
A lone astronaut awakens amid the howling, dust‑laden storms of Venus, the wreckage of his ship half‑buried in a landscape of invisible, lethal winds. With his crew dead and supplies dwindling, he must ration oxygen, water and food while the planet’s relentless gale threatens to erase every trace of their mission. The hostile environment forces him into a desperate routine—lying low to conserve breath, scavenging for the few unspoiled provisions left, and recording his dwindling condition in a log that may be his only voice.
Soon, the storm carries in strange, teardrop‑shaped forms that settle in the cracks of his makeshift shelter. Their eerie, slow movements hint at an alien presence that could be either a new danger or an unexpected ally. As dehydration and isolation blur his thoughts, the astronaut clings to the hope that understanding these entities might offer a chance to survive—or at least to give meaning to the sacrifices that brought him to this alien world.
Language
en
Duration
~12 minutes (12K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2020-12-05
Rights
Public domain in the USA.
1915–2003
A quietly prolific mid-century science fiction writer, he turned out brisk, imaginative stories for many of the era’s classic pulp and digest magazines. His work has the fast-moving, idea-first feel that makes 1950s SF such a pleasure to rediscover.
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