TARNISHED UTOPIA (Sci-Fi Classic) by Malcolm Jameson

Author:Malcolm Jameson [Jameson, Malcolm]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788027220380
Publisher: Musaicum Press
Published: 2017-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XIII

Crater of Dreams

Table of Contents

Winchester's testing period stretched into months, and still no word came from the mysterious man in green in the citadel. The American continued to work at whatever tasks were assigned, and learned many startling facts about the weird creatures of other worlds. Not only did he work with plants, but on several occasions assisted in the Zoological Division, and there he had to deal with queer animals.

One of his jobs was to discover a substitute diet for the terrible Venusian sea-tigret, which dwelled on the cliffs above the artificial lakes in the Venus Crater. It was a mammal much on the lines of a seal, but spotted like a leopard and possessing the powerful teeth of a cat, as well as claws at the tips of its flippers.

Its habit was to lie in waiting along the brow of the cliff, then pounce on the prey it could spot in the clear waters beneath. The sea-tigret was fierce and voracious, and the curators found it impossible to keep the lake stocked with suitable fish.

Another troublesome animal was the Ursa Saturnis, or the great bear of Saturn. It was a huge, rotund beast, covered with silky white feathers, on which a scarlet spiral stripe wound like the markings of a barber pole. It did not prey on large animals, but on tiny ones that lived in the crevices of rocks.

That problem Winchester helped solve by suggesting a thick glove that could be locked on, since the beast's claws grew so rapidly that clipping did no good.

Besides these activities and his occasional espionage work, Winchester found time for some research work in his little private laboratory. Some of its results he reported, some he kept to himself. Among the latter was a stimulant so powerful, he dreaded to think how it might be misused by wrong hands.

He found it by accident, seeking the ingredient which made the flittleberry wine of Ganymede so heady. By means of successive distillations, he found a fraction which he called ergogen, on account of the tremendous flood of energy it released in the human body.

It acted much as adrenalin does, only more promptly and with more pronounced results. It was small wonder that a man drunk on flittleberry wine was willing to fight his weight in wildcats.

Another subject of unfailing interest was the super-narcotic Lotusol. Winchester analyzed the oil carefully and read all the existing pamphlets on the symptoms arising from its use. In general, he found, it was similar to the opium of his own day. But it went far beyond opium in two ways. A few deep whiffs formed the habit, and the habit was incurable.

Winchester worked many weary hours of overtime on that fascinating drug, memorizing his results and committing nothing to paper, except some proposals for minor improvements in the method of the oil's distillation. A little later, he abstracted some books on medicine and physiology, which he found in a locked case at headquarters, and studied them intensively.

Bit by bit he added to his store of scientific knowledge.

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