Battle on Venus by William F. Temple

Author:William F. Temple [Temple, William F.]
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-03-07T18:54:46.187000+00:00

The war chariot plowed on through the night, its searchlights stabbing ahead of it. Although it was cold, George stayed up on the platform. He knew there was a long way yet to go, and the chariot was slow. He couldn’t expect to sight the ship until the next day, at least. But he was restless and uneasy. Mara slept tranquilly in the cabin below.

Captain J. Freiburg rose at dawn and took a look around. Nothing had changed. There lay the ship, its fins straightened, everything repaired except the radio. All completed well ahead of his pessimistic schedule. There were the joined lengths of cable spraying from the ship’s waist to an arc of white circle tanks. All was set to begin the slow hauling of the ship back onto its tail.

There was just one hitch. Around a week ago, they’d discovered that none of the tanks was receiving any power. Since then, too, no plane had crossed the sky, no moving vehicles had been seen, no gunfire had been heard. Every day, every hour on the hour, they’d tested the tanks. Still no power. This morning Freiburg climbed into a tank and turned the engine switch. Then jiggled other switches. No sign of response. He was losing hope. He had really lost hope of George Starkey’s return. He was sure the explorer had crashed and was dead. Nevertheless, from force of habit he scanned the dull sky. No distant spot which might be a helicopter was visible. The mate came up, yawning. “Nothing doing, sir?”

“No. The armistice continues. Or else the war has ended for good and all. In which case, it’s ended us, too, I’m afraid. That’s unless we can trace the white circle G.H.Q. I’ll give them a couple more days to start up again. If they don’t, then you’ll have to take Sparks and go out looking for ’em, mister.”

“Right, sir,” said the mate, joylessly.

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