In addition to letters from home, Matt received a wedding announcement from Marianne. He wondered if she had married the young man he had met at the picnic, but he could not be sure of the name-the whole thing seemed very remote. There was a letter, too, to all three cadets date-marked "Leda, Ganymede" from Pete, of the having-a-won-derful-time-wish-you-were-here sort. "Lucky stiff!" said Tex.
" Touring the world'-phooey!"
Other messages poured in-ships' movements, technical orders, personnel changes, the accumulated minutiae of a large military organization-and a detailed resume of the news of four planets from the time they had lost contact to the present.
Oscar found that Captain Yancey did not breathe on his neck in his duties as communications chief-but by then it did not surprise him. Oscar simply was the com chief and had almost forgotten that he had ever been anything else.
He felt, however, that he was really confirmed in his office the day a message came in top cipher, the first not in "clear." He was forced to ask the Captain for the top-cipher machine, kept in the Captain's safe. It was turned over to him without comment.
Oscar was bug-eyed when he took the translated message to Yancey. It read: TRIPLEX-CAN YOU INVESTIGATE TROUBLE EQUATORIAL REGION VENUS-OPERATIONS.
Yancey glanced at it. "Tell the Executive Officer I want to see him, please. And don't discuss this."
"Aye aye, sir."
Thurlow came in somewhat mystified. "What's up, Captain?" Yancey handed him the flimsy. The lieutenant read it and whistled.
"Can you see any way to comply?"
"You know how much reaction potential we have, Captain. We could manage a circular orbit. We can't land."
"That's the way I see it. I suppose well have to refuse-dammit, I'd rather take a whipping than send in a negate. Why did they pick on us? There must be half a dozen other ships better located."
"I don't think so, Captain. I think we are the only available ship. Have you studied the movements file?"
"Not especially. Why?"
"Well, the Thomas Paine should be the ship-but she's grounded at New Aukland for emergency repairs." j
"I see. There ought to be a standing circum-Venus patrol -there'll have to be, some day." Yancey scratched his chin and looked unhappy.
"How about this, Captain-"
"Yes?"
"If we change course right now we could do it cheaply. Then we could bring her in for atmospheric braking with no further expenditure. Then ease her down with the jet."
"Hmmm-how much margin?" ,
Lieutenant Thurlow got a far-away look in his eyes, while he approximated a fourth-order solution in his head. Captain Yancey joined him in the trance, his lips moving soundlessly.
"Practically none, Captain. After you've steadied in circum, you'd have to dive in and accept atmospheric terminal speed, or close to it, before you blasted."
Yancey shook his head. "Into Venus? I'd as soon fly a broom on Walpurgis night. No, Mr. Thurlow, we'll just have to call them up and confess."
"Just a minute, Captain-they know we don't have marines." (
"Of course."
"Then they don't expect us to deliver police action. What we can do is to send a jeep down."
"I've been wondering when you would work around to that. All right, Mr. Thurlow-it's yours. I hand it over reluctantly, but I can't seem to help it. Never had a mission of your own, have you?" "No, sir."
"You're getting one young. Well, I’ll ask Operations for the details while you're preparing the course change."
"Fine, sir! Does the Captain care to designate the cadet to go with me, or shall I pick him?"
"You're not going with just one, Lieutenant-you'll take all three. I want you to leave the jeep manned at all times and I want you to have an armed man at your elbow. The equatorial region of Venus-there is no telling what you’ll run into."
"But that leaves you with no one but Peters, sir-not counting the surgeon, of course."
"Mr. Peters and I will make out all right. Peters plays a very good hand of cribbage."
Details from Operations were slight The M.R.S. Gary had radioed for help claiming to be imperilled by a native 'uprising. She had given her position, then radio contact had I "en lost.
Yancey elected to use atmospheric braking in any case to save his reaction mass for future use-otherwise the Aes Triplex might have circled Venus until she could be scored. The ship's company spent a crowded, tiring fifty-ix hours shut up in the control room while the ship dipped to the clouds of Venus and out again, a bit deeper and bit slower on each round trip. The ship grew painfully >t and the time spent in free space on each lap was hard enough to let her radiate what she picked up. Most of 10 ship was intolerably hot, for the control room and the alarm" were refrigerated at the expense of the other spaces. In space, there is no way to get rid of unwanted heat, permanently, except by radiation-and the kinetic energy difference between the original orbit and the circum-Venus
orbit the Captain wanted had to be absorbed as heat, a piece at a time, then radiated into space.
But at the end of that time three hot, tired, but very excited, young men, with one a little older, were ready to climb into jeep no. 2.
Matt suddenly remembered something. "Oh, Doctor-Doctor Pickering!" The surgeon had spent a medically uneventful voyage writing a monograph entitled "Some Notes on Comparative Pathologies of the Inhabited Planets" and was now at loose ends. He had relieved Matt as "farmer."
"Yes, Matt?"
"Those new tomato plants-they have to be cross-pollinated three days from now. You'll do it for me? You won't forget?"
"Can do!" ;
Captain Yancey guffawed. "Get your feet out of this furrows, Dodson. Forget the farm-we'll look out for it. Now,| gentlemen-" He looked around and caught their eyes. "Try to stay alive. I doubt very much if this mission warrants expending four Patrol officers."
As they filed in Tex dug Matt in the ribs. "Did you hear ] that, kid-'four Patrol officers.' " >
"Yeah, but look what else he said." :
Thurlow tucked his orders in his pouch. They were simple: proceed to latitude north two degrees seven, longitude two hundred twelve degrees zero; locate the Gary and investigate reported native uprising. Keep the peace.
The lieutenant settled himself and looked around at his crew. "Hold your hats, boys. Here we go!"
XIV "THE NATIVES ARE FRIENDLY ..."
WITH THUHLOW at the controls and Matt in the co-pilot's seat the jeep started down. It started with an orbital speed of better than four miles per second, the speed of the AeS
Triplex in her tight circular orbit around the equator of Venus. The lieutenant's purpose was to kill this speed exactly over his destination, then balance the jeep down on its tail. A jet landing was necessary, as the jeep had no wings.
He needed to do this precisely, with the least use of fuel. He was helped somewhat by riding "with the current" from west to east; the 940-mile-per- hour rotational speed of Venus at her equator was profit rather than loss. However, exact placement was another matter. A departure time was selected so that the entire descending curve would be on the day side of the planet in order to use the Sun as a reckoning point for placement in longitude; placement in latitude would have to depend on dead reckoning by careful choice of course.
The Sun is the only possible celestial body to use in air navigation at Venus, and even Sol is lost to the naked eye :is soon as one is inside the planet-wide blanket of cloud. Matt "shot the Sun" by keeping one eye glued on the eyepiece of an infra-red adapter which had been fitted to the ship's octant, and was enabled thereby to coach his skipper from a prepared flight plan. It had not been considered practical to cut a cam for the automatic robot; too little was known about the atmospheric conditions to be expected.
When Matt informed his pilot that they were about thirty miles up, by radar, and approaching the proper longitude, is given by the infra-red image of the Sun, Thurlow brought I lie jeep down toward their target, ever lower and slower, and finally braked her with the jet to let her drop in a parabola distorted by air resistance.