Story #125 - Venus Rising

Venus Rising

Venus wasn't as bad as Bruce had imagined it was going to be, though he still wished he'd been picked for the mission to Mars.

The UAS had decided on unprecedented joint ventures in an effort to not only garner public interest, but ensure that at least something useful was found on one planet or the other. Mars had the potential for water, something Earth desperately needed after the collapse of the United States and the fourth and fifth World Wars. America had started the fourth one, and found out the hard way what happened when other nations picked it as the target as the one after. The entire landscape of the planet had been changed thanks to the use of clean nukes, and overnight half of the fresh water supply dried up.

World leaders found a modicum of peace in that; once they had a crisis that might kill them all, countries sought ways to work together and the UAS was founded. They had little time to worry about things like public opinion, but still wanted to play up space exploration as something that was not only exciting but viable – if neither M1 or V1 succeeded in bringing home useful knowledge, the UAS might find itself with very little money to use.

Venus had no chance of water findings, and Bruce had known that from the start. They'd elected to send only a two-man team to the hot and gassy planet because it was a much larger unknown than the red dot so many astronauts aspired to, but Bruce had been alone almost since the capsule touched down.

Commander Johnny Vince, his superior and counterpart for this mission, had gone out alone the night after they arrived. He did not come back.

Bruce didn't have the supplies or knowledge to go looking for the Commander; the man was hot-headed and foolhardy, so he'd probably gone somewhere the suit couldn't handle. Communications with Earth wouldn't be possible for at least another six months, so there was nothing for Bruce to do but keep working and hope to find something great to report when contact was made, along with the fact that the Commander was missing and almost certainly dead.

He sighed. In the capsule, the temperature was well-controlled, but even modern systems couldn't keep up with the massive greenhouse gas effects on the planet. During the day, the temperature climbed hard and high, and once noon rolled around he could hear the cabin air conditioners straining to keep up. Twenty-five centigrade was the best they could manage on a hot day, which left Bruce in his underwear working with gas samples from the planet; he knew it was dangerous, but months alone on the planet had begun to make him reckless. He just wanted the experiments to be done, contact to be re-established and the UAS to get him off of the surface.

Grabbing the nearest vial – a sliding mass of blue-white gas – he dropped it into the analyzer. So far, there had been nothing unexpected in any of the samples. All were as detected from orbit, possessing a number of organic parts but nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that couldn't be found on earth.

There were a few traces of chemicals that Bruce had never seen before, but they were so minute as to be laughable – not even enough for the analyzer to tell him what they might have been made off.

He hoped the Mars mission was having better success. Here, he had found only what was expected and lost a comrade along the way. Not a shining moment for the UAS.

“I'd say.” A voice floated in.

Bruce didn't react at first. It wasn't loud or unpleasant, and he assumed it was just a consequence of being along for so long.

“It isn't, Bruce. It really isn't.”

He could feel his anxiety begin to rise. Nothing on this mission was going to plan.

“Who are you?”

“That's not a question I have a good answer to. Let's just say I – we – exist here.” There was no aggression in the tone, but without a face to match it to and a direction to look in, Bruce found himself beginning to panic. The thing could be anywhere.

“Everywhere, more precisely. In that gas, specifically.”

Bruce held up the blue-white vial. “Here?”

“In all of it. Small enough amounts separate the functional part of our consciousness, but once we're together in large enough concentrations, we're able to communicate again.”

He felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Did you...did you kill Commander Vince?”

“Your companion? Yes. We lured him out of the ship and consumed his body. It was required in order to learn your language.”

Bruce felt his throat contract and had to fight had to keep from retching on the deck of the capsule.

“Required? You couldn't have learned to speak with us some other way?” He tried to keep the anger out of his voice; the planet was covered in this being, if what it said was true, and it could destroy him in a heartbeat.

The annoyance returned told him that he had not been entirely successful. “Of course we could have, but there was no time for that. You are limited, Bruce, but that is not your fault. It is the nature of your species.”

He bristled, ready to make an issue of the assertion, but the voice went on. “It was the nature of our species as well, the first time we settled this planet.”

“What?” Bruce was stunned. “The first time?”

“Yes,” the voice went on, “we were much like you and your Commander are now. Arrogant. Unyielding. Convinced of our superiority. We destroyed ourselves utterly, but our physical obliteration was so total that our singular minds remained behind. Over time, we learned to work together.”

“To what end?” Bruce needed to keep the conversation going, needed to get the vials out the door and off of the ship. Once he was off-planet, he could deal with getting home. Alive.

“To ensure the survival of our people.” In his hand, the glass vial shattered.

***

“Bruce! Thank God you're alive. Tell us some good news.”

“Not much to say, control. We lost Vince on the first night, and I'm bringing back some samples for further data analysis, but nothing else of interest. Hopefully Mars had better luck.”

“No – not a drop of water. We've got problems, Bruce. Get your ass home, and we'll see if we can sort it out.”

“Roger.”

It wasn't so bad, being in a physical body again, Awkward, but they would have time to work out the bugs before they reached Earth.

- D