Spacewrecked on Venus by Neil R. Jones (classic books to read TXT) 📖

Interplanetary commerce, if and when it begins, will be fraught with all of the dangers that accompany pioneering expeditions. There will be the terrible climatic conditions on other worlds to be faced, strange beasts and plants; and perhaps desperate and greedy men. That was the case when every new land was opened on earth and it may be expected to be true when we conquer the solar planets.

Mr. Jones understands these things well. His vivid imagination, his sense of a good story and his knowledge of what may be expected upon other worlds combine to make this a novel and exciting yarn. And, as is always desired, it comes to a smashing finish with a surprising ending.

His scientific weapons are quite novel, but so realistically does he portray them, that they strike one as being quite possible and likely to be used at some future time.

I stood looking from the space ship into the dense fog banks which rolled about us. We were descending through the dense cloud blanket of Venus. How near we actually were to the ground I did not know. Nothing but an unbroken white haze spread mistily, everywhere I looked.

With jarring suddenness, a terrific shudder throbbed the length of the C-49, rattling the loose articles on the desk nearby. The dictatyper, with which I had lately been composing a letter, crashed violently to the floor. I reeled unsteadily to the door. It was nearly flung open in my face.

"Hantel!"

Captain Cragley steadied himself on the threshold of my room. The captain and I had become intimate friends during the trip from the earth. In his eyes I saw concern.

"What's wrong?" I queried.

"Don't know yet! Come—get out of there, man! We may have to use the emergency cylinder!"

I followed Cragley. The crew, numbering seven, were gathered in the observation chamber. Most of the passengers were there too.

The C-49 carried twelve passengers, all men, to the Deliphon settlement of Venus. In the earlier days of space travel, few women dared the trip across space.

Several of the crew worked feverishly at the controls above the instrument board.

"What's our altitude?" demanded Cragley.

"Fifteen thousand feet!" was the prompt reply. "Our drop is better than a hundred feet a second!"

Worried wrinkles creased the kindly old face of Captain Cragley. He debated the issue not one moment.

"Into the emergency cylinder—everybody!"

Herding the passengers ahead of them, Cragley's men entered a compartment shaped like a long tube, ending in a nose point. When we were buckled into a spiral of seats threading the cylinder, Cragley pulled the release lever. Instantly, the cylinder shot free of the doomed C-49. For a moment we dropped at a swifter pace than the abandoned ship. After that, our speed of descent was noticeably decreased.

Peering at the proximity detector, Cragley announced that we were quite safe from a collision. The C-49 was far below us and dropping fast.

"No danger now," he assured the passengers. "We'll come down like a feather. Then all we have to do is radio Deliphon to send out a ship for us."

Cragley was equal to the situation. In this year of 2342, when the days of pioneer space flying were commencing to fade into history, it required capable men to cope with interplanetary flight. If Cragley brought his crew and passengers safely through this adversity and also salvaged the valuable cargo of the C-49, it was another feather in his cap.

Quentin, second to Cragley in command, labored over the sending apparatus. Quentin looked up at his superior officer with an uneasy expression. The captain was quick to sense trouble.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't like the looks of this," was Quentin's reply. "The sender refuses to function properly. I can do nothing with it."

Cragley's face bore a troubled look. He stepped to the side of his subordinate for a hasty inspection of the radio sender.

"The receiver plate doesn't light up, either," said Quentin. "Looks to me as though someone has been tampering with this."

In their spiral of seats, the passengers looked silently and gravely upon the cylinder base where Cragley and his staff were gathered over the apparatus. A dull glow of cloudy light coming in through the transparent interstices of the descending cylinder softened and counteracted the glow of the radium lights. An intangible feeling of depression hung in the air.

"Elevation, five hundred feet!" announced one of the crew from his position at the altitude dial.

"Make a landing," ordered Cragley. "We can't be very far from where the C-49 fell. If there's enough of the ship left, we may be able to discover the cause of this accident."

Down through the lush vegetation, the cylinder felt its way, dropping very slowly. Finally it came to rest on a knoll.

"How far are we from the ship?" queried the captain.

"About seventeen hundred feet south of it, I'd say."

"We'll go outside and get organized. We've got to get that platinum shipment off the C-49 and get into communication with headquarters at Deliphon somehow. The proximity detector tells us we're over two hundred miles from there."

One of the passengers spoke up with a suggestion. "Can't we go the rest of the way in this? You can send back for what's left of the ship. I've an important reason for arriving in Deliphon quickly. If—"

"Not a chance," cut in Cragley, both amused and annoyed. "The cylinder wouldn't take us anywhere. All the cylinder is good for is an emergency descent. It has no driving power."

Preparations were made for a trip to the wrecked space ship.

"Might I go with you and the men, Captain?" I ventured.

"Sure, Hantel, come along! I'll have to leave part of the crew here with the passengers and the cylinder, so I'm glad to have a few volunteers."

"Count on me, then," another of the passengers spoke up.

I recognized him as Chris Brady. He was a man about my own age, possibly younger, perhaps in his late twenties. Brady and I had become friends during the trip, having spent many hours together. This was my second trip to the clouded planet. Brady had made many trips to Venus, spending considerable time among the colonies. I had learned much about the man which had interested me.

Our party consisted of Cragley, Brady, three of the crew, four other passengers and myself. Well armed, we set out through the yellow jungle in search of the remains of the C-49. Quentin insisted that it was not far away according to the proximity detector which was especially attuned to the bulk and metal composition of the space ship.

Progress was difficult in spots, and we found it necessary to hack our way through lush growths of vegetation, taking numerous detours around interlaced verdure. We were out of sight of the cylinder almost immediately.

One of the passengers who had volunteered to accompany us complained at the prospects of becoming lost. Cragley calmed the man's anxiety with a brief explanation of the directometer he carried. It was an elaborate perfection of the old compass. On a square plate, our position was always designated in relation to the C-49. By telescopic condensation of the field, Cragley was capable of bringing Deliphon on the instrument. It was well over two hundred miles beyond us.

"If Quentin doesn't have that televisor fixed by the time we get back, we are in a jam."

"There's the ship!"

We looked where the pointing arm of Brady designated. The wrecked space ship lay imbedded in the murky waters of a swamp, fully one-third of its bulk out of sight. Above, the torn and tangled mass of vegetation bore witness to the rapid descent of the craft. Mighty branches were torn away from giant trees. The ship itself was enwrapped by interlaced creepers which it had ripped loose from the upper foliage.

We waded through warm, stagnant water which teemed with marine life. We were halfway to the side of the C-49 when a cry from behind startled me into action. I turned and stared into the gaping jaws of a terrifying serpent wriggling through the shallow water on many legs. Several electric pistols flashed almost simultaneously. The loathesome monster turned belly up, floating dead upon the surface of the swamp water.

From then on, we advanced more cautiously. Coming alongside the crushed hull of the interplanetary liner, we made an inspection of its position. The space ship lay nearly right side up, the decks slanting a bit sharply to one side. Upon the outer deck of the C-49, Cragley scratched his head and looked the situation over.

"Not so bad as I'd feared," was his comment. "Wouldn't be much else but junk here if it hadn't been for the jungle breaking the fall." Cragley pointed upward to the strong barrier of interlaced foliage. "I hope to discover just why it was we fell."

"Wasn't there an explosion?" I inquired. "There was a great shock just before you opened the door to my stateroom. For a moment I thought we'd struck the planet."

"Yes—there was an explosion," Cragley replied, a bit reluctant to voice the admission. "It occurred somewhere in the mechanism operating our radium repellors. That's why the ship started falling. Its weight was left partly free against the gravity of Venus. We had to leave so quickly there was no time for inspection."

One by one, we descended into the wrecked C-49. In that part of the ship which lay lowest below water level, tiny streams of dirty water trickled between wrenched plates, forming pools of water which rose slowly about us. Cragley and his men inspected the radium repellors. They whispered strangely among themselves. A steely glint shone resolutely in Captain Cragley's eyes.

"There's deviltry been done here," he stated fiercely. "The C-49 was deliberately wrecked by someone on board!"

Heavy silence followed his words. One of the crew returned from the vault room. He announced to the captain that the C-49's shipment of platinum was intact as they had left it. Captain Cragley turned the matter over in his mind. He was an astute man. Having smelled out a conspiracy, he was planning the best way he knew to thwart it. The platinum itself presented an obvious motive. Finally he spoke.

"You passengers are to go up into the observation room and wait for us. Under no condition are you to leave the room and wander about the ship."

Captain Cragley's orders were obeyed to the letter.

In the observation chamber, Brady asked my opinion of the discovery Captain Cragley had made. "What's up, anyways?"

I shook my head. Brady was plainly nervous. Others of the passengers who had accompanied us shared his apprehension. Fully a half hour had passed and still Cragley and his men put in no appearance. Outside, myriads of life flew, crawled and swam about the damaged craft.

Presently, Cragley and his three men emerged from the lower levels of the C-49. They presented an uncouth spectacle bedraggled as they were with grime and dirty water. In their arms they carried many small boxes. Though small, each box was extremely heavy, being loaded with a fortune in platinum bars.

"We'll return to the cylinder," said Cragley. "There's important work to be done."

Once more we trudged back through the swamp and jungle, following the trail we had made. Several times, huge shadowy forms flapped on the wing overhead, but there was no attack. Back at the cylinder, Captain Cragley ordered every man out into the open. He drew their attention.

"There's serious business here," he said slowly, his eyes darting from face to face. "I want the man, or men who wrecked the C-49!"

The captain snapped out the final words. Surprise, terror and alarm registered among the passengers, but Cragley evidently saw no admissions of guilt.

"The man who is responsible for our present condition owns this!" exclaimed Cragley suddenly. From behind him where he had been concealing it, he drew forth a square box studded with knobs and dials. "I know which one of you owns this. It was found hidden in his room by one of my men."

Again Cragley watched for a betraying face. At the time, I doubted Cragley's statement that he knew who owned the box. If he knew, I asked myself, why was it he did not come right out and make an accusation with whatever evidence he held? But that was not Cragley's way.

"We've also uncovered his two accomplices," continued the captain in cool, level tones. "There