The Ambassadors from Venus

By KENDELL FOSTER CROSSEN

A Novelet of Grim New Worlds

Strange. Strange. The empty space ships. The patched voices. The curt invitation to Venus. But what had Clyde Ellery and the other atom-plague survivors to lose?

They forgot there are many kinds of death!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories March 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

The first ship landed in a plowed field fifty miles from the city, just beyond the signs that warned of radiation. Rather circular in shape, it was fully sixty feet across and twenty feet in thickness, its color a burnished green. It came down swiftly until it was fifty feet from the ground; then a gush of flame poured from the under side and checked its fall. It settled to the soil, like a giant mushroom, and there was a smell of scorched earth in the air.

Max Carr was the first to see it. He was sitting under the gnarled apple tree in the front yard, and he watched the ship settle down on that tail of fire. He should have been out in the fields planting, but he wasn't. He hadn't worked in months, beyond milking the cows and tossing them wisps of hay. He knew that a hundred million people had died in America the day the bombs fell, that hundreds of millions more had died in Europe the following day, and in Asia and Africa the day after, as American atomic bombs rocketed in reply to the sudden attack.

He knew that millions had died since, and were still dying as the radioactivity bit deep into their bones and flesh. He felt the clutch of death on himself, so he looked at the ship with little curiosity. It was a strange ship, but there was nothing it could do that had not already been done.

But when nothing happened, when no strange warriors came swaggering from the ship, his sluggish interest uncoiled and took on life. He called his wife and children and they cautiously approached the ship. Still nothing happened. It seemed to be made of solid metal, with no windows or doors. They touched the strange metal and stared at the blackened ground, and then returned to the lethargy that was their daily fare.

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