragley and his staff were gathered over the apparatus. A dull glow of cloudy light coming in through the transparent interstices of the descending cylinder softened and counteracted the glow of the radium lights. An intangible feeling of depression hung in the air.

"Elevation, five hundred feet!" announced one of the crew from his position at the alt.i.tude dial.

"Make a landing," ordered Cragley. "We can't be very far from where the _C-49_ fell. If there's enough of the s.h.i.+p left, we may be able to discover the cause of this accident."

Down through the lush vegetation, the cylinder felt its way, dropping very slowly. Finally it came to rest on a knoll.

"How far are we from the s.h.i.+p?" queried the captain.

"About seventeen hundred feet south of it, I'd say."

"We'll go outside and get organized. We've got to get that platinum s.h.i.+pment off the _C-49_ and get into communication with headquarters at Deliphon somehow. The proximity detector tells us we're over two hundred miles from there."

One of the pa.s.sengers spoke up with a suggestion. "Can't we go the rest of the way in this? You can send back for what's left of the s.h.i.+p. I've an important reason for arriving in Deliphon quickly. If--"

"Not a chance," cut in Cragley, both amused and annoyed. "The cylinder wouldn't take us anywhere. All the cylinder is good for is an emergency descent. It has no driving power."

Preparations were made for a trip to the wrecked s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p.

"Might I go with you and the men, Captain?" I ventured.

"Sure, Hantel, come along! I'll have to leave part of the crew here with the pa.s.sengers and the cylinder, so I'm glad to have a few volunteers."

"Count on me, then," another of the pa.s.sengers spoke up.

I recognized him as Chris Brady. He was a man about my own age, possibly younger, perhaps in his late twenties. Brady and I had become friends during the trip, having spent many hours together. This was my second trip to the clouded planet. Brady had made many trips to Venus, spending considerable time among the colonies. I had learned much about the man which had interested me.

Our party consisted of Cragley, Brady, three of the crew, four other pa.s.sengers and myself. Well armed, we set out through the yellow jungle in search of the remains of the _C-49_. Quentin insisted that it was not far away according to the proximity detector which was especially attuned to the bulk and metal composition of the s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p.

Progress was difficult in spots, and we found it necessary to hack our way through lush growths of vegetation, taking numerous detours around interlaced verdure. We were out of sight of the cylinder almost immediately.

One of the pa.s.sengers who had volunteered to accompany us complained at the prospects of becoming lost. Cragley calmed the man's anxiety with a brief explanation of the directometer he carried. It was an elaborate perfection of the old compa.s.s. On a square plate, our position was always designated in relation to the _C-49_. By telescopic condensation of the field, Cragley was capable of bringing Deliphon on the instrument. It was well over two hundred miles beyond us.

"If Quentin doesn't have that televisor fixed by the time we get back, we are in a jam."