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Title: A vision of Venus
Author: Otis Adelbert Kline
Illustrator: Leo Morey
Release date: October 31, 2026 [eBook #79886]
Language: English
Original publication: Chicago, IL: Teck Publications. Inc., 1933
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79886
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A VISION OF VENUS ***
A Vision of Venus
By OTIS ADELBERT KLINE
Illustrated by MOREY
_This is a very nice story, verging on the short, short order, and
will be enjoyed by all of our readers. We have not had a story by
Mr. Kline for some time and we are sure this one will be welcome.
There is a love motif, but not of an order to excite opposition
from our readers._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories December 1933.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Dr. Morgan, scientist and psychologist, stared fixedly into the crystal
globe before him, as he sat in the study of his strange mountain
observatory.
For many years, he had been communicating with people on Mars and Venus
by means of telepathy, and recording these communications.
Just now, he had established _rapport_ with Lotan, a young plant
hunter for the Imperial Government of Olba, the only nation on Venus
which had aircraft. He was seeing with Lotan's eyes, hearing with his
ears, precisely as if this earthly scientist were Lotan the Olban.
The electrodes of his audiophoto thought recorder were clamped to his
temples, and every thought, every sense impression of Lotan's was, for
the time, Dr. Morgan's.
Lotan's little one-man flier was behaving badly. He had just come
through a terrific storm in which he had lost his bearings. His
navigating instruments were out of commission and his power-mechanism
was growing weaker. It would be necessary for him to land and make
repairs soon.
For many months he had sought the _kadkor_, that rare and valuable food
fungus which had once been cultivated in Olba, but had been wiped out
by a parasite. His sovereign had offered him the purple of nobility
and a thousand _kantols_ of land, if he would but bring him as many
_kadkor_ spores as would cover his thumb nail. But so far his quest had
been fruitless.
Far below him the Ropok Ocean stretched its blue-green waters for miles
in all directions--a vast expanse of sea and sky that teemed with life
of a thousand varieties. There were creatures of striking fantastic
beauty and of terrifying ugliness. A number of large, white birds, with
red-tipped wings and long, sharply curved beaks, skimmed the water in
search of food. Hideous flying reptiles, some with wing-spreads of more
than sixty feet, soared quite near the flier, eyeing it curiously as if
half minded to attack. They would scan the water until they saw such
quarry as suited them, then, folding their webbed wings and dropping
head first with terrific speed, would plunge beneath the waves, to
emerge with their struggling prey and leisurely flap away.
The sea itself was even more crowded with life. And mightiest of all
its creatures was the great _ordzook_, so immense that it could easily
crush a large battleship with a single crunch of its huge jaws.
But these sights were no novelty to Lotan, the botanist. What he
hoped to see, and that quickly, was land. Failing in this, he knew by
the way the power-mechanism was acting, that he would soon be compelled
to settle to the surface of the Ropok probably to be devoured, ship and
all, by some fearful marine monster.
Presently he caught sight of a tiny islet, and toward this he directed
his limping ship with all the force of his will. For his little craft,
which looked much like a small metal duck boat with a glass globe
over the cockpit, was raised, lowered, or moved in any direction by a
mechanism which amplified the power of telekinesis, that mysterious
force emanating from the subjective mind, which enables earthly
mediums to levitate ponderable objects without physical contact. It
had no wings, rudder, propeller or gas chambers, and its only flying
equipment, other than this remarkable mechanism, were two fore-and-aft
safety parachutes, which would lower it gently in case the telekinetic
power failed.
Normally the little craft could travel at a speed of five hundred miles
an hour in the upper atmosphere, but now it glided very slowly, and
moreover was settling toward the water alarmingly. Lotan exerted every
iota of his mind power, and barely made the sloping, sandy beach when
the mechanism failed altogether.
As he sprang out of his little craft, Lotan's first care was for his
power-mechanism. Fortunately the splicing of a wire which had snapped
repaired the damage.
* * * * *
He looked about him. At his feet the sea was casting up bits of
wreckage. It was evident that a ship had gone to pieces on the
reef--the work of the recent storm. The body of a drowned sailor came
in on a comber. But it did not reach the shore, for a huge pair of
jaws emerged from the water, snapped, and it was gone. In the brief
interval he recognized the naval uniform of Tyrhana, the most powerful
maritime nation of Venus.
Then his attention was attracted by something else--tracks, freshly
made, leading from a large piece of wreckage across the soft sand and
into the riotous tangle of vegetation that clothed the interior. They
were small--undoubtedly the tracks of a woman or boy.
Lotan followed, resolved to try to rescue this marooned fellow-being,
before taking off.
He plunged into a jungle that would have appeared grotesque to earthly
eyes. The primitive plants of Venus, which bear no fruits, flowers nor
seeds, but reproduce solely by subdivision, spores or spawn, assume
many strange and unusual forms and colors. Pushing through a fringe of
jointed, reed-like growths that rattled like skeletons as he passed,
he entered a dense fern-forest. Immense tree-ferns with rough trunks
and palm-like leaf crowns, some of which were more than seventy feet
in height, towered above many bushy varieties that were gigantic
compared to the largest ferns of earthly jungles. Climbing ferns hung
everywhere, like lianas. Creeping ferns made bright green patches on
the ground. And dwarf, low-growing kinds barely raised their fronds
above the violet-colored moss which carpeted the forest floor.
The trail was plain enough, as the little feet had sunk deeply into
the moss and leaf-mould. It led over a fern-clothed rise to lower
marshy ground, where fungus growths predominated. There were colossal
toadstools, some of which reared their heads more than fifty feet above
ground, tremendous morels like titanic spear heads projecting from the
earth, squat puff-balls that burst when touched, scattering clouds
of tiny black spores, and grotesque funguses shaped like candelabra,
corkscrews, organ pipes, stars, fluted funnels and upraised human
hands.
But Lotan gave no heed to these. To him they were quite commonplace.
* * * * *
As he hurried along the trail, there suddenly came from the tangle
ahead a horrible peal of demoniacal laughter. It was quickly echoed
by a dozen others coming from various points in the fungoid forest.
He dashed forward, gripping his weapons, for he recognized the cry of
the hahoe, that terrible carnivore of the Venerian jungles. It had
discovered a victim and was summoning its fellows.
Like all Venerian gentlemen, Lotan wore a tork and scarbo belted to his
waist. The tork was a rapid-fire weapon about two feet long, of blued
steel. It was shaped much like a carpenter's level, and fired by means
of explosive gas, discharging needle-like glass projectiles filled with
a potent poison that would instantly paralyze man or beast. The scarbo
was a cutting, thrusting weapon with a blade like that of a scimitar
and basket hilt.
As he abruptly emerged into a little clearing, he saw a slender,
golden-haired girl who wore the silver and purple of nobility, clinging
to the cap of a tall fungus. Below her, snarling, snapping and leaping
upward, were a half dozen _hahoes_, huge brutes somewhat like hyenas,
but twice as large as any hyena that ever walked the earth, and far
more hideous. They had no hair, but were covered with rough scales of
a black color, and mottled with spots of golden orange. Each beast had
three horns, one projecting from either temple and one standing out
between the eyes. Two of them were gnawing at the stem of the fungus,
and had made such headway that it seemed likely to topple at any moment.
With a reassuring shout to the frightened girl, Lotan whipped out
his scarbo, and elevating the muzzle of his tork, pressed the firing
button. Horrid death-yells from the _hahoes_ followed the spitting of
the tork, as the deadly glass projectiles did their work. In less than
a minute four of the brutes lay dead at the foot of the fungus, and the
other two had fled.
But during that time, brief as it was, another flesh-eater of Venus,
far more fearful than the _hahoes_, had seen the girl and marked her
for its prey.
As Lotan looked upward, about to speak to the girl, she screamed in
deadly terror, for a man-eating _gnarsh_ had suddenly swooped downward
from the clouds. Seizing her in its huge talons, it flapped swiftly
away.
Lotan raised his tork, then lowered it with a cry of despair. For even
though he might succeed in killing the flying monster without striking
the girl, a fall from that dizzy height would mean sure death for her.
There was the bare possibility, however, that the _gnarsh_ would not
eat her until it reached its eyrie, which would be situated on some
inaccessible mountain crag. As there were no mountains on the island,
the monster would probably head for the mainland, and he could follow
in his flier.
He accordingly turned, and dashed back to where his airship lay.
Leaping into the cabin, he slammed the door. The little craft shot
swiftly upward to a height of more than two thousand feet. Already the
_gnarsh_ was more than a mile away, flapping swiftly westward with its
victim dangling limply.
* * * * *
Like an avenging arrow, the tiny craft hurtled after the flying
monster. As he came up behind it, Lotan drew his scarbo, and opening
the cabin door, leaned out.
[Illustration: _Like an avenging arrow, the tiny craft hurtled after
the flying monster._]
Almost before the _gnarsh_ knew of his presence, the botanist had flung
an arm around the girl's slender waist. With two deft slashes of his
keen blade, he cut the tendons that controlled the mighty talons. They
relaxed, and with a choking cry of relief, he dragged her into the
cabin. Turning his craft, he aimed his tork and sent a stream of deadly
projectiles into the flying monster. Its membranous wings crumpled, and
it fell into the sea.
Unconscious of what he was doing, the plant-hunter kept his arm around
the girl's waist--held her close. He slammed the door, and turning,
looked into her eyes. In them he read gratitude--and something more
that thrilled him immeasurably. With that brief look went the heart of
Lotan. He was drawing her nearer, crushing her to him, unresisting,
while the ship hurtled forward, when he remembered that she was of the
nobility, and he only a botanist. The jewels that glittered on her
garments would have ransomed a _rogo_[1]. And he was a poor man. He
released her.
[Footnote 1: King.]
"You are of Tyrhana?" he asked.
"I am Mirim, daughter of Zand, Romojak[2] of the Fleets of Tyrhana,"
she replied. "And you, my brave rescuer?"
[Footnote 2: Admiral.]
"Lotan, plant-hunter for His Imperial Majesty, Zinlo of Olba," he
replied. "My navigating instruments are out of commission, but when we
strike the shore line, which we are sure to do by proceeding westward,
I can find the way to Tyrhana and take you home."
* * * * *
"Home," she said, and there was a sob in her voice. "I have no home,
now. My mother died when I was born. My father went down with his ship
in the great storm that cast me on that terrible island. Now I return
to the loneliness of a great castle filled with slaves." Burying her
face in her hands, she burst into tears.
His arm encircled her grief-shaken body, and his hand stroked her soft,
golden hair.
"Mirim, I--" he began, then stopped resolutely. The gulf between them
was too great. Now if he had but found the _kadkor_ and won the reward,
he would be her equal--could ask her hand in marriage. He gasped, as
that which had been in the back of his mind, endeavoring to fight its
way into his objective consciousness, suddenly occurred to him. He
_had_ seen the _kadkor_. It had been a _kadkor_ that Mirim had climbed
to escape from the _hahoes_. But in the excitement of the moment his
mind had only registered the fact subjectively. Back there on that tiny
islet, now several hundred _kants_ away, was the object of his quest.
But he did not know its bearings, and had not even a compass to guide
him. He might search a lifetime and not find that islet again.
Presently the girl ceased her sobbing, sat up and began to adjust her
disheveled garments. She detached her belt pouch and handed it to him.
"Will you empty this for me, please?" she asked. "It came open and got
filled with some horrid gray spores."
Lotan looked at the spores, and his heart gave a great leap of joy, for
they were the spores of the _kadkor_, scraped from the gills of the
fungus by her open belt pouch as the girl had been dragged aloft.
"I'll keep these, if you don't mind," he said, "for to me they are
worth the purple, and a thousand _kantols_ of land. Moreover, they
give me the courage to say that which has lain in my heart since first
I looked into your eyes. I love you, Mirim. Will you be my wife?"
"Take me, Lotan," was all she said, but her lips against his told him
all.
THE END.
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