Page:Weird Tales Volume 3 Number 1 (1923-12).djvu/44



E DROPPED swiftly. Down we went through that attenuated atmosphere which shares but slightly in the planet's axial spin; down into those strata which, with depth, move ever more swiftly to the eastward, and yet from below are east winds; and at last into that region of cloud.

"Looks like home," smiled Henry Quainfan.

"Home!" ejaculated St. Cloud. "Good Lord!"

"Well, it's a world—a terrestrial world. Land and water, hills and valleys, forests and mountains—and sun and cloud.

"What's wrong with it, Morgan?" he added.

"Oh, it looks all right," returned St. Cloud. "But—"

He stared down in silence.

"You were butting, Morgan," suggested Henry.

"Yes," said St. Cloud; "I thought of something—but we'll soon be there to see."

The world below had indeed an earth-like aspect, and I wondered if there were any intelligent creatures down there looking up at the Hornet, which was descending toward a lake coruscant in the rays of the great Venusian sun. In the east there was a stupendous mountain wall. The height of it was awful. But the point toward which we were descending claimed my attention, and this point was a little island, separated from the mainland by a narrow ribbon of water.

Lower and lower the Hornet sank, as gently as a snowflake falling; and at last, with an agitation of tiny trees and of foliage, it came to rest on the landward shore of the island.

Our long journey was at an end. We had traversed that awful and ever-changing gap which lies between Terra and Venus, and were safe and sound—with Heaven only knew what of adventure, discovery (and perhaps horror) before us.

In awe we pressed to the thick glass and looked out upon this alien world. It was indeed as if we had landed in some tellurian intertropical region. Here earth-like trees rose up; the sunlight glittered on the brilliant, luxuriant foliage; clouds dotted the blue immensity above; and the placid sheet of water glimmered in the sunlight.

"Water—trees—beauty—life!" murmured Morgan St. Cloud. "God moves in mysterious ways. Perhaps—who knows?—souls!"

"Of course," I said.

"See 'em yet, Rider?" Henry Quainfan asked.

"Grin away," I told him, "But would the Creator have made all this," and I waved a hand toward that sunlit beauty outside, "for nothing?"

"If anything is made for nothing, then nothing is made for anything," said he. "But that doesn't prove that this world must be the abode of human beings."

"You'll see."

"Of course I'll see," he smiled.

"By Jo," came St Cloud's exclamation, "look at that!"

"What?" we asked, moving to his window.

"Look at that Gargantuan Cypripedium!"

"Oh," said Henry, a note of disappointment, I thought, in his voice.

For my part, I wondered what in the world this Cypripedium thing was. I don't know what I expected to see, but what I did see, thirty or forty feet distant in the gloom of the forest was the largest and most gorgeous orchid that any eye ever saw.

"What a beauty!" exclaimed Morgan.

"Planted by the goddess Flora herself," Henry nodded. "But what I would like to see is animal life—something that moves!"

"Of course," concurred St. Cloud. "Haven't seen even a mosquito, though."

"Here's hoping we don't! But what are we staying in here for, bottled up like so many Cartesian imps?"

"What do you think of this Venusian air?" queried St. Cloud. "As dense as some have supposed? If it is, it may knock us flat."

"Nothing like that," Henry told him, "though it may render our breathing more or less difficult. But we'll soon find that out; there's the valve, you know."

Henry moved toward it forthwith.

"Suppose," said St. Cloud, "that we can't live in this world after all, even though it is so much like our own. You know, it is possible that there may be some—"

"Possible but highly improbable," Henry said. "Here goes to see!"

Came a faint hissing sound—which, however, died away almost instantly—and a strange feeling of suffocation in throat and lungs.

"How much more?" said St. Cloud, a little anxiously.

And I caught at that curious change in his voice.

"We've got it all now," Henry returned after a brief pause.

That change was in his voice, too—due, of course, to the density of the Venusian atmosphere.

This change, however, was not one of volume; it was merely a curious reverberating quality, and by no means one pronounced. Indeed, it was faint, elusive as curious; in a time surprisingly short we were unaware of any difference.

Also, that difficulty we experienced in breathing gradually passed away, though this took place much more slowly than the other; indeed, it was some days before respiration became normal.

"Now to issue!" exclaimed Henry Quainfan, leaving the valve and moving towards the door.

St. Cloud and I pressed after him—crowded so close that I fancy we impeded his movements as he proceeded to unloosen the fastenings.

He worked swiftly; that steel-rimmed glass disk moved inward on its hinges—and (romantic vision) Henry Quainfan stuck his head out.