The death-winds of Venus screamed with glee as
George Main lay dying. Then the winds brought
strange shapes to haunt him—and a stranger hope—
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories July 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
George Main lay dying in the wreckage of the space-ship. Dying—andcursing the deadly wind of Venus. It had killed his mates. It wouldsoon have him.
The wind was trying to finish him off right now. It shrieked, moaned,whispered and shouted through the smashed hull where he sprawled in hisspace-suit. Laughed, too. The wind was a murderer—and was glad.
All but he were dead. Soon the grit-laden wind would bury them andtheir ship. Then all the effort, the skill, the faith—all theingenuity and labor expended on the expedition—would be wiped away, asinvisible as the wind that buried them.
Thinking of that, thinking back over each agonizing hour since hislanding on Venus, George Main wondered what he should have done, whathe could now do, to prevent the utter waste of their efforts and theirlives.
The wind was his enemy—and the wind couldn't even be seen. Only thedust it carried was visible. Too visible. Dust was so thick in theupper atmosphere that the scope-readers had mistaken dust-clouds forsolid ground.
With ports blinded by dust, the possibility of that error had beenobvious enough. The navigator knew the risk. He chanced it—and lostthe toss.
George knew he was still alive only because he'd acted like a childisheager-beaver. And had been tolerated by the others because he was thecrew's youngest member.
Ever since he could read and dream, he'd wanted to be the first manever to touch the soil of Venus. So, having no duties connectedwith setting down the ship, he'd gotten into his space-suit and hadwaited by a hatch. He was standing there when the ship went into thetwenty-mile free fall that smashed it.
George didn't know who opened the escape hatch and shoved him out. Thatman was dead, along with the rest of the crew. Unlike George's suit,the space-ship had no parachute.
He'd landed blind, in dust so thick he didn't know he was down till hegot there. For forty-eight hours he'd lain where he fell, waiting for alull in the storm so he could see the ship.
When the wind finally quit, the ship was already half buried. Thirsty,hungry, stinking in the hot suit, George had staggered over windrowafter windrow of dust to reach it.
He'd broken out an emergency-jug of water, found some uncontaminatedfood, erected within the hull a small gas-proof tent, and then passedout before he could crawl in the tent to eat and drink.
Later he'd gone out while the lull continued, to search for bodies.Like the hull itself, they were scattered over a wide area. Some werealready buried in dust. The wind had buried them.
The wind—the murdering wind. The wind of formaldehyde that poisonedevery drop of water it touched, every bit of food. The wind thatlimited George's supplies to unbroken containers—of which there weretragically few.
The wind mocked him, then and thereafter. It mocked his efforts to findthe ship's log and continue it. It mocked his efforts to live.
He tried to fight back. He lay prone and relaxed because that took lessoxygen. He lay in the suit and not in the tent because that took lessoxygen. He ate and drank but once a day because that took less oxygen.
So he had run out of water while there were still some potassium oxidesleft to refresh his thrice-breathed air, some oxygen for the tent.
George Main wanted to l