Within the hour the other ships began arriving, in groups of two and three. First to land were those which had been loaded with material. As the passenger ships landed, the men were divided into two groups. One was set to putting up tents which could shelter them that night, while the other swiftly unloaded materials and began to throw up the prefabricated walls of the first Earth buildings.
When night came on the strange planet, darkness descending quickly, bringing with it a light pattering of rain. A city of tents had mushroomed across the Venusian plains and skeletal walls were already thrusting skyward near the double line of trees.
The Earthlings were up with the sun the following morning, small fires blazing among the tents as the women busied themselves with breakfast. The men held a hasty meeting, and elected as a temporary council to govern them the men who had come in the first ship. They in turn elected Clyde Ellery as their first chairman.
That second day upon Venus was a hectic one. A hasty tabulation revealed that they were a little more than two hundred thousand strong—counting children and infants—all that were still healthy from Earth's once thriving billions. Architects and city planners were found among them and Earth City began to go up with a rush. As one building was being finished, the plans for the next one were being handed to the workers. Construction crews were followed by electricians; plumbing went into houses as cesspools were still being dug. Farms were laid out around the new city, all of them equal in size, and furrows were being turned while surveyors still sighted through their instruments.
For two weeks the work continued at the same mad pace. And that section of Venus more and more took on the look of Earth. The broad fields were sectioned in geometric patterns where already tender green plants and young grass shoots were thrusting their way through the soil. Within fenced plots, the cows and horses munched on their hay and looked with longing at the tender shoots. Chickens scratched in the black dirt, and roosters greeted the Venusian sunrise with the same clarion voices as on Earth.
Within the city, which had now spread to almost ample size, flowers were already growing in the yards. Clothes, bought in Cleveland and Pinsk, in Surrey and Isfahan, hung side by side to dry in the Venusian sun. The main street, running between the two rows of strange trees with their curved and nodding leaves, was lined with stores bearing signs in almost every language of Earth. The colony had already issued its own money and business was flourishing. Earth City possessed every business and profession save one—they had no use for a mail man.
It was on the fifteenth day of their stay on Venus, when the work was slacking down to normal, that two of the colonists decided that if they had some extra wood they would build corncribs although it was still some time before they would have corn. They shouldered axes, mounted horses and rode off toward the line of jungle that marked the edge of the land given to Earth people.
Hours later, the two horses returned without the riders, and a search party was formed.
It was almost dark when the two men were found, lying unconscious not far from the edge of the strange and exotic forest. When they were revived, they remembered only that there had seemed to be some sort of barrier trying to keep them out of the forest. One of them described it as a strong wind, although there had been no wind blowing. But they had forced their way against it, shoving step by step within the jungle, and that was the last they remembered. Both had the impression that something must have struck them down. Much bruised and shaken, they were helped back to their homes, and the story of their experience spread rapidly.