William Oberfield

“ McBride went on in dream talk. "Up until this morning I guess I might have welcomed such a one, and I don't think I was alone in feeling that way. Men were never intended to live the way we were living. We really didn't want to live if we had to live that way. We only convinced ourselves that we did. We were caught in a hellish vise and each of us knew it, underneath. So a talking serpent who could convince us that the fruit of Venus was not poison might not have been such a bad idea."
"Why talk about that?" said Flaunders, like a man talking in his sleep. "It's over. We've beaten Venus." ”

“ He made a final adjustment on the radiation generator.
It was working! Anger flared in the eyes of the torturer, in the eyes of the watchers. Eberly fed it. "I'm not afraid of you," he taunted. "Why should I fear cowards who run from their home world because they haven't the guts to stay and fight?"
The effects of his words were amazing, cutting sharply at a sore spot in the minds of the space men. The watchers growled oaths, some of them leaping to their feet. The torturer, his face nearly black with anger, reached up and depressed a lever on the radiation generator, spitefully. ”

“ With their science they could have kept him alive until they had learned how to build a ship that would not melt from the heat of the sun.
Now, Marcius Kemble's unretarded speed carried him through the orbit of the earth while it was still many thousands of miles distant. He began to feel the boiling heat of the sun and realized what it would be like when the insulation of his space suit gave way to that awful heat, but he decided that he would never live to suffer it. Better to let the vacuum of space draw his life from him quickly and painlessly. ”

“ So men had started on a round trip, around the moon, first to prove that men could do it. The only thing they proved was that whatever goes up need not come down.
Now the fourth rocket waited, leaning over against its heavy launching rack, ready to face whatever unknown danger lay out there beyond.
On a certain night, a night long appointed, one overshadowed with heavy clouds that brought a threat of rain, there were lights about the rocket and in the low, concrete buildings that cowered back a ways from the upright metal giant. ”

“ But a man can't hide from himself. That was the Hell. This was not a life-raft on the open sea, every man told himself. This was a green, smiling world with the smell of flowers on the air, with plenty of glistening, tempting fruit growing wild and enough game to make an Indian hunter call it the Happy Hunting Ground. ”

“ Men from space. Hateful, sadistic, repulsive men from outer space! Oh, how overbearing they were; how greedy and cruel and how sure of themselves! They had reason to be confident, of course. They had simply stood far off in space and shrouded the entire world in a terrible radiation that brought unconsciousness to all and death to many. And something in that radiation had sought out every particle of refined Uranium and Hiroshimaized the world. ”

“ They then saw a human brain, locked in the powerful embrace of gravity. And the tiny pulsations and complex motions, the processes of thought, were, as with the disk, sluggish—in large portions not even present. They watched a brain come alive as gravity decreased. ”

“ Flaunders said sharply. "I'm never going to. By thunder, we'll beat this hellhole if it takes every minute of our time!"
That was a sane enough statement. They had the seeds and they had the soil. With good health and the will to work, what was to stop them?
Only weeds.
"Only weeds," McBride said ten weeks later. "They couldn't be responsible for this! Ten weeks of breaking our backs and losing our minds, and you can't even tell that we've done anything. It must be a nightmare!"
Flaunders was a man all washed out, a man badly stung. How hard for an optimist to face defeat! ”

“ Then why we are able of holding all of you in sleep at dark times? Now! We are so little in all that we are able to make each of ten zones sleep as soon when dark comes to each zone and can keep all Earthmen down under with only five ships at a time to watch the five zones that are light at a time! See! You will see when you don't hear talking and are saying Hell!"
Eberly shook beads of perspiration from his face. It was unbearably hot inside the ship. He forced a grin.
"Well, Windy," he addressed the space man defiantly, "I see that the art of bragging isn't strictly confined to Earth. ”

“ Only when they stepped on to a platform, with two of the higher officers, and were lifted swiftly upward, did they give a thought to what was going on.
The platform halted its climb just below a round hole near the nose of the rocket.
"You men should know exactly what you are to do," said the higher officer, "and that is not much. You are not, under any circumstances, to touch anything until you near the moon. Up to that time, the rocket will be guided by at least one control station here on Earth." ”

“ You know of the soft places in the plain, Gor. It is a wonder that the man did not land in one of these, considering that there are more of these than solid ground. But he will weary of waiting for the ships, which he has been informed of, and begin to wander. He cannot go far before he is swallowed up, sinking deeper and deeper. Then we shall see if the future machine is always right! ”

“ This was the only chance and here, between the hidden place where determined men had worked tirelessly and ingeniously to refine only a small capsule of pure Uranium in a year and the hidden place where other learned men waited to incorporate the product into an atomic bomb that could destroy the city of the invaders completely, lay the greatest danger of defeat. ”

“ There would be only one lonely and sick man left long before help could come. What would that last man do? Go completely mad and try to devour himself? Like the two snakes who met one sunny afternoon and decided to swallow one another. ”

“ They fell silent, looking down at the reeling Earth. On the ground, two hundred miles below, at every tracking and control station around the world, men worked without pause, trying to make their tired minds outrace a speeding rocket. ”

“ It was with no great hope that he answered the voices by concentrating upon his name and present predicament.
The thoughts of Marcius Kemble did not go unheard. Unknown to the rest of the solar system, Pluto had its inhabitants. To Earth men, these would be very strange beings, not alone in appearance but in composition. Their heads were roughly triangular, widening upward from a pointed chin and resting on thin, yet strong, necks above equally strong and spindly man-like bodies. They were mainly composed of elements which became solid only at very low temperatures. ”

“ Only five ships out at a time, Eberly thought as two hefty space men prodded him back toward the air-lock. All but a few of the invaders huddled together in a single city that could be utterly destroyed by the blast of one atomic bomb. Such a blast would also destroy the great radiation generators that held Earthmen in sway and the few remaining invaders would soon be overcome or driven away. ”

“ You can't dig them out and they escape all the ordinary weed-fighting methods. One of their cute little tricks is to attach themselves to other plants and seeds and absorb them, strangely enough not harming their own species. Add to that the rapid growth, almost comparable to the motion of the minute hand of a clock, and planting anything from Earth among them is something like throwing a housecat into a den of wild lions."
"A very pretty picture," McBride groaned. "We can't go back to Earth for a year, everything on Venus is poison and we have less than two months' supply of food. ”

“ In a moment the officers had gone and a cover had been placed into the opening and screwed firmly into place.
There was lead-glass, very heavy, in the windows of all the buildings. The thick cement walls and doors were covered with sheets of lead.
Inside the most distant buildings, at the small windows, men stood with black looking glasses over their eyes, watching. Each time a rocket went into space it was exactly thus. The atomic drive was new and not completely perfect. Always there was a chance that something might go wrong. ”

“ McBride looked around, seeing little you wouldn't see on Earth. What's wrong with me? he thought. It's my place to keep the spirits of the men up, not to dampen them. Flaunders is right, of course. This stuff is still only vegetation, even if it is styled after Jack's beanstalk. Jack chopped down the beanstalk and killed the giant. Our giant is the threat of starvation, but killing it is still a matter of stalk-chopping. ”

“ It might take another year or two years, but the invaders would learn that Earthmen don't give up easily. A way would be found!
Then it happened; the thing that made Winston Eberly curse and sweat and retract his noble thoughts. There would be no pitiful steam-powered dirigible or any other weapon carrier. What need for one, when the bomb, itself, would never be completed? The men waiting for the Uranium were never going to see it! ”

“ What did every man tell himself? That it wouldn't happen again, ever, this terrible thing. When they found the strength and courage to go back and clean up the remains of a meal, knowing it to be the remains of a meal, when they had put what was left of Heinie in a hole and covered it with dirt and set up a stone marker, they promised one another it would never ever happen again. ”

“ Will you tell us?"
"Even those on Earth know that gravity hampers the mind," the being said. "This they have learned through observation of mental factors in relation to the gravitational pull of the sun and moon. But look into my mind and you will see more clearly."
They looked, and saw a copper disk turn before a powerful magnet. And they saw resistance caused by electric currents induced in the copper, so that a great deal of power was required to turn the disk, even slowly. This, the thoughts indicated, was a principal well known to those yet on Earth. ”

“ Flaunders snorted. "A hell of a lot of good it did. We destroyed the weeds and the properties of the soil with them. By the time we reactivated the soil the weed seeds had come on the wind. Same thing all over again. How much good did the hothouse do us, even with all the filters? Nearly microscopic seed came in on our clothing, in our hair. I'd rather fight elephants or pre-historic monsters. At least they're big enough to see and slow enough to cope with."
These were two skeletons, speaking of starvation under a tree loaded down with plump, ripe fruit, watching small animals scamper. ”

“ Therefore we may come in contact with him without fear of burns.
"Since the future machine indicates that he must be sent back into space, and since there is no place for him in our world, he will be disposed of at once. Tower Two will dispatch two ships. The man will be instructed in the operation of one of the ships and sent on his way. The pilots will return in the other ship. That is all."
For a long moment, quiet filled the room.
Gor was uneasy as he said, "Well, Bakar, have you not heard? It is your duty to dispatch the ships. Why do you hesitate?" ”

“ Eberly lifted his head weakly, stared his hate at the questioning eyes that pressed close in front of him, struggled to put unfelt strength into his voice.
"Don't you know an Earthman is ready to suffer anything for honor? Don't you realize that none of us will rest until an atomic bomb has sent all of you drifting with the wind? ”

“ In one building, a little nearer the rocket than the others, two men lounged, talking of the coming trip and other things that concerned last night's women, and smoking endlessly, the last smokes they would have for four days. These men would soon climb into a long, metal thing and try to do what others had failed to do.
In other buildings were men with great ideas held firmly in their minds, doing things with pencils and paper and adding machines. ”

“ The ship had contained enough food for only about two months to begin with, and more than two weeks had now come out of that. Starvation was becoming a very real possibility in his mind.
"We're up against something big," he said, peeved with himself for having to admit it. "We're fighting millions of years of evolution."
McBride sensed something disturbing in the other's voice. Maybe a trace of fear. "What do you mean?" he said.
Flaunders enlarged. "A very long time ago a war started here on Venus. It was a war among plants. You find the same thing on Earth, too, but not on this scale. ”

“ The being on the plain has been probed and analyzed and has been found to be a creature of the carbon class from the inner worlds. He has sought to deceive us in the manner in which he has deceived his own, but we have seen all. ”

“ Slow miserable death on one side and food on the other! A chance to live a little longer. Maybe Flaunders would find something in another week, and one meal might make the difference between seeing that and not seeing it. One wanted to live! You couldn't bring Heinie back anyway, so why not live? Heinie had wanted it that way. A human is an animal as much as a pig or a cow. ”