Isaac Asimov - Lucky Starr And The Oceanf Of Venus

He tried to call the Hilda, but the answer consisted of erratic gasps, and it was quite obvious that the ship, too, was being flung madly about.

But death, when it comes, must finally penetrate the last ounce of even a hundred-million-ton life. Eventually a stillness came upon the water.

And Lucky moved downward slowly, slowly, weary nearly to death.

He called the Hilda again. "It's dead," he said. "Send out the directional pulse and let me follow it down."

Lucky let Bigman remove his sea suit and managed a smile as the little Martian looked worriedly up at him.

"I never thought I'd see you again, Lucky," said Bigman, gulping noisily.

"If you're going to cry," said Lucky, "turn your head away. I didn't get in out of the ocean just to get all wet in here. How are the main generators coming along?"

"They'll be all right," put in Evans, "but it will still take time. The knocking around just at the end there ruined one of the welding jobs."

"Well," said Lucky, "we'll just have to get on with it." He sat down with a weary sigh. "Things didn't go quite as I expected."

"In what way?" demanded Evans.

"It was my notion," said Lucky, "to pin-prick the monster into moving off us. That didn't work, and I had to kill him. The result is that its dead body has settled down around the Hilda like a collapsed tent."

"You mean we're trapped?" said Bigman, with horror.

"You can put it that way," said Lucky coolly. "You can also say that we're safe, if you want to. Certainly we're safer here than anywhere on Venus. Nobody can do anything to us physically with that mountain of dead meat over us. And when the generators are repaired, we'll just force our way out. Bigman, get at those generators; and Evans, let's pour ourselves some coffee and talk this thing over. There might not be another chance for a quiet chat."

Lucky welcomed this respite, this moment when there was nothing to be done but talk and think.

Evans, however, was upset. His china-blue eyes crinkled at the corners.

Lucky said, "You look worried?"

"I am worried. What in space and time do we do?"

Lucky said, "I've been thinking about that. It seems to me that all we can do is get the V-frog story to someone who's safe from any mental control by them."

"And who's that?"

"No one on Venus. That's for sure."

Evans stared at his friend. "Are you trying to tell me that everyone on Venus is under control?"

"No, but anyone might be. After all, there are different ways in which the human mind can be manipulated by these creatures." Lucky rested one arm over the back of the pilot swivel and crossed his legs. "In the first place, complete control can be taken for a short period of time over a man's mind. Complete control! During that interval a human being can be made to do things contrary to his own nature, things that endanger his own life and others': the pilots on the coaster, for instance, when Bigman and I first landed on Venus."

Evans said grimly, "That type of thing hasn't been my trouble."

"I know. That's what Morriss failed to realize. He was sure you weren't under control simply because you showed no signs of amnesia. But there's a second type of control that you suffered from. It's less intense, so a person retains his memory. However, just because it's less intense, a person cannot be forced to do anything against his own nature; you couldn't be forced to commit suicide, for instance. Still, the power lasts longer-days rather than hours. The V-frogs make up in time what they lose in intensity. Well, there must be still a third kind of control."

"And that is?"

"A control that is still less intense than the second type. A control that is so mild the victim isn't even aware of it, yet strong enough so that the victim's mind can be rifled and picked of its information. For instance, there's Lyman Turner."

"The chief engineer on Aphrodite?". "That's right. He's a case in point. Can you see that? Consider that there was a man at the dome lock yesterday who sat there with a lever in his hand, endangering the whole city, yet he was so tightly protected all around, so netted about with alarms that no one could approach him without warning until Bigman forced a passage through a ventilator shaft. Isn't that odd?"

"No. Why is it odd?"

"The man had only been on the job a matter of months He wasn't even a real engineer. His work was more like that of a clerk or an office boy. Where did he get the information to protect himself so? How could he possibly know the force and power system in that section of the dome so thoroughly?"

Evans pursed his lips and whistled soundlessly. "Hey, that is a point."

"The point didn't strike Turner. I interviewed him on just that matter before getting on the Hilda. I didn't tell him what I was after, of course. He himself told me about the fellow's inexperience, but the incongruity of the matter never struck him. Yet who would have the necessary information? Who but the chief engineer? Who better than he?"

"Right. Right."

"Well, then, suppose Turner was under very gentle control. The information could be lifted out of his brain. He could be very gently soothed into not seeing anything out of the way in the situation. Do you see what I mean? And then Morriss…"

"Morriss, too?" said Evans, shocked.

"Possibly, He's convinced it's a matter of Sirians after yeast. He can see it as nothing else. Is that a legitimate misjudgment or is he being subtly persuaded? He was ready to suspect you, Lou-a little too ready; One councilman ought to be a little less prepared to suspect another."

"Space! Then who's safe, Lucky?"

Lucky stared at his empty coffee cup and said, "No one on Venus. That's my point. We've got to get the story and the truth somewhere else."

"And how can we?"

"A good point. How can we?" Lucky Starr brooded over that.

Evans said, "We can't leave physically. The Hilda is designed for nothing but ocean. It can't navigate the air, let alone space. And if we go back to the city to get something inore suitable, we'd never leave it again."

"I think you're right," said Lucky, "but we don't have to leave Venus in the flesh. Our information is all that has to leave."

"If you mean ship's radio," said Evans, "that's out, too. The set we've got on this tub is strictly intra-Venus. It's not a subetheric, so it can't reach Earth. Down here, as a matter of fact, the instrument won't reach above the ocean. Its carrier waves are designed to be reflected down from the ocean surface so that they can get distance. Besides that, even if we could transmit straight up, we couldn't reach Earth."

"I don't see that we have to," said Lucky. "There's something between here and Earth that would do just as well."

For a moment, Evans was mystified. Then he said, "You mean the space stations?"

"Surely. Two space stations circle Venus. Earth may be anywhere from thirty to fifty million miles away, but the stations may be as close as two thousand miles to this point. Yet there can't be V-frogs on the stations, I'm sure. Morriss said they dislike free oxygen, and one could scarcely rig up special carbon-dioxide chambers for V-frogs considering the economy with which space stations must be run. Now, if we could get a message out to the stations for relay to central headquarters on Earth, we'd have it."

"That's it, Lucky," said Evans, excitedly. "It's our way out. Their mental powers can't possibly reach two

thousand miles across space to…" But then his face

turned glum once more. "No, it won't do. The subship radio still can't reach past the ocean surface."

"Maybe not from here. But suppose we go up to the surface and transmit from there directly into the atmosphere."