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The Native Soil By: Alan Edward Nourse (1928-1992) |
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by Alan E. Nourse
Before the first ship from Earth made a landing on Venus, there was much
speculation about what might be found beneath the cloud layers obscuring
that planet's surface from the eyes of all observers. One school of thought maintained that the surface of Venus was a jungle,
rank with hot house moisture, crawling with writhing fauna and
man eating flowers. Another group contended hotly that Venus was an arid
desert of wind carved sandstone, dry and cruel, whipping dust into
clouds that sunlight could never penetrate. Others prognosticated an
ocean planet with little or no solid ground at all, populated by
enormous serpents waiting to greet the first Earthlings with jaws agape. But nobody knew, of course. Venus was the planet of mystery. When the first Earth ship finally landed there, all they found was a
great quantity of mud. There was enough mud on Venus to go all the way around twice, with some
left over. It was warm, wet, soggy mud clinging and tenacious. In some
places it was gray, and in other places it was black. Elsewhere it was
found to be varying shades of brown, yellow, green, blue and purple. But
just the same, it was still mud. The sparse Venusian vegetation grew up
out of it; the small Venusian natives lived down in it; the steam rose
from it and the rain fell on it, and that, it seemed, was that. The
planet of mystery was no longer mysterious. It was just messy. People
didn't talk about it any more. But technologists of the Piper Pharmaceuticals, Inc., R&D squad found a
certain charm in the Venusian mud. They began sending cautious and very secret reports back to the Home
Office when they discovered just what, exactly was growing in that
Venusian mud besides Venusian natives. The Home Office promptly bought
up full exploratory and mining rights to the planet for a price that was
a brazen steal, and then in high excitement began pouring millions of
dollars into ships and machines bound for the muddy planet. The Board of
Directors met hoots of derision with secret smiles as they rubbed their
hands together softly. Special crews of psychologists were dispatched to
Venus to contact the natives; they returned, exuberant, with
test results that proved the natives were friendly, intelligent,
co operative and resourceful, and the Board of Directors rubbed their
hands more eagerly together, and poured more money into the Piper
Venusian Installation. It took money to make money, they thought. Let the fools laugh. They
wouldn't be laughing long. After all, Piper Pharmaceuticals, Inc., could
recognize a gold mine when they saw one. They thought. Robert Kielland, special investigator and trouble shooter for Piper
Pharmaceuticals, Inc., made an abrupt and intimate acquaintance with
the fabulous Venusian mud when the landing craft brought him down on
that soggy planet. He had transferred from the great bubble shaped
orbital transport ship to the sleek landing craft an hour before, bored
and impatient with the whole proposition. He had no desire whatever to
go to Venus. He didn't like mud, and he didn't like frontier projects.
There had been nothing in his contract with Piper demanding that he
travel to other planets in pursuit of his duties, and he had balked at
the assignment. He had even balked at the staggering bonus check they
offered him to help him get used to the idea. It was not until they had convinced him that only his own superior
judgment, his razor sharp mind and his extraordinarily shrewd powers of
observation and insight could possibly pull Piper Pharmaceuticals, Inc.,
out of the mudhole they'd gotten themselves into, that he had
reluctantly agreed to go. He wouldn't like a moment of it, but he'd go. Things weren't going right on Venus, it seemed. The trouble was that millions were going in and nothing was coming out.
The early promise of high production figures had faltered, sagged,
dwindled and vanished. Venus was getting to be an expensive project to
have around, and nobody seemed to know just why... Continue reading book >>
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Fiction |
Literature |
Science |
Short stories |
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