Trapped on Venus by Carl Conrad Read Free Book Online Page B

or... hungry? Or maybe both?” Scott was
looking for a clue, some thread that might unravel the entire mystery. He was
trying to remain calm but felt the weight of time pressing ever greater on him.
They had to find an answer!
      “I don’t know, Scott.
I don’t know. What difference does it make, anyway? We’ve got to get out of
here. We haven’t got time to...”
      “Marty!” Scott yelled.
Marty was startled by the force of Scott’s voice and broke off in mid-sentence.
“Marty, listen to me! That’s the only way we’re going to get out of here – to
use our heads, to figure out what they are or why they’re here. I’m not playing
a quiz game – we’ve got to know! Think! Don’t just stand there – think! Why are
they here? What do they want? Anything – spill it. Anything you’ve seen, you’ve
noticed...”
      Marty turned back to
look at the creatures, staring, thinking. “It’s impossible, Scott. There’s no
sense to it, no reason. It’s useless. They must be intelligent, but... how?
What? What does it mean? What good is it up here?”
      Marty continued to
watch them slowly undulate in the pools, watching closely, thinking, looking
for a clue, an indication of some kind.
      “I’m sure they’re
intelligent, Scott. At least they must be able to communicate with each other. Look
at them – how they seem to sense each other, how they change colors all the
time. It... it’s like they’re talking, like they’re alive. I think they’re
intelligent, Scott, I really do. And, I’ll bet we can communicate with them if
we try. But, how?”
      “Colors! Maybe colors
will do it,” Scott suggested. “The way they’re always changing colors, maybe
that’s how they communicate. It’s worth a try, anyway. They seem to...”
      “But how, Scott? We
don’t have anything out here to make colors with. Besides, what colors? How? We
can’t just...”
      “Well think, Marty!
Think! There must be something. We don’t have much time left... How about
shapes, or size, or... or... shade? That’s it – shade! If we can use our
shadows, get them to block out the Sun, maybe we can get them to understand
that we don’t want to harm them. Or, maybe it’ll frighten them off and they’ll
leave us alone.”
      Marty’s eyes skipped
across the surface. “We can’t Scott. The Sun’s almost directly overhead. We’d
have to get above them to do that.”
      “What about an awning,
or sunshade of some kind? If we could only... The sample bags!” Scott thought
aloud, suddenly. “Marty, we could use the sample bags!”
      “It would never work,
Scott. We couldn’t get close enough to them to do any good. You saw how they
reacted when we tried it before.”
      “There’s got to be a
way. We can’t just give up without trying!”
      They were both aware
of that one, cold, unwavering fact – they had to find a way to
    get back to the ship. The bulbous lumps of gelatin continued
to throb in the pools, looming ominously like great quagmires of sludge as they
blocked all hope of escape. Marty and Scott were without ideas, without
comprehension of these mysterious creatures, yet felt the breathless tick of
each second as it swept by.
      Scott looked out at
the three creatures again, then glanced down at his watch – nine and a half
minutes left....
      “What about sound,
Marty? Maybe they communicate by sound – some kind of ultrasonic vibrations,
something they don’t need vocal chords for.”
      “But, the atmosphere
isn’t dense enough to transmit sound, Scott. I’ve checked it out. There isn’t
any....”
      “The ground! What
about the ground? Vibrations travel through anything solid. Maybe we can get
through to them by stomping on the surface. It might scare them off or at least
make them move! Let’s try it, Marty. Let’s try it! We’ve got nothing to lose.”
      The astronauts pounded
their feet as vigorously as they could on the dusty crust, watching to see if
there