MESSAGE from VENUS

by R. R. WINTERBOTHAM

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Comet January 41. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

The Venusians had one admirable characteristic. When they set out to do a thing, nothing could stop them. Captain Paul Bonnet had said something to this effect to Major Rogers and it made the old man so angry that he almost court-martialed the youth.

"We're going to stop them!" the major roared.

Captain Bonnet glanced up into the sky, already dark with the ballooned bodies of the Venusian bipeds. The creatures looked like huge sausages, except that there was something deadly about them.

On the approaches to Outpost 53, sweating men labored on the caissons of twelve batteries of Amorg twenty-fives, pouring atomic destruction into a solidly packed mass of Venusians advancing through the wire entanglements.

Captain Bonnet nodded to the major. "You're right, sir!" He turned to the members of his crew who were manning an anti-rocket gun. "Did you hear that? Knock 'em out of the sky!"

The gun coughed Amorg vapor into the sky. A gaping hole appeared directly overhead where the bodies of at least a hundred Venusians were disintegrated. Before the gun could be recharged the hole disappeared, filled by more bulging Venusians.

Lieutenant Bill Riley wiped the sweat from his face with his soiled coat sleeve.

"It's like bailing a boat with a sieve!" he said.

Major Rogers looked as though he were going to have apoplexy.

"We'll get 'em," Captain Bonnet announced, winking at his lieutenant.

Lieutenant Riley grinned. There was a great deal in common between the captain and the lieutenant, besides the fact that they were both officers of the same space ship—The Piece of Sky—which now lay ruined on the landing field, its plates dissolved by acid poured from the sky by the Venusians.

Both officers were young and husky. Both had seen action on the Martian canals and this wasn't the first meeting they had had with Venusians.

"If they had any sense they'd know they were 

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