Free Trapped on Venus by Carl Conrad Page B

Marty and Scott of the conclusion.
Should they be told at all? he wondered. Yes, they have to be told. They have
to be told immediately. Their lives could be in danger! He returned to his desk
and prepared to awaken them early.
      In the capsule,
perched vulnerably on the bleak surface of Venus, there was a gentle stirring
in the cabin. An indiscreet, almost unnoticeable tremor shivered through the
ship. It jostled Scott from his sleep. His eyes opened slowly at first, then
wider as the shaking persisted and he realized that something was wrong.
Something was terribly wrong!
      Marty awakened. He
bolted upright in his chair.
      “What’s happening,
Scott? What is it?”
      Another tremor shook
through the ship.
      “Scott, something’s
happening! Something’s wrong!”
      Each pivoted in their chairs,
straining to look out through the hazy glass of the pod windows. It was the
ground beneath the ship. It was crackling, breaking up like it had when they
were outside... Seams, splits, cracks spewed from around the ship’s buoy-like
feet, radiating out from under them. The ship was rocking violently.
      “Probe, this is
Stimson,” came the calm voice from Earth Control One over the astronaut’s
radio. “Jennings... Fisk... We’ve got some information for...”
      “No time, Stimson!”
Scott relayed hastily. “It’s the ground, the surface – it’s breaking up all
around us! We’ve got to take off immediately or we’re going to be sucked down
with it! No time to explain, just keep this channel open!”
      Marty was busy on
another channel, notifying Grayson of their abrupt decision.
      “Roger,” he
acknowledged. “Tracking you at 34.287. Should make hook-up in 13.246 minutes.
Go on your count. Beginning take-off sequence now!”
      Scott and Marty
rapidly raced through the ignition sequence.
      “Power on?” Scott
asked.
      “Check!”
      “Computer?”
      “Check!”
      “Relay unit? – Check!
Monitor system on? – Check! Tracking beacon? – Check and working!”
      The ground was
trembling violently, splitting haphazardly in all directions. The ship rocked
and jerked from the stress of the upheaval, tossing containers and loose parts
across the area like a storm of hail.
      “Booster stage
readied?”
      “Check – all systems
clear!”
      “Marty, what’s the
reading on the fuel pressure?”
      “2000 psi – not enough
to...”
      “We can’t wait,
Marty!”
      The ship tilted in the
unstable soil, wobbling slightly as it began to sink.
      “But, Scott!”
      “No! We can’t wait!”
      “...there’s not enough
pressure in the...”
      “Hit the computer
alert! Hit it, Marty!”
      “But, we’ll never get
off the ground! We’ll crash before we get off the surface!”
      “HIT IT!”
      Marty pushed the
ignition disk and the rockets erupted. Ground spewed viciously beneath them,
spitting fragments of crust hundreds of feet in the air. The ship moved.
      Slowly it trembled
from the surface, shook, bobbed, and rattled upward as it began to stabilize.
The astronauts were pushed deeply into their chairs from the force of the
rockets as they were launched upward. Fire belched from the tail of the rocket,
pressure choked at the lungs of the astronauts, and in a wobbling, twisting
spiral they rose up and out of danger.
      “Check... check the
pressure, Marty,” Scott tried to gasp from the strain of the acceleration.
“Is... it holding?”
      “Roger,” he grimaced,
straining to control his breathing. “Holding, but just barely.”
      Fired from the surface
like rocks in a slingshot, the astronauts plummeted forward. The pressure only
gradually subsided, leaving them minutes before they could regain control of
the ship.
      It was tumbling
erratically in space as it rose from the surface because of the angle at which
they had taken off. They tried to stabilize it with short bursts from the
thrusters, but these weren’t designed to overcome the