Escape to Venus - Clark Darlton

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Impetuous Thora, beauteous woman from distant Arkon, breaks the bonds of Earth and, with a robot as
her only companion, rockets toward Venus as he first step toward returning home to he native world.
But she reckons without SBX…and her plans are wrecked. She finds to her dismay that she has fled the
frying pan, only to land in the fire of the volcanic primeval planet that is Venus, a dangerous dinosaurian
world where giant slugy ugly snail-worms creep and frail flesh crawls and winged terrordactyls swoop in
the long long night.
ESCAPE TO VENUS
1/ HELL WORLD
Three metal monsters.
Three silvery, glittering bodies of metal reared up from the soil of Asia towards the eternally blue sky of
the great continent. Their conical noses seemed to sniff toward the stars.
On the exterior, the spaceships resembled the first rockets that flew from the Earth to the Moon,
initiating a new era for mankind. But the resemblance was strictly external.
Internally, the ships were equipped with far ranging ray cannons and machines to throw up energy
screens around them, protective barriers impenetrable by any power on Earth. These were the latest type
of ‘destroyer,’ craft built on an enlarged scale with a complement of three men and capable of light
speed.
Constructed in the space complex of the New Power, the three destroyers were the first of their kind
and so far had been test flown only once. No defects or malfunctions had been discovered so mass
production of the new model was scheduled for the near future in the largest spaceship construction
centre in the world.
Lonely lay the spacious test terrain of the New Power under the broiling heat of the afternoon sun. In the
distance soared the skyscrapers of Terrania, formerly known as Galacto-City, the future capital of a
united world. To the left was the spacecraft plant, a vast complex of long halls, immense hangars and a
variety of domed buildings.
Guards patrolled the immediate area around the three new destroyers. Mechanically, and at regular
intervals, they performed their duties, looking neither to right nor to left, as if they realized how senseless
their task must be: for no one could possibly advance undetected to this point. No unauthorized person
was to be found anywhere throughout the entire area of the plant—the electronically controlled cordon
saw to that.
 The guards did not wear uniforms; instead, garments of a strange-looking metallic material that shone
like silver in the sun. Their ever alert eyes were not organic, they were crystal lenses. For these were no
ordinary human beings: they were robots.
Theirs was a single command: to guard the ships. This they did without emotion. When ordered to watch
for some one who could not possibly appear here, no one could have told whether there was any
sensation of amazement or not in their positronic brains.
To the right, as far as the horizon, extended the mirror-like expanse of the Goshun saltlake. From this
side there was the least potential threat of intruders for the lake lay within the cordonned-off area.
And still, this calm was deceptive.
While all mankind was preparing to celebrate an important anniversary of man’s first flight to the Moon,
and hardly a soul was not glued to TV to watch the festivities, one person had decided to no longer place
faith in certain promises. The time had come for action!
A car was approaching the test area from the south.
The smooth road was almost free of dust. The vehicle whizzed along the deserted road, never slowing
down, not even when the first electronic barrier came into sight. The electronic sensors checked out the
vehicle and its occupants—and let them pass.
The second and third electronic checkpoints reacted in a similar manner.
The car, a smart-looking sports model, drove straight toward the three rockets and then began to
decrease its speed. Two of the robot guards had changed the course of their mechanical rounds and
advanced toward the car. Their left arms were held at a strange angle but nobody could have recognized
the rayguns hidden inside. The least impulse would be sufficient to transform these apparently harmless
metal creatures into energy-spewing death-dealing machines.
But that impulse failed to materialize.
The electronic sensors probed the brain pattern of the human being that had stepped out of the vehicle
and it was checked out as ‘approved,’ as it possessed all the necessary required qualifications. The two
robots lowered their arms and permitted the person to pass. With a sarcastic smile, the stranger walked
past the automatons, then stopped a few yards farther away, seemingly undecided.
There they were, the three small model spaceships, ready to start. Their height of 30 yards made them
appear quite huge, judged by terrestrial standards. Their interior harboured tremendous energy reservoirs
and fantastic engines designed by non-human brains. With these ships it was possible to traverse the solar
system within the span of a few hours and, if one so desired, one could reach the nearest star in 4½
years.
The robots resumed their interrupted patrols. The stranger’s brain pattern spelt no danger, according to
their programmed instructions, so the unidentified one was permitted to pass; indeed, allowed to do much
more without releasing danger impulses in their positronic brains.
The tall stranger stood for quite a while in the solitude of the desert and contemplated the three
spacecraft. The well-fitting uniform brought out the stranger’s slender figure and at closer examination it
became evident that this was a
female
figure. A big cap hid the long, light- coloured hair that shone
 almost white in the bright sun. The reddish eyes revealed determination—as well as a trace of sadness.
The woman threw a last glance at everything around her—the nearby salt lake, the vast aircraft plant and
the distant city of Terrania—before she slowly started to move in the direction of the nearest of the three
spaceships.
It was the third destroyer C, or D3 for short.
The entrance hatch of D3 was closed but there was a small metal ladder leading up to it. One of the
robots was standing at the foot of this ladder. He did not move as the woman came closer and then
stopped in front of him. The robot’s left arm hung down his side without moving. There was a blank stare
in his crystal lenses.
"Proceed to your station, R-17," said the woman in a harsh-sounding unknown language after she had
quickly read the robot’s name on a small sign on his chest. "We are starting a test flight."
The robot remained motionless. "There is no command for such a test flight," he answered in the same
language.
The woman reacted with a gesture of displeasure. "I am issuing the command now, I, Thora of Arkon."
R-17 still did not react in the desired manner. "Rhodan’s order supersedes yours, Thora."
Angry sparks glittered in the woman’s eyes. Fiery flashes seemed to dart from her red pupils toward the
resistant robot.
"Perry Rhodan is a Terranian, R-17, and I am an Arkonide. My command is higher than that of Rhodan,
the earthling."
"Also higher than that of Khrest?"
She hesitated for a moment, then threw her head back indignantly. "Khrest is under Rhodan’s
influence—he doesn’t count any longer. why are you asking?"
"Because Khrest has ordered that we should obey all commands coming from Rhodan whatever they
might be. Therefore we cannot act against his orders. That is logical, isn’t it?"
The woman thought for a moment, then slowly nodded her head. "Yes, that sounds quite logical. Do you
always react according to logical principles, R-17?"
"My existence is based on logic."
"Good," said the woman and regarded his almost human features with a pensive expression in her eyes.
"Then will you answer some questions I have?"
"With pleasure, Thora of Arkon."
"Did Perry Rhodan specifically forbid another test flight with D3?"
"No."
 "Furthermore, has he forbidden that I undertake such a test flight?"
"No."
"Would you therefore be acting against Rhodan’s orders if you were to fly this ship to Venus, for
instance?"
"Conditionally it seems No."
"Well, then," Thora breathed a sigh of relief. It follows that you are not breaking any rules if you do as I
say."
R-17’s features almost seemed to express some doubt. "But I did not receive any orders from Rhodan
for this flight."
"Is that necessary?" Thora appeared very astonished. "After all you are receiving such an order from
myself now. And you were not forbidden to receive orders from me—or am I wrong?"
"No."
Thora smiled. Her smile had no effect on the robot’s psycho-regions, only the compelling logic of her
question affected him.
"No, it is not forbidden to receive any orders from you."
"Alright, we can start then!"
R-17 was still hesitating. As far as it was possible for him at all, he did not seem to feel too happy with
his existence. But he could not find any logical counter argument to blandly refuse Thora’s request. This
woman was a member of the race that had created him, while Rhodan was merely an inhabitant of this
planet by the name of Terra—although he was a particularly outstanding specimen of that race. Thora
was much closer to R-17 than Rhodan, although he had been forced to obey him as a result of
conditioning received at the hands of Khrest. He would never disregard this command to obey him. He
would be incapable of doing so without bringing about a disastrous short circuit in his system.
On the other hand, if he were to obey Thora he would not act directly against Rhodan’s orders; ergo, he
was not exposing himself to any danger.
He nodded his head in a human-like gesture. "Yes, we can start. My orders were not to permit any
strangers to approach this ship. Thora of Arkon, however, is no stranger."
"Fine. Let’s not waste any time. Set course for the planet Venus as fast as you can manage. I want to
test how fast we can reach our second base in this solar system in case of emergency."
She was waiting impatiently as the robot rather clumsily climbed up the ladder and opened the entrance
hatch. Not until he had disappeared in the airlock did she follow him up into the ship. The robot pushed a
button and the heavy outside hatch fell shut. The anti-grav elevator brought Thora and R-17 within a few
seconds up to the destroyer’s nose, where the command centre was located.
They sat down in the movable seats. While the robot was calculating the course, the engines began to
warm up. Somewhere in the interior of D3 the reactor began to work, producing the incredible amounts
 of energy needed to lift the ship off the ground against the gravitational pull, then hurtle it through space
with the speed of light. The artificial grav-fields were switched on automatically to neutralize any
G-forces. The entire complicated mechanism of an unimaginable technology was set in motion.
Thora was waiting. She knew she had accomplished her aim. It would be just a few more minutes, then
she would watch this hated planet sink away like a blue sphere in the ocean of infinity. Venus would be
only a stopover, for it would be sheer madness to try reaching her home planet, more than 30-thousand
light-years away, with a ship limited to the speed of light. But on Venus there was a hyperwave sender
and it would certainly not be too difficult to call one of the Arkonide space cruisers to come to her
rescue.
R-17 motioned to her. "All ready for takeoff. Observe the videoscreen to acquaint yourself with the
capacities of D3. Rhodan has strictly forbidden maximum speed; this is permitted only in case of an
emergency. Still, we’ll reach Venus in about one hour and a half. Venus is now on the other side of the
sun."
"Distance?"
R-17 answered immediately: "143 million miles."
"Our top permissible speed?"
"75% that of light."
She did not reply and waited. R-17 seized a lever and pulled it downwards. Nothing seemed to happen
but the image on the videoscreen underwent rapid changes.
D3 lifted off without using the pulse-drive power unit. The antigrav projectors nullified the gravitational
pull of Earth, and repelling force-fields moved the now weightless mass of the spaceship.
The ground fell away suddenly from underneath the ship. Buildings, roads, rivers, mountains and deserts
seemed to fly rapidly and evenly from all sides toward the centre of the starting point, and the field of
vision expanded until the entire terrain suddenly dropped away and was replaced by a dark-violet area.
The universe!
In less than 10 seconds the destroyer had rammed through Earth’s atmosphere and was now
unrelentingly racing through space.
For a moment, Thora thought she recognized a flashing point in the right corner of the observation
screen; but almost before she became consciously aware of it, the light point had disappeared again.
Then she noticed the sun, nearly straight ahead in the rocket’s line of flight, its brightness considerably
reduced by dark filters.
Earth assumed the shape of a globe that rotated peacefully in the starry sky, becoming smaller and
smaller until it was nothing but a brightly shining heavenly body.
Thora sighed. She glanced in the direction of the robot pilot.
R-17 returned her glance. "A fine ship," he said with appreciation.
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