Astounding Science Fiction (UK Edition) — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

6 | ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION ship and proceed as best they might in the amphibious crawler in the hold. Suddenly he caught sight of a curious arrangement of naked stones near the crest of one of the tilted plateaus. “That’s a funny outcropping,” he began. “it looks for all the world like—” The rest of the sentence died on his lips, for Lorimer came suddenly to life. The man was crazed with fear. He dashed across the room, screaming in hysterical frenzy. “I won’t let myself be murdered,” he howled. “You are not going through with this madness!” Travis and Hartley hurled themselves at him, but Hartley’s flying tackle and Travis’ vicious uppercut landed too late. The dam- age was done. Lorimer slumped back into unconsciousness, but it was by the eerie light reflected from the still glowing visiscreen. Everything else was dark. The magnetoscope was dead. Lorimer’s wildly clawing hands had managed to yank half the switches on the panel open. The emergency lights slowly blinked on, but meter pointers still oscil- lated wildly, especially those having to do with the magnetic circuits. The abrupt in- terruption of.the current had set up mag- netronic eddies that would not die down for minutes. “Get the supersonics going again if you can,’ said Travis between his teeth, “but it looks as if I'll have to land this baby blind.” He cursed fervently, trying to recall all the varied detail of the topography he had been studying. But there was no time for reasoned action. The altimeter reading stood at a bare kilometer, and was dropping fast. Before he could get the vessel under con- trol it lurched heavily to the crackle of snapping branches and the scraping of tree- tops along the underside of the hull. The lurch turned into a bucking forward fall punctuated by many jolts and bumps. For a moment the ship seemed to tear itself clear but only to go into free fall. There was the briefest sickening instant of thudding im- pact, and their voyage was ended. With a squishy thud and a lazy roll, the ship came to rest. Travis and Hartley sat up in the respective corners into which they had been pitched and listened. To their ears came the steady lapping of water alongside their keel and the patter of raindrops on the roof. “So this is Venus!” said Hartley, wryly. “Uh-huh,” grunted Travis, hauling him- self to his feet. “So it seems. Better got the beacon set up. I’ll take stock.” “Dismal place,” was Hartley’s comment. He was gluey mud to his midriff, having just climbed back into the entry port. Back of him was a curtain of hot rain that splashed to the ground only to rise in- stantly in clouds of steamy vapor. Dimly seen below was the crawler, itself mired to the hubs of the half-track rotors. Gurg- ling rivulets of water ran past it toward a larger stream they could hear roaring in the background. Vision stopped five yards away. Beyond that was only uncanny yellowish light, of equally mild intensity in every direction. Sogginess, and a dispiriting sort of amber semi-light was the keynote of Venus. “What’s the lay?” asked Travis. A dis- tinctly chastened Lorimer peered over his shoulder. “Trees, mostly. Unbelievable trees,” said Hartley. “The California redwoods would be saplings here. If it’s organics they want, we've got em. Shade doesn’t seem to mean anything here with the light evenly diffused the way it is, because between the. big trees there are all sorts of others, some with fruits like melons, And _ underneath everything is giant brush. Gosh. The going is plenty tough. I’m glad we don’t have to survey this planet inch by inch.” “We'd better get going with the Maggy, then,” said Travis. “Lorimer helped me set it up. All we need now is the pantos and your expert assistance.” Hartley washed the worst of the mud off him and then followed Travis up the ladder that led to the dome hatch. The instrument rested on the flatter part of the roof, shielded from the downpour by a hastily stretched tarpaulin. By it stood the box that was to receive the scale relief map the Maggy was to construct. It was a three- sided, open-topped affair, made of plates of transparent synthetic crystal. Travis fastened the pantograph’s arms to lugs ex- tending out of the magnar’s side, and at- tached the quills at their tips. When he finished the rigging, the pantos extended out into the receiving box. “We'd be sunk without our Maggy,” said Travis, gazing at the veil of water that poured down on all sides. “‘Driscoll’s men brought along a flock of infrared equip- ment and bolometers, but even with those they will find surveying this country a tough job. What the—” The ship groaned and trembled beneath them, and they were shaken until their teeth rattled. They had to cling at the Ccomiclbooks.c©