Chapter 9. _The Ocean Primeval_

The _Magellan_ hung in the air while the men studied the surface of this

world that had so long been a mystery. The air was not the clear air of

Earth; rather, it was the kind that precedes the coming of a fog, thick,

heavy with moisture, the horizons fading into gray. Below them lay a

mottled expanse of water, reflecting the gray sky, and verging almost to

a deep brown. The water was still, occasionally stirred by a slight

wave. "No tides have ever moved these waters," commented Russ quietly to

Burl. "There is no moon to pull and sway them. The motion of this world,

so slow in the passage of its day, hardly disturbs the water."

"It looks shallow to me," said Burl. "The darker sections look as if the

bottom must be close."

"I imagine it is. We'll take soundings," Russ answered. "I have a

feeling the whole world may be like this ... one vast, shallow, swampy

sea. See the scum floating on it?"

"See it? Now that you mention it, there's hardly a part that hasn't

something on it," was Burl's reply. "There're patches of muck all over

it, like floating oil, or even drifting masses of weeds."

It was true. The water showed on its surface a strange filth unlike

anything one would expect on the surface of a Terrestrial sea. There

were wide areas of brownish-gray slime and little floating blobs of

green. Shining flecks of yellow, like bright oil drops, seemed to flow

through and between the masses of scum.

At the radar, Haines began to call out figures. As Russ had guessed, it

was a shallow sea. In places, the bottom was only a dozen feet beneath.

For a while, all the men of the crew were quiet, watching the silent

waters beneath them.

"Unclean, the whole place looks unclean," Lockhart said finally. "We've

got work to do. Let's find the Sun-tap station."

The rest of the crew came to action. The spaceship began to move slowly,

while Oberfield and Caton probed for the lines of force which would lead

to the station.

Now a long, low bank appeared, a ridge of mud protruding above the

water. Here and there stretched other low mud bars, and once a ridge of

rock.

"I've seen no animals or birds," said Burl. "Do you suppose there are

any?"

Russ pursed his lips. "I don't think so. From the look of this world,

life probably isn't developed that far. You won't find animals until

there is dry land--and I'd guess now that there's no place on all Venus

where there is much dry land. There may be fish or fish life, but even

that's questionable. Consider--the long, long day, the absence of

violent, unshielded Sun rays, the steady damp warmth, the quiet, barely

moving waters, the heavy amounts of carbon dioxide in the air...."

He paused and went over to Lockhart's chart table to pick up a paper.

"Oberfield worked out the atmosphere. It is very heavy in carbon

dioxide, very low in free oxygen. There's water vapor down here, but the

clouds have kept it below; it didn't show up in the outer atmosphere at

all."

"There's the Sun-tap base," said Burl, and added as an afterthought, "I

think."

This one did not look at all like the other stations he had seen. There

was indeed a ringed wall station, but the wall was low and slanted

outward. It stood on the end of a wide mudbank, and near it veins of

rock glistened as if wet.

The interior machinery was a neat, compact mass of crystalline globes

and levers. But the masts and shining discs which had characterized the

stations on Mercury and Earth were missing. Instead, there floated upon

the surface of the water, for a mile around, great shining bowls, like

huge saucers gently rocking in the faint wavelets. Thin, flexible,

shining lines of metal connected this surface layout with the station.

"With no direct Sun to aim at, this station seems to be directed toward

a nonfocused system of light diversion," Lockhart announced. "The

wrecking crew please get under way!"

"I'm going down with you," Russ joined in. "I've gotten permission to

take some observations from the surface."

"Good," said Burl, and hurried with him down to the central floor.

They disembarked in two parties. Haines and Ferrati used the two-man

rocket plane and would make a wide encirclement of the vicinity, mapping

and finally blowing up the accumulator discs floating on the surface.

Burl, Russ, and Boulton took a helicopter.

The helicopter, under the control of the Marine captain, dropped out of

the cargo port of the _Magellan_. Steadied by the regular whirl of its

great blades and driven by tiny rocket jets in the tip of each wing, the

whirlybird swung down like a huge mosquito hovering over a swamp patch.

It moved over the water and finally hung directly over the mudbank.

Maneuvering so that the helicopter was directly in the protected circle

of the walls, Burl and Russ dropped a rope ladder and swung down hand

over hand to be the first human beings to set foot on Venus.

They were lightly dressed, for the temperature was hot, around 110°, and

it was humid. No breezes blew here. They wore shorts and shirts and

high-laced leather boots. Each carried two small tanks of oxygen on his

back. A leather mouth nozzle strapped across the shoulders guaranteed a

steady flow of breathable air. In their belts were strapped knives and

army pistols. Russ carried recording equipment, and Burl a hatchet.

They dropped off the swaying ladder inside the station. The ground was

hard-packed as if the builders had beaten it down and smoothed it off.

The globes were familiar to Burl--he had studied the pictures of the two

he had already visited and he realized that they followed the same

general system. Where the mast towers would have been, there were leads

running through the plastic walls out across the sea. He wondered

briefly why the walls were curved outward.

As the helicopter moved away, the metal weight on the end of the

dangling ladder brushed the top of the wall. There was a crackling

noise, and a spark jumped between them.

"The wall is electrically charged," said Burl. "I wonder why?"

Russ shook his head. "From the looks of it, to keep off something.

Perhaps some kind of native life. But what? I'm sure there's nothing of

a highly organized physical structure here."

Burl found the controls of the station, but before touching them, he

remembered the alarm on Mercury. "I'd better try to smash the alarm

first," he called out to Russ.

Finally, Burl located an isolated globe perched on a post, which

resembled the one he had briefly glimpsed on Mercury. He ran his hands

over it, feeling a mild vibration within. Then, at its base, he found

the levers. He moved them and the vibration died out. "I think I've

turned it off," he announced. "But stand by with a gun, just in case."

Russ drew his pistol, and Burl switched off the main controls of the

Sun-tap. A globe or two burst; there was a sort of settling down in the

station. Abruptly they felt the heat intensify and knew that the sky was

shining more brilliantly than before. The diversion of the Sun was over

for Venus.

The alarm globe remained quiet, but Burl took his hatchet and smashed

it. Russ was carefully photographing the station, measuring the

distances, and tracing the lines. Overhead, the wide blades of the

helicopter flapped around and around, accompanied by little hissing

puffs of rocket smoke. They could see Boulton looking down at them from

the tiny cabin.

Russ was scooping up bits of soil to bring back for analysis when he saw

what seemed to be a wet patch on top of the wall. As he watched, it

spread until it reached the bottom. In a remarkably short time a whole

section of wall was gleaming wet. A patch of damp oiliness spread over

the floor.

"This I've got to get a sample of," said the rusty-haired astronomer. He

reached for a sampling bottle in his pocket, and at the same time the

patch of wetness spread to his shoes.

As Russ stepped forward, there was a sucking sound, and he lifted a

thick gummy mass that was stuck to his sole. He shook his foot, set it

down, and lifted the other, but it, too, was imbedded in thick slime.

The stuff now was running up his ankle.

"Hey!" he called out, and swung one foot vigorously to free it. More

swiftly than he could move, the whole patch slid down the wall and swept

around him. It was moving up his legs, as if trying to envelop him.

"It's alive!" he shouted, and grabbed for the knife in his belt. In vain

he tried to slash out. "It's like a giant amoeba that engulfs its food!

Get it off me!"

But the knife was ineffective. He fired his pistol, but the thing was

just a vast wide puddle of slime, without brain, heart or organ that

could be harmed. The soles of Russ's boots were already half eaten away

and his socks were going fast. Some of it was touching the skin of his

knees.

He screamed as the stuff burned him.

Burl had joined the attack with his knife, but leaped back when that

proved useless. His mind raced for a way to help. Above them, Boulton

was swinging the helicopter down so Russ could hoist himself out of

harm's way, but time would not permit it. In another instant the mass

would have Russ.

Burl grabbed at the straps crossing his shoulder and swung the two

oxygen tanks from his back. He snatched one from its leather holster,

and pointed its nozzle at the mass of slime. He turned the stream of

oxygen on, and then, taking his pistol, held its muzzle in the jet of

oxygen and fired it.

The roar of the gun was matched by the roar of a stream of fire that

shot from the tank. Wherever the burning jet of oxygen touched, the mass

shriveled and blackened. Yards and yards of amoeba seemed to writhe,

hump upward in agony, and pull away.

There was a ring of burned white along the ground, a sickening smell in

the air, but the thing was dead.

Russell Clyde grabbed the ladder as it swung toward him, and climbed up.

The soles of his boots were gone and the sides were strings of raw,

half-eaten leather. His legs and knees bore ugly patches of red where

the slime had touched.

"Well done!" called Boulton to Burl from the cabin. "Come on up before

something else comes along!"

Burl grabbed the ladder. He took two steps on the swaying, swinging rope

as the helicopter started to climb and suddenly he felt himself losing

strength. He became dizzy and tried to hold on, but began to lose

consciousness. Dimly he heard Boulton yell at him, "The oxygen, the

other tank, turn it on!"

The second tank was still dangling from his chest.

Fighting for consciousness, Burl twisted the nozzle. There was a hiss

and he felt air blow against him. Miraculously, his senses cleared, and

holding the oxygen tank tight against him, he climbed up the ladder and

into the safety of the helicopter.