Chapter II

Venus was a fluffy cotton ball hanging motionless in bottomless space. Far to the left, Mercury gleamed like a polished diamond in the sunlight. Kerry Blane cut the driving rockets, let the cruiser sink into a fast gravity-dive, guiding it only now and then by a brief flicker of a side jet.

Splinter Wood watched breathlessly from the vision port, his long face eager and reckless, his eyes seeking to pierce the clouds that roiled and twisted uneasily over the surface of the planet.

Kerry Blane glanced tolerantly at his young companion, felt a nostalgic tug at his heart when he remembered the first time he had approached the water-planet years before. Then, he had been a young and reckless firebrand, his fame already spreading, an unquenchable fire of adventure flaming in his heart.

Now, his aged but steady fingers rested lightly on the controls, brought the patrol cruiser closer to the cloud-banks on the line of demarcation between the sunward and sunless sides of the planet. He hummed tunelessly, strangely happy, as he peered ahead.

"Val Kenton died there," Splinter whispered softly, "Died to save the lives of three other people!"

Kerry Blane nodded. "Yes," he agreed, and his voice changed subtly. "Val was a blackguard, a criminal; but he died in the best traditions of the service." He sighed. "He never had a chance."

"Murdered!"

Kerry Blane smiled grimly. "I guess I used too broad an interpretation of the word," he said gently. "Anyway, one of our main tasks is to destroy the thing that killed him."

His lean fingers tightened unconsciously.

"I'd like nothing better than to turn a Zelta-blaster on that chunk of living protoplasm and cremate it."

Splinters shivered slightly. "Do you think we'll find it?" he asked.

Kerry Blane nodded. "I think it will find us; after all, it's just an animated appetite looking for food."

He turned back to the controls, flipped a switch, and the cutting of the nose rocket dropped the ship in an angling glide toward the clouds a few miles below. Gravity was full strength now, and although not as great as Earth's, was still strong enough to bring a sense of giddiness to the men.

"Here we go!" Splinter said tonelessly.

The great cottony batts of roiling clouds rushed up to meet the ship, bringing the first sense of violent movement in more than a week of flying. There was something awesome and breath-taking in the speed with which the ship dropped toward the planet.

Tendrils of vapor touched the ports, were whipped aside, then were replaced by heavier fingers of cloud. Kerry Blane pressed a firing stud, and nose rockets thrummed in a rising crescendo as the free fall of the cruiser was checked. Heat rose in the cabin from the friction of the outer air, then dissipated, as the force-screen voltometer leaped higher.

Then, as though it had never been, the sun disappeared, and there was only a gray blankness pressing about the ship. Gone was all sense of movement, and the ship seemed to hover in a gray nothingness.

Kerry Blane crouched over the control panel, his hands moving deftly, his eyes flicking from one instrument to another. Tiny lines of concentration etched themselves about his mouth, and perspiration beaded his forehead. He rode that cruiser through the miles of clouds through sheer instinctive ability, seeming to fly it as though he were an integral part of the ship.

Splinter Wood watched him with awe in his eyes, seeing for the first time the incredible instinct that had made Kerry Blane the idol of a billion people. He relaxed visibly, all instinctive fear allayed by the brilliant competence of his companion.

Seconds flowed into moments, and the moments merged into one another, and still the clouds pressed with a visible strength against the ports. The rockets drummed steadily, holding the ship aloft, dropping it slowly toward the planet below. Then the clouds thinned, and, incredibly, were permeated with a dim and glowing light. A second later, and the clouds were gone, and a thousand feet below tumbled and tossed in a majestic display of ruthless strength an ocean that seemed to be composed of liquid fluorescence.

Kerry Blane heard Splinter's instant sigh of unbelief.

"Good Lord!" Splinter said, "What--"

His voice stilled, and he was silent, his eyes drinking in the weird incredible scene below.

* * * * *

The ocean was a shifting, white-capped wash of silvery light that gleamed with a bright phosphorescence of a hundred, intermingled, kaleidoscopic colors. And the unreal, unearthly light continued unbroken everywhere, reflected from the low-hanging clouds, reaching to the far horizon, bathing every detail of the planet in a brilliance more bright than moonlight.

Splinter turned a wondering face. "But the official reports say that there is no light on Venus," he exclaimed. "That was one of the reasons given when exploration was forbidden!"

Kerry Blane nodded. "That was merely a pretext to keep foolhardy spacemen from losing their lives on the planet. In reality, the ocean is alive with an incredibly tiny marine worm that glows phosphorescently. The light generated from those billions of worms is reflected back from the clouds, makes Venus eternally lighted."

He turned the ship to the North, relaxed a bit on the air bunk. He felt tired and worn, his body aching from the space bends of a few hours before.

"Take over," he said wearily. "Take the ship North, and watch for any island."

Splinter nodded, rested his long hands on the controls. The space cruiser lifted a bit in a sudden spurt of speed, and the rocket-sound was a solid thrum of unleashed power.

Kerry Blane lit a cigarette, leaned toward a vision port. He felt again that thrill he had experienced when he had first flashed his single-man cruiser through the clouds years before. Then the breath caught in his throat, and he tapped his companion's arm.

"Take a look!" he called excitedly.

They fought in the ocean below, fought in a never-ending splashing of what seemed to be liquid fire. It was like watching a tri-dim screen of a news event, except for the utter lack of sound.

One was scaly, while the other was skinned, and both were fully three hundred feet long. Great scimitars of teeth flashed in the light, and blood gouted and stained the water crimson whenever a slashing blow was struck. They threshed in a mad paroxysm of rage, whirling and spinning in the phosphorescent water like beings from a nightmare, exploding out of their element time and again, only to fall back in a gargantuan spray of fluorescence.

And then the scaly monster flashed in a half-turn, drove forward with jaws agape, wrenched and ripped at the smooth black throat of the other creature. The second creature rippled and undulated in agony, whipping the ocean to foam, then went limp. The victorious monster circled the body of its dead foe, then, majestically, plunged from sight into the ocean's depths. An instant later, the water frothed, as hundreds of lesser marine monsters attacked and fed on the floating corpse.

"Brrrr!" Splinter shivered in sudden horror.

Kerry Blane chuckled dryly. "Feel like going for a swim?" he asked conversationally.

Splinter shook his head, watched the scene disappear from view to the rear of the line of flight, then sank back onto his bunk.

"Not me!" he said deprecatingly.

Kerry Blane chuckled again, swung the cruiser toward the tiny smudge of black on the horizon. Glowing water flashed beneath the ship, seeming to smooth into a gleaming mirror shot with dancing colors. There was no sign of life anywhere.

Thirty minutes later, Kerry Blane circled the island that floated free in the phosphorescent ocean. His keen eyes searched the tangled luxuriant growth of the jungle below, searching for some indication that the protoplasmic monster he seeked was there.

"I don't see anything suspicious," Splinter contributed.

"There's nothing special to see," Kerry Blane said shortly. "As I understand it, anyway, this chunk of animated appetite hangs around an island shaped like a turtle. However, our orders are to investigate every island, just in case there might be more than one of the monsters."

Splinter buckled on his dis-gun, excitement flaring in his eyes.

"Let's do a little exploring?" he said eagerly.

Kerry Blane shook his head, swung the cruiser north again.

"Plenty of time for that later," he said mildly. "We'll find this turtle-island, make a landing, and take a look around. Later, if we're lucky enough to blow our objective to Kingdom Come, we'll do a little exploring of the other islands."

"Hell!" Splinter scowled in mock disgust. "An old woman like you should be taking in knitting for a living!"

"Orders are orders!" Kerry Blane shrugged.

* * * * *

He swung the cruiser in a wide arc to the north, trebling the flying speed within minutes, handling the controls with a familiar dexterity. He said nothing, searched the gleaming ocean for the smudge of blackness that would denote another island. His gaze flicked amusedly, now and then, to the lanky Splinter who scowled moodily and toyed with the dis-gun in his long hands.

"Cheer up, lad," Kerry Blane said finally. "I think you'll find plenty to occupy your time shortly."

"Maybe?" Splinter said gloomily.

He idly swallowed another vitamin capsule, grinned, when he saw Kerry Blane's automatic grimace of distaste. Then he yawned hugely, twisted into a comfortable position, dozed sleepily.

Kerry Blane rode the controls for the next three hours, searching the limitless ocean for the few specks of islands that followed the slow currents of the water planet. Always, there was the same misty light surrounding the ship, never dimming, giving a sense of unreality to the scene below. Nowhere was there the slightest sign of life until, in the fourth hour of flight, a tiny dot of blackness came slowly over the horizon's water line.

Kerry Blane spun the ship in a tight circle, sent it flashing to the west. His keen eyes lighted, when he finally made out the turtle-like outline of the island, and he whistled softly, off-key, as he nudged the snoring Splinter.

"This is it, Sleeping Beauty," he called. "Snap out of it!"

"Huh? Whuzzat?" Splinter grunted, rolled to his elbow.

"Here's the island."

"Oh!" Splinter swung his feet from the bunk, peered from the vision port, sleepiness instantly erased from his face.

"Hot damn!" he chortled. "Now we'll see a little action!"

Kerry Blane grinned, tried to conceal the excitement he felt. He shook his head, his fingers flickering over the control studs.

"Don't get your hopes too high, lad," he counseled. "With those super Zelta guns, it won't take ten minutes to wipe out that monster."

Splinter rubbed his hands together, sighed like a boy seeing his first circus. "Listen, for ten minutes of that, I'd ride this chunk of metal for a year!"

"Could be!" Kerry Blane agreed.

He peered through the port, seeking any spot clear enough for a landing field. Except for a strip of open beach, the island was a solid mass of heavy fern-like growth.

"Belt yourself," Kerry Blane warned. "If that beach isn't solid, I'll have to lift the ship in a hell of a hurry."

"Right!" Splinter's fingers were all thumbs in his excitement.

Kerry Blane set the controls for a shallow glide, his fingers moving like a concert pianist's. The cruiser yawed slightly, settled slowly in a flat shallow glide.

"We're going in," Kerry Blane said quietly.

He closed a knife switch, seeing too late the vitamin capsule that was lodged in the slot. There was the sharp splutter of a short-circuit, and a thin tendril of smoke drifted upward.

"Damn!" Kerry Blane swore briefly.

There was an instant, terrific explosion of the stern jets, and the cruiser hurtled toward the beach like a gravity-crazed comet.

Kerry Blane said absolutely nothing, his breath driven from him by the suck of inertia. His hands darted for the controls, seeking to balance the forces that threw the ship about like a toy. He cut all rockets with a smashing swoop of his hand, tried to fire the bow rockets. But the short had ruined the entire control system.

For one interminable second, he saw the uncanny uprush of the island below. He flicked his gaze about, saw the instant terror that wiped all other expression from his young companion's face. Then the cruiser plowed into the silvery sand.

Belts parted like rotten string; they were thrown forward with crushing force against the control panel. They groped feebly for support, their bodies twisting involuntarily, as the ship cartwheeled a dozen times in a few seconds. Almost instantly, consciousness was battered from them.

With one final, grinding bounce, the cruiser rolled to its side, twisted over and over for a hundred yards, then came to a metal-ripping stop against a moss-grown boulder at the water's edge.