Chapter 10.
The Dying Planet
Russell Clyde was confined to his bunk during the next four days, his feet wrapped in bandages and ointment. Fortunately the digestive juices of the Venusian amoeba had only just begun their attack upon the skin after eating through the footgear. Except for some painful blisters and rawness, his condition was not serious.
The little stateroom was cramped, containing as it did two bunks, one above the other, like the cabin of a liner. What with a couple of built-in lockers for clothes, and a bolted-down chair and a reading lamp, it was not a place to spend any more time than necessary. The lack of a window added to the inhospitality of the room. But Burl had accepted long ago the fact that a spaceship could not yet be considered a luxury liner. In time, the A-G drive would permit such things, but the Magellan was an experimental vessel turned by emergency into a warship.
During those four days, Burl spent most of his time with Russ, getting to know him better, and talking about the trip. The young astronomer was not at all chagrined by his misadventure. In fact, the whole experience had him quite buoyed up.
"What a wonderful place for biologists to study! Venus will be a Mecca for scientific learning!"
"But not for anything else, I don't think," said Burl. "Anyway, we're in for another experience now. Mars is our next goal. What's it like?"
Russ put his hands behind his head and looked up at the bottom of the bunk above him. "We can see Mars well enough; there's no cloud blanket and the atmosphere is thin but clear. You've seen the photos and the colored sketches?"
"I've seen it from our viewplates, but so far it's just a tiny, red disc. We're about at Earth's orbit now, even though Earth is many millions of miles away from us. Mars is still about fifty million miles further, but we're gaining speed quite rapidly and Lockhart thinks we'll make it soon enough." Burl picked up one of the books from the ship's library and started to thumb through it to locate a color chart of the planet.
Russ waved a hand. "You don't have to show me. I've studied Mars by telescope so often I know it by heart. It's mostly a sort of light, reddish-tan, a kind of pale russet. We think that's desert. There are some fairly large sections that are bluish-green—at least in the Martian summers. In their winters these sections fade very greatly."