MESSAGE from VENUS
by R. R. WINTERBOTHAM
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Comet January 41.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The Venusians had one admirable characteristic. When they set out to do a thing, nothing could stop them. Captain Paul Bonnet had said something to this effect to Major Rogers and it made the old man so angry that he almost court-martialed the youth.
"We're going to stop them!" the major roared.
Captain Bonnet glanced up into the sky, already dark with the ballooned bodies of the Venusian bipeds. The creatures looked like huge sausages, except that there was something deadly about them.
On the approaches to Outpost 53, sweating men labored on the caissons of twelve batteries of Amorg twenty-fives, pouring atomic destruction into a solidly packed mass of Venusians advancing through the wire entanglements.
Captain Bonnet nodded to the major. "You're right, sir!" He turned to the members of his crew who were manning an anti-rocket gun. "Did you hear that? Knock 'em out of the sky!"
The gun coughed Amorg vapor into the sky. A gaping hole appeared directly overhead where the bodies of at least a hundred Venusians were disintegrated. Before the gun could be recharged the hole disappeared, filled by more bulging Venusians.