SURVIVAL
By BASIL WELLS
Mindless creatures mewled and grovelled in
the streets of Ohio ... and men found themselves
suddenly in the swampy, alien hell of Venus,
fighting a weird battle for existence.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1946.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The experiment flopped, or perhaps, more accurately speaking, it succeeded only too well.
The theory had been that of plucking the ego from one human domicile and transplanting it, temporarily of course, into the brain of another man—or animal. The machine had been built for the same purpose.
Circuits shorted and the resultant blast of power killed Doctor Brixson and his elderly assistant, Elmer Morgus. And outward the circle of unleashed power extended for a mile from Crayton College.
The egos, wrenched from their rightful places, went hurtling outward into space on the light-speeding wave of the blast and contacted that of life on our sister planet, Venus. And mindless things grovelled and mewled in the streets of Crayton, Ohio....
Only since the Malcolm's successful voyage to Venus, recently, has the full story of that catastrophe been known. From the lips of the rubbery hided, hideous Venusians who came to Earth aboard the spacer we learned the truth.