Alfred Coppel

“ Even seasoned spacemen never got used to free-fall, and atomics eliminated it, thank God!
The sunward flight was something to remember for sheer beauty. Earth and Luna faded astern until they were just a bright point of light. The sun blazed like a ball of white fire ahead of us, and Venus grew brighter and brighter against the breath-taking backdrop of the Milky Way. ”

“ Look too at the interstices where a tiny Venusian moss called "weather-plant" makes it all possible.
Bat Kendo? He died. He died doing what he wanted to do, and that's something. The others maybe weren't so lucky. Of course you never heard of Bat, or of the Eagle for that matter. All this happened a long, long time ago, and the old memories tarnish. Now people take their lives pretty much as they find it, and they never wonder about the guys who made it what it is.
Yes, humans are a strange breed. ”

“ Life that had never been meant for Earth's clean soil. There was no telling what the stuff might do away from here.
"We suspect," the botanist was saying, "that the high formaldehyde content of Venus' atmosphere has an inhibiting effect on the action of the plant. We have isolated small amounts in formaldehyde-free air, and gotten some interesting results. Freed of its native ecology, we believe the stuff can actually create its own weather." ”

“ And men set up a settlement on Venus. The Holcomb Foundation was convinced that they had the answer to the critical food shortage on Earth. Weather-plant. The one useful thing that stinking Venus produces.
Weather-plant is a moss-like plant that will grow almost anywhere. The Foundation botanists found that it gathered nitrogen and water in some inexplicable way, and they became interested in its possibilities. Something had to be done about soil reclamation back on Earth, or starvation would strangle the race. Weather-plant looked like the answer. ”

“ As a tubeman, he never had an equal. As an all around right guy, he never will have.
It was Bat that talked me into signing on the Eagle. They needed a Pilot, and where a better place to find one than in the Foy City drunk tank? I knew the Eagle, of course. Everyone in the Luna-Earth System did. She was a five hundred tonner, newly converted to atomics and fitting in the Foundation yards for a flight to Venusberg.
She was going to pick up a full cargo of weather-plant from the settlement. A hundred tons of it. And brother, that's a lot of weather-plant. ”

“ My stories, it seems, are too old fashioned for this modern age. Just because I, and a lot of others like me—only maybe not so lucky—spent our lives opening up the spaceways instead of sitting home on our venturiis, we're "odd characters" and "old space-hacks," and our stories are tall tales—yarns to be avoided, or laughed at if it's not possible to avoid them. ”

“ The UVR was mangled and so was its crew of four men. Three tubemen had died in the tuberoom and I didn't know how badly Bat might be hurt. No one could enter because the place was hot. The thorium was gone and the sheathing on the pile too. I looked in on the Captain and scratched him off the list. Death from bends is not a pleasant thing to see. The Eagle was my command now. As pilot and Second Officer, I took over, for better or worse. ”

“ Bat's voice seemed edged with pain. "You know the autos won't last for more than thirty minutes. Strictly ... emergency stuff...." And then his voice grew even tighter. "The storage, Morley! Those stinking ... rocks ... took ... out ... the storage! All the thorium went out ... the side ... they hit ... the storage bunker!"
That tore it. Without thorium ... without even an extra gram ... the best we could hope for was making it to Earth. Luna and its lovely one-sixth gravity for a crash landing was out.
I tried to get Captain Reynard on the phone, but there was no answer from his quarters. ”

“ There's something about the immensity of the cosmos that makes men relinquish their petty prejudices. And when I got back into Control and watched the tell-tales on the Geiger-Muller Counters down in the tuberoom, I said another prayer—for Bat Kendo. ”

“ The Flight of the Eagle By SOL GALAXAN
It was a new and mysterious plant. It
could make its own weather; it was
sentient, and it prospered on Venus. But
Earth needed it desperately. And Bat Kendo,
the radar-mutant, was told to bring it in.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories September 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Humans are a strange breed. Forgetful. They grow accustomed to the wonders they live among so easily that they never really figure up the cost. ”