LAST RUN ON VENUS
By JAMES McKIMMEY, JR.
It wasn't love of adventure that forced
Caine onto Venus' forbidden Purple Plateau.
Oh, no. But there was a wench named Cice—a
five-imaged wench—who could make the heart
of any pilot leap crazily through the Galaxy.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories May 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
This was Nicholas Caine's last run and he didn't like it. It didn'tlook right or feel right or taste right. Even the small jetcopter feltsluggish to his touch. He was getting it down too fast and up too slow.But that, he knew, was really caused by his nerves. Usually he was ascold about these jaunts as a piece of newly chipped ice; this was hisbusiness. But today was different.
This was the end of it and tomorrow it wouldn't be his businessanymore. A man absorbed so much and he couldn't absorb anymore. He gotto the point finally when he kicked it over and he said, "Thank you andto hell with it," and then he left.
And that was what Caine was doing. Only he still had this last run andit was wrong. He knew it. It was all wrong.
He glanced at the mirror that reflected the cabin behind him.
The girl with the brown hair and the white teeth winked at him.
Caine looked away quickly and thin muscles rippled along his jaw. Hedidn't know which of them was getting on his nerves more, the girl orthe insane kid who was with her.
It was certain that between them they were getting him, and he jambed ahand forward. The ship whipped down through the air like an Earth seagull, skimming the tops of the vine-trees of the Venusian jungle.
"Oh, lookee, lookee!" screamed the thin twitching boy with the blondhair. "Swamp and jungle, snakes and lizards! Are there devils downthere, Driver? Are there spooks and ghosts and witches? Hey, Driver?"
Caine didn't answer. He looked again to the mirror.
The girl was laughing and shaking her brown hair. The boy was using hiscamera, leaning over the edge of the open-topped cabin. He was abouttwenty-one, Caine judged. Six years younger than Caine, but he actedlike he was twelve or thirteen. Caine hadn't liked him from the startand he hated him right now. He was just another rich kid who thoughtthe whole system was a playground.
And he kept calling Caine, "Driver." If he did it once more, Cainepromised himself, he'd kill him.
Only he wouldn't, he knew. He wouldn't do anything. Caine had asked forthis job, taking people with too much money on sight-seeing hops overthe wilds of the Venusian country. It was a long way for both Caine andhis jetcopter from the days when he was out at the tip of the finger ofexploration, when the American Colony had been only a rugged square onthe flatland.
Now that was over and he was leaving Venus. And the reason why hewas leaving, was because of people like the two in back of him. Thestupid, blind, selfish people who had ruined every chance for a decentrelationship between the Colonists and the Venusians.
Because the Venusians were kind and honest and good, these people hadswept over them like hail hitting flower petals. They had slashed andgouged and broken everything in their way: the earth, the vegetation,the Venusians themselves. Everything went down in front of theColonist's hand. And then they laughed and spent the money they madeand damned near tickled themselves to death with their own superiority.
Caine brought the ship up wi