SPAWN OF THE VENUS SEA
By HARRY WALTON
What was this ghastly inhabitant of Venus'
Dead Sea—this multiple-life monstrosity.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1941.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
With a tremendous snap, the taut steel cable humming in over the sternsheaves suddenly leaped high. The winch screamed briefly as the cableskipped its guides. Before power could be shut off it had snarledbadly, and the frayed end of it had thrashed a splintery dent into theMermaid's deck.
By this time, Second Mate Stanley Kort reflected grimly, the net itselfhad probably bottomed on the floor of Venus's largest ocean—the MoloIvrum, or Deadly Sea, thus named for the paradoxical reason that itteemed with life, most of it decidedly unpleasant.
Hands clenched, Kort stared from the plaskon windows of the wheelhouse.Through the thin haze blanketing the deck he could see net tenders andseamen stolidly staring forward. The cable lay in a vicious tanglebetween winch house and stern. Nobody looked at it.
They were waiting for orders, as they always waited when Kort held deckcommand. Were Hodge up here, or even Pratt, the third mate, the nettenders would have laid hold of the snarled steel by now. With Kort itwas different.
Or was it he who was different, he who hadn't been trained in thehard school of this sort of seamanship? A man who'd won his papers inpassenger service wasn't wanted aboard a floating cannery. Kort wishedhe had known a month ago how it would be. He should have left Venusafter being discharged from the Corinthia, instead of trying to startanew in the cannery service.
His clenched fist opened.
"Break out a magnetic!" The deck speakers amplified his voice tostentorian volume, galvanized the crew into sullen action. Menuntangled the steel, spliced a new length to it, and swung the magneticgrapple over the side.
With the grapple magnets drawing two hundred amps, the ship swung ina clumsy circle. Half an hour passed, marked only by the screech ofcannery boilers popping off every five minutes. From forward came thestench of cleaning platforms, the "clop-plop" of trimming machinery.
Then the rain, pelting down in drops big as grapes. They splashedroaringly upon the deck, drummed upon the wheelhouse windows likefurious fingers. The Mermaid seemed to squat lower in the water underthe weight of the storm.
Abruptly a red lamp flashed. Kort was out of the pilot house almostbefore the engine room, answering his signal, had reversed theturbines. In helmet and plaskon overalls he fought his way aft.
At the stern rail Kort watched the cable come in, dripping steel curlitself over the drums. Finally the grapple broke the frothy surface ofthe sea. To it clung the lost net, and Kort felt a moment of amazedgratitude for that bit of luck. For once the Mermaid had beenfortunate. Ships sometimes spent hours in futile grappling.
Tenders seized the net, spread it as the winch hauled in. It was ninetenths up when Kort, watching for anything that might jam the rollers,signaled the winch-man to stop.
The thing might have been a giant slug. Thick as a man's arm, it wasso entangled in the net that any estimate of its length was sheerguesswork. One end tapered to a featureless snout, the other flattenedto a broad, finned tail. Its color was a dingy, bloodless white. Korthad never seen anything like it before