: Venus Enslaved by Wellman Manly Wade Hoskins Winfield Scott Illustrator - Science fiction; Adventure stories; Human-alien encounters Fiction; Space colonies Fiction; Venus (Planet) Fiction

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Venus Enslaved

What chance had the castaway Earthman and his crossbow-weaponed Amazons against the mighty Frogmasters of the Veiled Planet?

Black velvet infinity all around, punctured and patterned with the many-hued jewels of space--comforting, somehow, because they made the same constellation patterns you used to see on Earth. There was the Dipper, there Scorpio, there Orion. But the twinkle was shut off, as though every star had turned cold and silently watchful toward your impudent invasion of emptiness.

So big was the universe that the little recess which did duty for control-room, observation-point and living-cabin seemed even smaller than it was; which was very small indeed. Planter forgot the dizzy lightness of head and body, here beyond gravity, and turned his wondering eyes outward from where he lay strapped in his spring-jointed hammock, toward the firmament, and decided that there was nothing in all his past life that he would change if he could.

"Check blast-tempo," came the voice of Disbro just beyond his head, a high, harsh, commanding voice. "Check lubrication-loss and check sun-direction. Then brace yourself. We may land quicker than we thought."

Planter leaned toward the instrument panel that covered most of the bulkhead to the right of his hammock. The pale glow from the dials highlighted his face, young, bony, intent. "Blast-tempo adequate," he called back to Disbro. "Lubrication-loss about seven point two. Three point nine six degrees off sunward. Air loss nil."

"Who asked for air loss?" snubbed Disbro from his hammock forward. He was leaner than Planter, taller, older. Even in his insulated coveralls, bulking against whatever temperature or pressure danger might be threatened by the outer space, he was of a dangerous elegance of figure and attitude. His face, framed in tight, cushioned helmet, was so narrow that it seemed compressed sidewise--dark eyes crowded together with only a disdainful blade of nose between them, a mouth short but strong, a chin like the pointed toe of a stylish boot, a cropped black mustache. Back on lost Earth, Disbro had frightened men and fascinated women. His cunning crime-administration had been almost too neat for the police, but not quite; or he would not have been here, with his life barely held in his elegant fingertips.

"Venus plumb center ahead," he told Planter. "Have a look."

That last as if he were granting a favor. Planter twisted in the hammock. He saw the taut-slung cocoon that would be Disbro's netted body, the control board like a bigger, more complex typewriter where Disbro could reach and strike key-combinations to steer, speed or otherwise maneuver the ship.

Beyond, a great round port, at its middle a disk the size of a table-top. Against the black, airless sky, most of that disk looked as blue as the thinnest of milk. One smooth edge was brightened to cream--the sunward limb of Venus. But even the dimmer expanse showed fluffy and gently rippling, a swaddling of opaque cloud.

"That," said Disbro, "is our little gray home in the west."

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