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POISON PLANET
by WILLIAM OBERFIELD
... It was only a muffled gun-shot, deep in the rank, fetid jungles of Venus--a single bullet from the gun of the gaunt, blazing-eyed man called Heinie. But it plunged the crew of the VENUS I into a Hell from which there was no return....
Captain James McBride didn't know exactly what to make of it at first. The first Earthmen ever to set foot on Venus, he and his crew had come armed to the teeth, fully prepared to fight wild elephants, giant tigers, pre-historic monsters or anything an imaginative mind might dream up.
When they found evidence of absolutely no danger at all they stood around with their heavy weapons and felt mighty foolish. The only signs of animal life were the small creatures that scampered right up to the men and chattered at them, unafraid, and birds more evident by sound than by sight. There were no trails made by giant animals, no heavy, frightening sounds in the jungle about them. Only a misty, drowsing calm.
The mist was always there, they were to find out later, steaming up from the wet ground by day and condensing in a blanket of life-giving water by night. Otherwise, Venus resembled mildly tropical Earth without storm and tempest. The lack of these made one think of thunder and lightning as some unseen, unknown entity bound to Earth alone in chains of gravity.
The only really unpleasant note was the condition of the ship in which they had come. The underside was a mass of twisted steel and buckled plates, where it had come down considerably harder than it had ever been intended to come down. It was something that could never take to space again, even if the "H" tanks hadn't been torn loose to gush out their contents.
Communication with Earth was out. A transmitter small enough to fit the ship and yet powerful enough to breach millions of miles of space, as well as penetrate two atmospheres, just wasn't made. The expedition was on its own.
The orders were conditional. If possible, they were to set up an outpost on Venus, as others had done several years before on Mars. Consisting mainly of scientists, the crew was to find out all it could about the new world. In one year the second ship would follow, bringing engineers and laborers. The scientists were to have, by that time, the information required to form the first colony quickly, wisely, and safely.
If confronted with insurmountable obstacles, they were to return at once to Earth with whatever information they might have as to the nature of the obstacles.
McBride grinned in spite of his regret over the loss of his ship and looked at the wreckage. That sort of made the orders unconditional.
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