CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

_Teachers Can't Play Hookey_

It was now an hour after the Earth rocket had blasted off on its way back to Earth. Johnny Watson lay on his stomach with his chin cupped in his hands and looked down from the top of New Plymouth Rock. Beside him, twisted into the same position, was his friend Baba, his blue nails glowing in Venus' pearly light. Near the two friends, perched on a boulder, were two of the large Venus eagles, watching every move they made.

How changed it all was down in the settlement! People were streaming back from the rocket field on foot and without armor. Beside the Jenkins family strode Mona, the leopardess, carrying a basket in her mouth. In the basket the Jenkins' baby slept. Mona just loved babies. Down in the marshberry fields three rhinosaurs peacefully browsed. There were so many berries available now in the sea marshes that no one had to worry about the few in the fields. The marva had left these three rhinosaurs to carry people wherever they might want to go.

High in the sky was a faint dot. Baba nudged Johnny and pointed.

"Here comes Keetack," he said in his clicking language. "We'll have to go down pretty soon."

"I suppose so," Johnny said wearily.

It had been fun for a while being the only person who understood the marva language. When Dad and the other colonists had gone into the jungle to talk with the council of all the marva groves, Johnny and Baba had been there too--the center of attention. When the men spoke, Baba told the marva what they meant. When the marva spoke, Johnny had to tell the men what the bears meant. It had been fun being so important. It had been fun being treated like heroes, but they were already tired of it. With their new freedom to travel, there was a whole continent to explore, and hundreds of new friends to make.

Idly, Johnny watched the dot, that Baba said was Keetack, grow into a bird with a twenty-foot wing spread flying through the sky. In its claws was a small black-muzzled bouncing bear. Baba's eyes were magically good. The bird was a Venus eagle--the marva's airplane. Before men had come and made it dangerous for them, the marva had flown anywhere they wanted to go in the talons of these great birds. Johnny knew that the earliest hunters thought the eagles were preying upon the bears. It was just one more surprising thing about the little bears. Johnny remembered what Rick had said when he had arrived home, his wound all healed. He had really grown to respect the marva.

"They have learned to live with other creatures, and have taught all their friends, as they call the animals, to live in peace together. The meat eaters have their meat trees so they don't need to attack other animals--it's amazing," Rick reported.

Johnny remembered how Baba had preened himself when Rick had spoken that way, and he smiled.

"Hey, Baba," Johnny said, "how soon do you think we could take a trip all around the groves? We could get Skorkin to carry us, and go visit everybody."

"You will have to come stay with my people," Baba said. Only a few days before Baba had discovered a host of aunts, uncles and cousins in one of the outlying groves. Most important of all he had found his father. "I've lived with you for years and years. Now it should be your turn."

"Oh, good," said Johnny. "We'll do it, soon as they'll let us go."

"Look, Johnny," Baba pointed. "Look at the trader!"

Below, the fat bald-headed little man, a pack on his back, was heading into the jungle. He waddled as he walked, but he moved straight along.

"Where's he going?" Baba asked.

"Dad says he's going to start a marshberry farm--if the marva will let him. But, gosh, it'll be a long time before anyone will help him."

"He can always live on meat fruit and stuff," Baba said. "Nobody likes him, but they won't bother him if he leaves them alone."

What had happened to the trader and to the outlaws was the strangest thing of all. The marva had not wanted them punished. They said they wanted to make friends, not enemies.

The thousands of marva claws that had been given to the colony had made the claws quite cheap, so that Trader Harkness had become a poor man; he had been rich in hunting equipment and hunting lodges--now all these things were valueless. Surprisingly, he had refused to return to Earth.

"Venus is my home," he had said flatly. "I'll get by."

Johnny had to admire his courage, just as he had to admire some of the hunters who would not stay on Venus. These lean hard-bitten men were going further on into space.

To Johnny's surprise Keetack admired the hunters, too. "They are fighters, like the rhinosaurs. Here there is nothing left to fight. They are people of much courage."

Looking down on the trader, Johnny found he couldn't help feeling sorry for him.

"Goodbye," he yelled, his voice echoing among the rocks. "Goodbye, Trader."

The fat man looked up and waved back. Johnny thought he smiled.

"He was a real pioneer," Johnny said.

"Yes," Baba answered, "he'll be all right."

Johnny jumped back suddenly from the edge of the rock and hid behind some bushes. "Here comes Mom, looking for us!"

Baba quickly dived back out of sight too.

Johnny peeked through the screening of bushes. His mother was riding toward the rock on Skorkin, the rhinosaur! This hideout was not very secret. Everybody on Venus knew about it. He stood up, and waved down to her.

"I'm coming, Mother," he shouted.

His mother nodded and the big rhinosaur turned back toward the settlement.

In a few minutes Baba and Johnny would be back in school, sitting in front of a group of men and a group of marva. Baba would be teaching the marva how to understand the talk of people, while Johnny taught the men and women how to talk and understand the language of the marva. It was a hard job.

"I guess we gotta go back!" Johnny mourned.

"I guess so!" Baba agreed sadly.

"There is only one trouble with being a teacher," said Johnny. "Teachers just can't play hookey." Then he grinned. "Say, I've got an idea!"

"What?" asked Baba.

"Mom hasn't been doing her homework. Let's give a test today!"

Baba slapped his furry haunches, his blue teeth glowing.

"Let's go!" Johnny clicked to the two eagles. He ran as hard as he could and leaped off the edge of the high cliff, hurtling down and down. Right after him, Baba jumped, too.

There was the sound of great wings, and the two tremendous Venus eagles swept after them. One dived at Johnny, its claws spread. The long powerful claws hooked into Johnny's belt and whisked him through the air toward the settlement. The other grasped Baba by the shoulders. Together the two friends flew on.

"That was fun!" said Johnny.

His furry blue pal nodded his agreement.

Facts About Venus

An Afterword for Curious Boys and Girls (As well as Parents, Teachers and Librarians)

"Daddy, is this what Venus is really like?" demanded Blake, my eleven-year-old son. He had just finished reading my manuscript.

I have an idea that among my readers there may be other curious boys and girls who might ask the same question my son did. This was my answer:

The job of a science fiction writer, I think, is to spin out tales about other times and strange planets, using known facts as beginning points, and without violating any known facts. In _Venus Boy_ I have tried to do this. I think I have created a picture of life on the surface of Venus that is possible, if just barely possible.

In addition to being a story teller, I am a librarian, and librarians love to keep their facts straight. The fact about Venus is that nobody knows just what it is like on the surface of the planet. Since nobody knows, I could make it all up.

Many facts _are_ known about Venus, however. Venus is the Sun's second planet. It is about twenty-five million miles closer to the Sun than our Earth. Astronomers have measured and "weighed" it. It is almost exactly the same size as Earth, but its weight (mass) is twenty per cent less. It turns very slowly on its axis, so that its day is much longer than an Earth day. Because of a layer of clouds that surrounds it, the surface cannot be seen even with the most powerful of telescopes. Thus, astronomers cannot tell just how fast or slow it turns. A Venus day may be as short as fourteen Earth days or as long as two hundred and twenty-five Earth days.

If you noticed, you can see I have kept my picture of life on Venus true to these facts. I had the Venus day be fourteen Earth days long. Some of the animals and plants were a great deal larger than Earth animals and plants, a fact that would be expected on a planet with less gravity than that of Earth.

Of course you might think that because of the clouds that surround Venus, the planet would be a terribly rainy place. That is not very probable. By using an instrument called a spectrograph, astronomers have learned that those heavy clouds are not clouds of water vapor. Indeed, they can find evidence for little or no water vapor on Venus. They can detect a great deal of carbon dioxide--but no oxygen.

"But without oxygen, animals couldn't breathe!" I can hear a child who knows some science say. "Life would be impossible!"

That could be true. Some scientists, in fact most of them, believe that life _is_ impossible on the surface of Venus. But remember, nobody knows what is under that heavy layer of clouds, and nobody knows just what those clouds are.

One astronomer, Rupert Wildt, has advanced a theory about the Venusian clouds that, I think, would allow for the possibility of life on Venus. He theorized, on the evidence available to him, that, when Venus was young, carbon-dioxide and water, in the presence of ultra-violet light, may have combined to make clouds of one form of plastic! I think it possible that such clouds would be thick, spongy and permanent, and that they would join together, so that the inner atmosphere of Venus could not escape through them. According to his theory Venus could be like a Christmas present--all wrapped in shining plastic. This could account for the fact, too, that more than half the light falling on it from the sun is reflected, making it the brightest of all the planets or stars, a jewel of a planet.

Under a loose layer of plastic, life could be possible on Venus. If plant life began under those clouds, then an oxygen atmosphere could develop. Plants take in carbon dioxide through their leaves and give out oxygen. Many scientists believe the Earth's atmosphere became rich with oxygen in this manner. Of course, none of that oxygen in Venus' atmosphere could get through the thick layer of spongy plastic clouds. The carbon dioxide that was trapped on the outside would not get through either.

Scientists believe, too, that Venus may be too hot for life, or too cold. I think that the clouds and the carbon dioxide trapped outside of them would serve, on the one hand, to insulate Venus from the hot light of the nearby sun; and, on the other hand, to hold in its warmth during the long nights.

As you can see, I have spun my story out of Mr. Wildt's idea of the plastic clouds of Venus. The rhinosaurs heavy armor, the arrow-bird's bills, the marva's plastic-strengthening jewel claws, all had their beginnings in the idea of a plastic planet. It allowed for the creation of some fairly interesting animals, I think.

While I am on the subject of my animals, I should say a word about the possibility of animals cooperating the way I have had my Venus animals cooperate. That, I think, is perfectly possible. On Earth one can find examples of several creatures living so closely together that if one kind is killed off the others would all die. In many articles and books Mr. Ashley Montague has amassed much evidence that shows an instinct for cooperation is as primary as the instinct of self-preservation. If we grant the idea of a creature whose intelligence is directed entirely toward surviving by cooperation, then I think my cooperative animals are, at the very least, possible.

Possible! That is what I hope my picture of life on Venus is. However, it must be remembered that it is only _just_ possible. Astronomers have envisioned Venus as a planet of terrible dust storms, with a temperature hot enough to boil water. They have spoken of it as a place of seas of formaldehyde, hot and terrible by day, and freezing cold at night. Their guesses are probably better than mine. But I must admit I like my guess a little better. I hope you have enjoyed it.