Some day there will be a legend like this.
Some day, from steamy Venus or arid Mars,
the shaking, awe-struck words will come
whispering back to us, building the picture
of a glory so great that our throats will
choke with pride—pride in the Men of Terra!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1950.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The Commander's voice went droning on, but Hague's fatigued brainregistered it as mere sound with no words or meaning. He'd been dazedsince the crash. Like a cracked phonograph, his brain kept playingback the ripping roar of jet chambers blowing out with a sickeninglurch that had thrown every man in the control room to the floor.The lights had flickered out, and a sickening elevator glide began asPatrol Rocket One smashed down through the Venusian rainforest roof,and crashed in a clearing blasted by its own hurtling passage.
Hague blinked hard and tried to focus his brain on what hard-facedCommander Devlin was saying, something about the Base and Odysseus,the mother ship.
"We've five hundred miles before we'll be in their vicinity, and everyyard of it we walk. Hunting parties will shoot food animals. All wateris to be boiled and treated with ultra-violet by my section. Thephotographers will march with the science section, which will continueclassifying and writing reports. No actual specimens will be taken. Wecan't afford the weight."
To Hague, the other five men seated around the little charting tableappeared cool, confidently ready to march through five hundred, or athousand miles of dark, unexplored, steaming Hell that is Venusianrainforest. Their faces tightset, icily calm, they nodded in turn asthe Commander looked at each one of them; but Hague wondered if his ownface wasn't betraying the fear lurking within him. Suddenly CommanderDevlin grinned, and pulled a brandy bottle from his pocket, uncorkingit as he spoke: "Well, Rocketeers, a short life and a merry one. Inever did give a damn for riding in these tin cans." The tension broke,they were all smiling, and saying they'd walk into the base camp withsome kind of a Venusian female under each arm for the edification ofOfficers' Mess.
Leaden doubt of his own untried abilities and nerve lay icy in Hague'sinnards, and he left after one drink. The others streamed from thebrightly lighted hatch a moment later. The Commander made a shortspeech to the entire party. Then Navigator Clark, a smiling, wirylittle man, marched out of the clearing with his advance guard. Theirvoices muffled suddenly as they vanished down a forest corridor thatlay gloomy between giant tree holes.
Commander Devlin slapped Hague cheerfully on the shoulder as he movedpast; and the second section, spruce and trim in blue-black uniforms,with silver piping, followed him. Crewmen Didrickson and Davis followedwith rifles and sagging bandoliers of explosive bullets crossing theirchests; and then Arndt, the lean craggy geologist, his arm in a sling,and marching beside him was rotund, begoggled Gault, the botanist.The little whippet tank clattered by next with Technician Whittakergrinning down at Hague from the turret.
"It pains me somethin' awful to see you walkin' when I'm ridin',"Whittaker piped over the whippet's clanking growl.
Hague grinned back, then pinched his nose between two fingers in theageless dumb show of disgust, pointed at the tank, and shook his headsadly. The two carts the whippet towed swayed by, and the rest of thecolumn followed; Bachmann, the doctor and Sewell, his beefy crotchetyassistant.