Sleepers Of Mars

‘Very little, sir.’

‘Well, you’ll have to learn—and quickly.’

After the business of disposing the bodies through the airlock was finished, he led me to the navigation-room. Half to himself, I heard him murmur:

‘I wonder which it was? Traill, I should guess. He’s the type.’

‘Beg your pardon, sir?’

‘I was wondering which of those two was the murderer.’

‘Murderer, sir?’ I said.

‘Murderer, Gratz, I said it, and I mean it. Surely you didn’t think those deaths were natural?’

‘They seemed natural.’

‘They were well enough managed, but there was too much coincidence. Somebody was out to wreck this trip and kill us all.’

‘I don’t see-’

‘Think, man; think! ’ he interrupted. ‘Suppose the secret of the Nuntia got out, in spite of all our care. There are plenty of people who would want her to fail.’

I flatter myself that I managed my surprise rather well. ‘Metallic Industries, you mean?’

‘Yes, and others. No one knows what may be the outcome of this voyage. There are a lot of people who find the world very comfortable as it is, and would like to keep it so. Suppose they had planted one of those men aboard.’

I shook my head doubtfully. ‘It wouldn’t do. It’d be suicide. One man couldn’t get this ship back to Earth.’

‘Nevertheless, I’m convinced that either Willis or Traill was planted in her to stop us succeeding.’

The idea that both the men were genuinely scared, and wanted only to get back to Earth, never touched him. I saw no reason to let it.

‘Anyway,’ he added, ‘we’ve settled with the murdering swine now—at the cost of three good, honest men.’

He took some charts from a drawer. ‘Now, come along, Gratz. We must get to work on this navigation. Who knows but that all our lives may soon depend on you?’

‘Who, indeed, sir?’ I agreed.

Another fortnight passed before the Nuntia at last dipped her nose into the clouds which had always made the nature of Venus’ surface a matter for surmise. By circling the planet several times, Captain Tanner had contrived to reduce our headlong hurtling to a manageable speed. After I had taken a sample of the atmosphere, which proved almost identical with that of Earth, I took my place close beside him, gaining a knowledge of how the ship must be handled in the air.

When the clouds closed in on our windows, to obscure the universe, we were travelling at little more than two hundred miles an hour, and despite our extended wings, required the additional support of vertical rockets. The Captain dropped cautiously upon a long slant. This, he had told me, would be the most nerve-racking part of the entire trip. There was no telling how far the undersides of the clouds were from the planet’s surface; he could depend on nothing but luck to keep the ship clear of mountains which might lurk unseen in our path.

He sat tensely at the control-board, peering into the baffling mist, ready at a moment’s notice to change his course, although we both knew that the sight of an obstacle would mean that it was too late. The few minutes we spent in the clouds were interminable. My senses drew so taut that it seemed they must snap. And then, when I felt that I could not stand it a moment longer, the vapours thinned, dropped behind, and we swept down at last upon a Venusian landscape.

Only it was not a landscape; for in every direction stretched the sea, a grey, miserable waste. Even our relief could not make the scene anything but dreary. Heavy rain drove across the view in thick rods, slashing at the windows and pitting the troubled water. Lead-grey clouds, heavy with unshed moisture, seemed to press down like great, gorged sponges which would wipe everything clean. Nowhere was there a darkling line to suggest land; the featureless horizon, which we saw dimly through the rain, was a watery circle.

The Captain levelled out and continued straight ahead at a height of a few hundred feet above the surface. There was nothing for it but to go on and hope that we should strike land of some kind. For hours we went on, and for all the difference it made to the scene, we might have been stationary. It was just a matter of luck. Unknowingly, we must have taken a line on which the open sea lay straight before us for thousands of miles. The rain, the vastness of the ocean, and the reaction after our journey through space, combined to drive us into depression. Was Venus, we began to ask ourselves, nothing but a sphere of water and clouds?

At last, I caught a glimpse of a dark speck away to starboard. With visibility so low, I could not be certain what it was, and we had all but passed it before I drew the Captain’s attention. Without hesitation, he swerved towards it, and we both anxiously watched it grow.

As we drew closer, it proved to be a hill of no great size, rising from an island of some five or six square miles. It was not such a spot as one would have chosen for a first landing, but he decided to make it. We were all thoroughly tired of our cramped quarters; a few days of rest and exercise in the open air would put new heart into us.