Astounding Science Fiction (UK Edition) — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BLIND MAN'S BUFF say what was the length of the actual day. But the noon to noon intervals, and the regularity of the tidal earthquakes gave him the length of the mean day. Venus revolved about its axis once in every twenty-two hours and a few minutes. It was a triumph, of a sort. “The latitude here is about sixty-five degrees,” he told Hartley, jubilantly. “Yeh. What about the longitude?” “Zero—a hundred—anything I want to call it,’ grinned Travis. “Longitude is arbitrary. The first maps at home used the westernmost of the Azores for the kickoff point, thinking the world began there. Later the Americans used Washington, the French | Paris, and so on until they got together on Greenwich. It doesn’t matter really. The guy that states it first and hollers loudest wins.” . But Travis’ elation was short-lived. His figures were rough, but they had a clear trend. Every noon’s altitude was greater than on the day before. Venus’ axis was also tilted to the ecliptic. She had seasons. The sun was climbing in the sky, which meant it was spring. Travis groaned. He might have expected it, but it was a shock. He would have to track that elusive area of light for a full Venusian year—two- hundred and twenty-five terrestrial days— to establish the full curve. And it would take another year or two on top of that to make sure he was right. It was too long. Driscoll would beat him to the gun with an inferior survey. Once the deeds were passed the jig would be up. He frowned as he considered another difficulty. He would win over topography with astronomical latitude, given time, but at that his latitude was fuzzy. Within a degree or so was not good enough. It left a probable error of up to a hundred miles. He was wasting time. He had better drop this nonsense and tackle the slow but surer way of piecemeal triangulation. It was when he broke that news to Hartley that Hartley brought better news to him. “Say,” he said, “today I found this picture in the cellar of a house. We ought to break into that pyramid.” He produced a thin sheet of bronze on which was engraved a view of the central square. The lines were very fine, as if etched, and they depicted the great plaza as it must have looked in its days of glory. The massive pyramid dominated the picture, and throngs of people swarmed in the square, holding their hands up in apparent supplication. A group of what were prob- 13 ably priests stood on the sloping platform made by the truncation, looking down on the masses below. It was apparently the day of some great festival, but the significant feature was that it showed a large portal leading into the pyramid at the level of the street. Its wide doors were open, and the men and women were streaming into it. Travis studied the etching. The great door was delineated as being on the face of the pyramid immediately below the lowest side of the truncation, a great help. “Well,” he said, “this tells where to dig. Let’s get going.” Digging in the heavy, compact mud was hard going, but luckily it was not far. They hastened the work by rigging up a scraper and used the crawler for a drag. In the end they also had to employ the clumsy vehicle to batter in the heavy bronze leaves of the door, for they were securely fastened from within. Then the doors crashed in- ward and the crawler lunged through into the dim interior. They stopped and turned ~ on its spotlight. “It’s a temple, not a tomb,” pronounced Hartley. It was a huge cubical room, bare of all furnishing except a high altar reached by a flight of wide steps. Above the altar rose a pylon on whose face was a glittering sun- burst, evidently of pure gold and richly set with jewels. About the altar stood a few vases, and on the floor lay the smashed remnants of others. From them spilled mounds of gems of all colors that sparkled brilliantly under the beam of light. Travis swung the light around and swept the walls. On either side of the pylon were two huge embossed characters of the Venusian language, and around the entire room ran a wide frieze covered with or- namentation of interlaced hexagons and duodecagons. Every square foot of the walls underneath was given to elaborate mosaics. The -theme of most were battles, confirming the opinion already reached that the Venusians were a warlike people. One big picture represented a ceremony which might have been a coronation. The most revealing of all was the last they came to. It was done in dark-blue glazed tiles, and spangled with diamonds set in tiny silver rayed settings. Across it ran a wavy line of narrow gold ribbon, the highest point of which was adorned with a replica of the sun symbol. comiclooks ©