The Thing of Venus

by Wilbur S. Peacock

Val Kenton sat for a long time, reading and rereading the note, really understanding the gravity of the situation for the first time. He crumpled the note in his capable hand, gazed unseeingly about the tiny cabin.

And then anger drew white lines down his face, and his hands reached out to the controls to swing the ship toward Mars. He knew only too well how hopeless the task was that had been given him; not one man in a million had a chance to bring it to a successful conclusion.

His hands slowly relaxed then, dropping from the control studs, sinking back to his lap. He knew that he had no choice in the matter, for, should he not try, he would be disrupted into disassociated atoms by the first Patrol ship that sighted him and his tiny cruiser.

Slowly, the anger faded from his mind, and clear reasoning came in its place. His forehead washboarded with thought, and memories took a coherent pattern.

He remembered the turtle-shaped island now, recalling that it moved in the current of what he had called the North Flow. As to the present position, that could be found only by searching.

Val Kenton swore bitterly, tiredly.

Five years before, he would have welcomed the adventure and danger that faced him—but then he had had a brilliant future to look forward to, and he had had the vitality of youth with which to combat any danger. Now, he was but the hulk of the man he had been, his body shattered by the drugs he had used in ever increasing quantities for months. He had no future now, that is, a future of the type and quality that might have been his; instead with his record, he could look forward to only a future of smuggling and piloting pirate craft, with a blasting death waiting for his first wrong move.

His expedition had been the last attempt to explore the water world of Venus. Five big expeditions had failed before him, their survivors never leaving the planet they had sought to conquer. He had succeeded in searching Venus and returning, only because he had never landed his ship on any of the floating islands that made up the only stable landing fields anywhere in the great wastes of water.

He had followed the currents of waters, mapping them as best he could, charting the islands that rode them like great boats, but some deep instinct had kept him from landing his ship. He had seen no signs of life on the planet, had found no traces of the expeditions that had preceded him. At last, satisfied that he could make a larger and more complete examination at a later date, he had swung out of the Venusian clouds and sent the rocket roaring toward his base on Mars. It was on his return to Earth from Mars that he had smuggled the drugs and gasses whose discovery had brought him before the Court Martial, where his rank and reputation had been stripped from him forever.

He recalled those memories now, and his features were hard and bitter. Then, as suddenly as though it had never been, the expression faded from his face, and he was grinning ruefully at his blurred reflection in the shiny surface of the cabin wall.