"You mean the animals?" Johnny asked, rather enjoying the effect he was making. "Oh, they're friends of mine. You can let us in. They won't hurt anybody. I'm bringing a present to pay for Baba and make up for all the harm we did. Look." He took a packet of the claws and opened it. He let a handful of the claws run out of one hand into the other in a shining blue waterfall. Through the microphone he could hear his father and the other men gasp.
"Come in here quick," Frederick Watson's voice came back over the loudspeaker.
"Open the gates, please," Johnny repeated.
"But the rhinosaur! And the leopard!"
"They're friends of mine. They brought me here. They won't hurt anybody. I promise."
The big steel gate slowly opened. Riding on the back of one of the greatly feared rhinosaurs, Johnny entered the colony.
It seemed that everyone in the colony had heard of Johnny's strange return. Pioneers—men, women and children, hunters and guards—were hurrying toward the big gate. At the sight of the rhinosaur, a woman screamed and the crowd ran, scattering in all directions.
Captain Thompson, two other colonists and a hunter held their ground, their ato-tube pistols out.
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" Johnny shouted. Beneath him the rhinosaur trembled. "He won't hurt you. He's our friend." He stroked the arrow-bird on his shoulder. "Look! Even an arrow-bird!"
Slowly the ato-tube pistols that had been leveled at them were lowered. Hesitantly, one or two of the people began to move back toward the little group.
A woman came running toward Johnny. It was his mother. Tears were running down her face. Even she was finally stopped by the bewildering sight of her son surrounded by jungle animals.
"Let me down," Johnny clicked to the rhinosaur. The big animal lowered his head. A cry went up from the people as the leopardess bounded after him. Johnny threw his arms about his mother.
"Oh, Johnny, Johnny!" his mother said over and over, holding him tight against her armor. She stiffened as the mother leopard rubbed against them and the arrow-bird lit, for a moment, on her shoulder.
"Mother, I want you to meet my friends," Johnny said. "This is Mona, the leopardess, and her two cubs, Pat and Mike. And this is Skimpy, the monkey. I haven't named my arrow-bird yet." Then he spoke to the animals. "This is my mother."
Johnny's mother stood there a moment, too bewildered to speak. The leopardess licked her hand. Then Johnny led his mother to the rhinosaur.
"This is my friend Skorkin, the rhinosaur. He gave me a ride all the way here. Isn't he beautiful?" Then he clicked to the rhinosaur, "This is my mother."
The huge creature grunted.
"Skorkin said 'hello,'" Johnny said.
Her eyes wide with the strangeness of it all, Johnny's mother nodded a wordless greeting to the creature.
Just then Johnny heard a sound he had been waiting for. It was the sound of a basketball dropped from a height. He looked up to see Baba bounding along as fast as he could come. Johnny was off at a dead run to meet him, leaving his mother and the other animals behind.
The two of them met at top speed, and they met with such impact that both were tumbled to the ground in a heap of arms, legs, boy and bear. Both of them were laughing when they got to their feet.
"Oh, Baba, you bad little bear!" Johnny said. "I thought I'd never see you again!"
"And I!" Baba said.
"You shouldn't have come back here!" Johnny said. "I'll have to punish you right now!" He grabbed Baba suddenly by the leg, whirled him around and around above his head and threw him as high as he could in the air. Throwing his arms around as if frightened to death, the little bear whimpered and clicked. But just before he hit the ground he made himself into a ball, and bounced higher than Johnny had thrown him. Then, on the third bounce, he landed lightly on Johnny's shoulder.
Their delight was cut short by the sight of a fat bald man who glittered as he walked toward the crowd. For an instant Johnny was afraid. It was Trader Harkness. Then he remembered—the trader's days of power were over.
"Mr. Harkness," he called, "I've got something to show you."
"They said you had claws." The trader's little black eyes fixed their gaze on Johnny.
"Come on, I'll show everybody."
The crowd parted for Johnny and Baba and the trader. By this time almost all the colonists and visiting hunters were gathered around the rhinosaur and the leopards. A few bold souls were timidly petting the cubs. Probably of most interest was the arrow-bird. Tired from all its riding, it had put its head under its wing and gone fast asleep, perched on the rhinosaur's horn.
Johnny took the bag he had made from the shirt down from where it hung beside the arrow-bird. He untied it, revealing the many packets made from woven rushes. Packet after packet, he spilled the claws out on to the shirt until there was a great pile of jewels glowing before the people.
"Where did you get them?" Trader Harkness' voice rumbled. He was shocked and pale.
"The marva themselves gave them to me for the colony," Johnny replied. "It's a sign that they and all the animals want to be our friends."
The trader forced his eyes away from the pile of jewels and looked over his shoulder. Johnny was suddenly conscious of three hunters standing behind the trader. Ed and his gang!
"I'll take those claws now," the trader said. The gang whipped out their ato-tubes and leveled them at Johnny and Baba.
The crowd gasped and then fell silent. Johnny's father stepped up, but one of the hunters waved him back with his gun. Johnny saw he'd been wrong. There was plenty of fight left in the trader. He glanced around him; the animals had become very still, waiting his word.
"Friends," Johnny clicked, "stay still. This man is a killer."
Skorkin, the rhinosaur, snorted. The arrow-bird awoke and snapped its head into arrow position. The monkey bared its teeth, while Mona, the leopardess, crouched to spring, the muscles of her haunches trembling.
Johnny saw the trader's eyes widen. The leopard was not three feet away from him. Thinking fast, Johnny stepped carefully over and put a hand on the leopard's shoulder.
"I wouldn't move, Mr. Harkness," Johnny said, his voice quavering in spite of himself. "If you don't tell your gang to give their guns to Captain Thompson, I'll tell the animals to charge. Maybe Ed told you what I made the monkey do?" Johnny's heart raced. It was a bluff. He couldn't tell the animals to charge. He knew they might be killed. No amount of claws would be worth that.
The trader's eyes were fixed on Mona. Then Skorkin snorted again, eager to fight.
The trader turned brick red. "Do what the kid says," he said in a low, strangled voice. The ato-tube in Ed's hand wavered and then came down.
There was a deep sigh of relief from the crowd.
Grimly and quietly, Captain Thompson gathered up the guns. "All right, you men," he said, "there's a room ready for you at the stockade."
The fight was really gone from the trader now. His shoulders slumped, his head down, he shuffled as he was led away.
Johnny's father stepped forward and embraced him.
"I don't understand how you did it, Johnny," he said. "I don't understand anything about it. But this is certainly a wonderful day!"
It was now an hour after the Earth rocket had blasted off on its way back to Earth. Johnny Watson lay on his stomach with his chin cupped in his hands and looked down from the top of New Plymouth Rock. Beside him, twisted into the same position, was his friend Baba, his blue nails glowing in Venus' pearly light. Near the two friends, perched on a boulder, were two of the large Venus eagles, watching every move they made.
How changed it all was down in the settlement! People were streaming back from the rocket field on foot and without armor. Beside the Jenkins family strode Mona, the leopardess, carrying a basket in her mouth. In the basket the Jenkins' baby slept. Mona just loved babies. Down in the marshberry fields three rhinosaurs peacefully browsed. There were so many berries available now in the sea marshes that no one had to worry about the few in the fields. The marva had left these three rhinosaurs to carry people wherever they might want to go.
High in the sky was a faint dot. Baba nudged Johnny and pointed.
"Here comes Keetack," he said in his clicking language. "We'll have to go down pretty soon."
"I suppose so," Johnny said wearily.
It had been fun for a while being the only person who understood the marva language. When Dad and the other colonists had gone into the jungle to talk with the council of all the marva groves, Johnny and Baba had been there too—the center of attention. When the men spoke, Baba told the marva what they meant. When the marva spoke, Johnny had to tell the men what the bears meant. It had been fun being so important. It had been fun being treated like heroes, but they were already tired of it. With their new freedom to travel, there was a whole continent to explore, and hundreds of new friends to make.
Idly, Johnny watched the dot, that Baba said was Keetack, grow into a bird with a twenty-foot wing spread flying through the sky. In its claws was a small black-muzzled bouncing bear. Baba's eyes were magically good. The bird was a Venus eagle—the marva's airplane. Before men had come and made it dangerous for them, the marva had flown anywhere they wanted to go in the talons of these great birds. Johnny knew that the earliest hunters thought the eagles were preying upon the bears. It was just one more surprising thing about the little bears. Johnny remembered what Rick had said when he had arrived home, his wound all healed. He had really grown to respect the marva.
"They have learned to live with other creatures, and have taught all their friends, as they call the animals, to live in peace together. The meat eaters have their meat trees so they don't need to attack other animals—it's amazing," Rick reported.
Johnny remembered how Baba had preened himself when Rick had spoken that way, and he smiled.
"Hey, Baba," Johnny said, "how soon do you think we could take a trip all around the groves? We could get Skorkin to carry us, and go visit everybody."
"You will have to come stay with my people," Baba said. Only a few days before Baba had discovered a host of aunts, uncles and cousins in one of the outlying groves. Most important of all he had found his father. "I've lived with you for years and years. Now it should be your turn."
"Oh, good," said Johnny. "We'll do it, soon as they'll let us go."
"Look, Johnny," Baba pointed. "Look at the trader!"
Below, the fat bald-headed little man, a pack on his back, was heading into the jungle. He waddled as he walked, but he moved straight along.
"Where's he going?" Baba asked.
"Dad says he's going to start a marshberry farm—if the marva will let him. But, gosh, it'll be a long time before anyone will help him."
"He can always live on meat fruit and stuff," Baba said. "Nobody likes him, but they won't bother him if he leaves them alone."
What had happened to the trader and to the outlaws was the strangest thing of all. The marva had not wanted them punished. They said they wanted to make friends, not enemies.
The thousands of marva claws that had been given to the colony had made the claws quite cheap, so that Trader Harkness had become a poor man; he had been rich in hunting equipment and hunting lodges—now all these things were valueless. Surprisingly, he had refused to return to Earth.
"Venus is my home," he had said flatly. "I'll get by."
Johnny had to admire his courage, just as he had to admire some of the hunters who would not stay on Venus. These lean hard-bitten men were going further on into space.
To Johnny's surprise Keetack admired the hunters, too. "They are fighters, like the rhinosaurs. Here there is nothing left to fight. They are people of much courage."
Looking down on the trader, Johnny found he couldn't help feeling sorry for him.
"Goodbye," he yelled, his voice echoing among the rocks. "Goodbye, Trader."
The fat man looked up and waved back. Johnny thought he smiled.
"He was a real pioneer," Johnny said.
"Yes," Baba answered, "he'll be all right."
Johnny jumped back suddenly from the edge of the rock and hid behind some bushes. "Here comes Mom, looking for us!"
Baba quickly dived back out of sight too.
Johnny peeked through the screening of bushes. His mother was riding toward the rock on Skorkin, the rhinosaur! This hideout was not very secret. Everybody on Venus knew about it. He stood up, and waved down to her.
"I'm coming, Mother," he shouted.
His mother nodded and the big rhinosaur turned back toward the settlement.
In a few minutes Baba and Johnny would be back in school, sitting in front of a group of men and a group of marva. Baba would be teaching the marva how to understand the talk of people, while Johnny taught the men and women how to talk and understand the language of the marva. It was a hard job.
"I guess we gotta go back!" Johnny mourned.
"I guess so!" Baba agreed sadly.
"There is only one trouble with being a teacher," said Johnny. "Teachers just can't play hookey." Then he grinned. "Say, I've got an idea!"
"What?" asked Baba.
"Mom hasn't been doing her homework. Let's give a test today!"
Baba slapped his furry haunches, his blue teeth glowing.
"Let's go!" Johnny clicked to the two eagles. He ran as hard as he could and leaped off the edge of the high cliff, hurtling down and down. Right after him, Baba jumped, too.
There was the sound of great wings, and the two tremendous Venus eagles swept after them. One dived at Johnny, its claws spread. The long powerful claws hooked into Johnny's belt and whisked him through the air toward the settlement. The other grasped Baba by the shoulders. Together the two friends flew on.
"That was fun!" said Johnny.
His furry blue pal nodded his agreement.
"Daddy, is this what Venus is really like?" demanded Blake, my eleven-year-old son. He had just finished reading my manuscript.
I have an idea that among my readers there may be other curious boys and girls who might ask the same question my son did. This was my answer:
The job of a science fiction writer, I think, is to spin out tales about other times and strange planets, using known facts as beginning points, and without violating any known facts. InVenus BoyI have tried to do this. I think I have created a picture of life on the surface of Venus that is possible, if just barely possible.
In addition to being a story teller, I am a librarian, and librarians love to keep their facts straight. The fact about Venus is that nobody knows just what it is like on the surface of the planet. Since nobody knows, I could make it all up.
Many factsareknown about Venus, however. Venus is the Sun's second planet. It is about twenty-five million miles closer to the Sun than our Earth. Astronomers have measured and "weighed" it. It is almost exactly the same size as Earth, but its weight (mass) is twenty per cent less. It turns very slowly on its axis, so that its day is much longer than an Earth day. Because of a layer of clouds that surrounds it, the surface cannot be seen even with the most powerful of telescopes. Thus, astronomers cannot tell just how fast or slow it turns. A Venus day may be as short as fourteen Earth days or as long as two hundred and twenty-five Earth days.
If you noticed, you can see I have kept my picture of life on Venus true to these facts. I had the Venus day be fourteen Earth days long. Some of the animals and plants were a great deal larger than Earth animals and plants, a fact that would be expected on a planet with less gravity than that of Earth.
Of course you might think that because of the clouds that surround Venus, the planet would be a terribly rainy place. That is not very probable. By using an instrument called a spectrograph, astronomers have learned that those heavy clouds are not clouds of water vapor. Indeed, they can find evidence for little or no water vapor on Venus. They can detect a great deal of carbon dioxide—but no oxygen.
"But without oxygen, animals couldn't breathe!" I can hear a child who knows some science say. "Life would be impossible!"
That could be true. Some scientists, in fact most of them, believe that lifeisimpossible on the surface of Venus. But remember, nobody knows what is under that heavy layer of clouds, and nobody knows just what those clouds are.
One astronomer, Rupert Wildt, has advanced a theory about the Venusian clouds that, I think, would allow for the possibility of life on Venus. He theorized, on the evidence available to him, that, when Venus was young, carbon-dioxide and water, in the presence of ultra-violet light, may have combined to make clouds of one form of plastic! I think it possible that such clouds would be thick, spongy and permanent, and that they would join together, so that the inner atmosphere of Venus could not escape through them. According to his theory Venus could be like a Christmas present—all wrapped in shining plastic. This could account for the fact, too, that more than half the light falling on it from the sun is reflected, making it the brightest of all the planets or stars, a jewel of a planet.
Under a loose layer of plastic, life could be possible on Venus. If plant life began under those clouds, then an oxygen atmosphere could develop. Plants take in carbon dioxide through their leaves and give out oxygen. Many scientists believe the Earth's atmosphere became rich with oxygen in this manner. Of course, none of that oxygen in Venus' atmosphere could get through the thick layer of spongy plastic clouds. The carbon dioxide that was trapped on the outside would not get through either.
Scientists believe, too, that Venus may be too hot for life, or too cold. I think that the clouds and the carbon dioxide trapped outside of them would serve, on the one hand, to insulate Venus from the hot light of the nearby sun; and, on the other hand, to hold in its warmth during the long nights.
As you can see, I have spun my story out of Mr. Wildt's idea of the plastic clouds of Venus. The rhinosaurs heavy armor, the arrow-bird's bills, the marva's plastic-strengthening jewel claws, all had their beginnings in the idea of a plastic planet. It allowed for the creation of some fairly interesting animals, I think.
While I am on the subject of my animals, I should say a word about the possibility of animals cooperating the way I have had my Venus animals cooperate. That, I think, is perfectly possible. On Earth one can find examples of several creatures living so closely together that if one kind is killed off the others would all die. In many articles and books Mr. Ashley Montague has amassed much evidence that shows an instinct for cooperation is as primary as the instinct of self-preservation. If we grant the idea of a creature whose intelligence is directed entirely toward surviving by cooperation, then I think my cooperative animals are, at the very least, possible.
Possible! That is what I hope my picture of life on Venus is. However, it must be remembered that it is onlyjustpossible. Astronomers have envisioned Venus as a planet of terrible dust storms, with a temperature hot enough to boil water. They have spoken of it as a place of seas of formaldehyde, hot and terrible by day, and freezing cold at night. Their guesses are probably better than mine. But I must admit I like my guess a little better. I hope you have enjoyed it.