She was joy. She was death. She was part of the
Desert Rouge—and the desert blotted out her sins.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories May 1952.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
When the patrol found her it was impossible to say how long she hadbeen in the humidi-hut alone. She was incoherent but, as Morrisseyobserved, most Venusians are.
Not that Selo was an ordinary Venusian woman. Even in her madness,as she babbled to the patrol about red dust devils and puncturedthermiteens, there was a haunting beauty about her. Those deep-setviolet eyes, the blue-black hair, the shapely, well-rounded body—easyto understand why an earthman might be hypnotized by such a woman.
At first she was passive. Their questions made no impression upon her.She nodded her head absently and gestured vaguely toward the vac-lockthat led to the dust-tortured world outside. Once or twice, Morrisseythought he heard her mutter Yancey's name but he couldn't be sure.Her speech was a confused mixture of English and the indecipherablepolyglot of Venus.
The simplest solution seemed to be to take Selo back to Athens wheretechnicians could subdue her hysteria and perhaps eventually draw thewhole tragic story from her paralyzed mind.
Morrissey wouldn't have admitted it to any of the members of hispatrol, but he found the woman's manner disconcerting. She stared atthe vac-lock as though she momentarily expected Yancey to appear there.So intense was the stare that if Morrissey hadn't seen Yancey Ritter'sdesiccated body himself, he could have believed that the woman hadsecond sight.
Her passivity was abruptly shattered when they tried to get ready forthe trip. She clawed and bit like a mad animal as they struggled toslip the plasti-shield over her shoulders.
"Let me die as Brian died!" she wailed. "I do not want to live withouthim. You cannot make me live."
"Hey, captain," a panting patrolman shouted, "what do we do with her?"
"Put that plasti-shield on her. Tie it if you have to. She's not to gothrough that vac-lock without it."
The frenzy that had seized Selo seemed to subside as quickly as itbegan. She permitted them to make the plasti-shield secure. Her face,through the greenish-gray mask, had the texture and shading of acorpse. Zombie-like, she had lost all individuality.
"Check your thermiteens," Morrissey snapped to the patrol, "and let'sget out of this place."
The men quickly filled their light-weight thermiteens with waterfrom the supply in the humidi-hut, fastened their own plasti-shieldssecurely over head and shoulders, put on their asbesti-mittens andstepped into the vac-lock.
Sixty seconds later, the party stood in the weird, dust-filled worldoutside. A hot wind pressed its dusty fingers against their protectivehoods and tugged with an eerie persuasiveness at their padded jackets.Through the murk an orange sun burned in the sand-strewn sky. Rockspitted and pocked from centuries of relentless persecution stood starksentinel on every side. This was Venus.
Walking slightly behind Selo, shoulders hunched, head down, Morrisseyworried the enigma of this strange Venusian woman and the two men whohad known her. Two men—now both dead—wind-dried mummies fallen in thewastes of the Desert Rouge.
Victims of the desert, Morrissey wondered, or victims of a woman withdeep-set violet eyes and blue-black hair.
The Earth colonies on Venus, Mars and the satellites of Jupiter arefilled with men like Yancey Ritter. They're men who seem to be bornwith a weight of bitte