Read Online Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs by Mike Resnick, Robert T. Garcia - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mike Resnick, Robert T. Garcia
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landscape visible over our pilot’s shoulder changed continuously. We had flown over lush jungle, then over grassy savannahs, and now our giant dragonfly’s four gossamer wings carried us ever higher, the terrain beneath rising into rolling foothills and the rocky scarps of towering granite mounts. At times I almost believed that we were passengers in a living organism, so convincing were the dragonfly’s movements.
After a while I felt myself becoming dizzied by the changing world outside the dragonfly. The tropicallike vegetation that I had become accustomed to on Venus now gave way to some botanical analogs of Earthly evergreens. Tall, graceful trees that could have passed for northern pines towered into the air.
We rose above the snow line, and the pine-analogs rising from the wintry accumulation caused me to feel a pang of homesickness for the warm hearths and gaily wrapped gifts piled beneath decorated evergreens that I had known and loved as a child. There was a difference, however. The “snow” of Amtor, if snow I may call it, was not the pure white of Earthly snow. Instead, it showed swirls and ridges of color where the winds of this planet drove and shifted it. It was a remarkable substance. Seen from afar, as it was when I peered ahead from the dragonfly, the colors did blend into a dazzling white. But by looking straight down, or as close to straight down as the configuration of our aircraft permitted, I could make out glittering bits of crimson, cobalt, sapphire, and indigo blue, emerald, lime, and forest green, richest gold and vivid purple.
I must have clutched Duare’s hand in my emotional longing for my home planet and the joys of childhood that I had experienced there, for she made a startled sound and turned toward me.
An encouraging expression crossed her face, and I told myself that I had found another love, another kind of love, here on Earth’s sister planet.
Eventually even the pines disappeared and there was nothing but gray granite and white snow reflecting the diffuse light that passed through Amtor’s double layer of clouds.
Without preliminary, a sound like the rattle of hailstones on a tin roof burst upon us. Outside the dragonfly’s snug cockpit and cramped passenger compartment millions of brilliant gems were cascading onto the wings and body of the aircraft.
Above us a hole seemed to have opened in the lower of the planet’s two cloud envelopes. A vortex perhaps two hundred feet in width had appeared, and within it whirled a sight both glorious and mystifying. Myriad specks of every imaginable hue circled, propelled by some atmospheric phenomenon.
Even more astonishing, through the glowing colors of this atmospheric whirlpool I could see the upper cloud layer. A similar gap had appeared there, filled with a similar array of dazzling illumination. For a moment I felt that I could actually see the sun, and again a pang of loss and longing clutched at my heart.
The colored motes that clattered off the wings and body of the dragonfly were falling like hailstones from the gaps in the two cloud layers. But the two cloud layers moved independently of each other, and soon the two whirlpools were no longer in alignment. In a short time the one above us, from which the seeming hail of colored crystals had come, closed like the iris of your eye. The hail ceased to fall.
I made mental note that the mystery of the colorful snow was solved. It was indeed a product of the cloud vortices of Amtor’s double cloud envelope. Like Earthly precipitation, I inferred, it might fall as rain, as snow, or as sleet. At the right altitude and under the right conditions, there might even be a Venusian fog of almost hypnotically swirling colors.
Above us and not far ahead I saw still another incredible vision. From the impenetrable gray wall of jagged granite there rose a precipitous escarpment of ruddy red rock, and upon its peak a gigantic structure, one that must contain no fewer than a thousand
After a while I felt myself becoming dizzied by the changing world outside the dragonfly. The tropicallike vegetation that I had become accustomed to on Venus now gave way to some botanical analogs of Earthly evergreens. Tall, graceful trees that could have passed for northern pines towered into the air.
We rose above the snow line, and the pine-analogs rising from the wintry accumulation caused me to feel a pang of homesickness for the warm hearths and gaily wrapped gifts piled beneath decorated evergreens that I had known and loved as a child. There was a difference, however. The “snow” of Amtor, if snow I may call it, was not the pure white of Earthly snow. Instead, it showed swirls and ridges of color where the winds of this planet drove and shifted it. It was a remarkable substance. Seen from afar, as it was when I peered ahead from the dragonfly, the colors did blend into a dazzling white. But by looking straight down, or as close to straight down as the configuration of our aircraft permitted, I could make out glittering bits of crimson, cobalt, sapphire, and indigo blue, emerald, lime, and forest green, richest gold and vivid purple.
I must have clutched Duare’s hand in my emotional longing for my home planet and the joys of childhood that I had experienced there, for she made a startled sound and turned toward me.
An encouraging expression crossed her face, and I told myself that I had found another love, another kind of love, here on Earth’s sister planet.
Eventually even the pines disappeared and there was nothing but gray granite and white snow reflecting the diffuse light that passed through Amtor’s double layer of clouds.
Without preliminary, a sound like the rattle of hailstones on a tin roof burst upon us. Outside the dragonfly’s snug cockpit and cramped passenger compartment millions of brilliant gems were cascading onto the wings and body of the aircraft.
Above us a hole seemed to have opened in the lower of the planet’s two cloud envelopes. A vortex perhaps two hundred feet in width had appeared, and within it whirled a sight both glorious and mystifying. Myriad specks of every imaginable hue circled, propelled by some atmospheric phenomenon.
Even more astonishing, through the glowing colors of this atmospheric whirlpool I could see the upper cloud layer. A similar gap had appeared there, filled with a similar array of dazzling illumination. For a moment I felt that I could actually see the sun, and again a pang of loss and longing clutched at my heart.
The colored motes that clattered off the wings and body of the dragonfly were falling like hailstones from the gaps in the two cloud layers. But the two cloud layers moved independently of each other, and soon the two whirlpools were no longer in alignment. In a short time the one above us, from which the seeming hail of colored crystals had come, closed like the iris of your eye. The hail ceased to fall.
I made mental note that the mystery of the colorful snow was solved. It was indeed a product of the cloud vortices of Amtor’s double cloud envelope. Like Earthly precipitation, I inferred, it might fall as rain, as snow, or as sleet. At the right altitude and under the right conditions, there might even be a Venusian fog of almost hypnotically swirling colors.
Above us and not far ahead I saw still another incredible vision. From the impenetrable gray wall of jagged granite there rose a precipitous escarpment of ruddy red rock, and upon its peak a gigantic structure, one that must contain no fewer than a thousand
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