The Second Science Fiction MEGAPACK®. Robert Silverberg
“He said ‘easy like a trip to Venus.’”
“So?”
“Well, I thought ya couldn’t get to Venus. I thought they just had that one rocket thing that crashed on the Moon.”
“Aah, women don’t keep up with the news,” said Garvy righteously, subsiding again.
“Oh,” said his wife uncertainly.
And the next day, on Henry’s Other Mistress, there was a new character who had just breezed in: Buzz Rentshaw, Master Rocket Pilot of the Venus run. On Henry’s Other Mistress, “the broadcast drama about you and your neighbors, folksy people, ordinary people, real people!” Mrs. Garvy listened with amazement over a cooling cup of coffee as Buzz made hay of her hazy convictions.
MONA: Darling, it’s so good to see you again!
BUZZ: You don’t know how I’ve missed you on that dreary Venus run.
SOUND: Venetian blind run down, key turned in lock.
MONA: Was it very dull, dearest?
BUZZ: Let’s not talk about my humdrum job, darling. Let’s talk about us.
SOUND: Creaking bed.
Well, the program was back to normal at last.
* * * *
That evening, Mrs. Garvy tried to ask again whether her husband was sure about those rockets, but he was dozing right through Take It and Stick It, so she watched the screen and forgot the puzzle. She was still rocking with laughter at the gag line, “Would you buy it for a quarter?” when the commercial went on for the detergent powder she always faithfully loaded her dishwasher with on the first of every month. The announcer displayed mountains of suds from a tiny piece of the stuff and coyly added, “Of course, Cleano don’t lay around for you to pick up like the soap root on Venus, but it’s pretty cheap and it’s almost pretty near just as good. So for us plain folks who ain’t lucky enough to live up there on Venus, Cleano is the real cleaning stuff!” Then the chorus went into their “Cleano-is-the-stuff” jingle, but Mrs. Garvy didn’t hear it. She was a stubborn woman, but it occurred to her that she was very sick indeed. She didn’t want to worry her husband.
The next day she quietly made an appointment with her family freud. In the waiting room she picked up a fresh new copy of Readers Pablum and put it down with a faint palpitation. The lead article, according to the table of contents on the cover, was titled “The Most Memorable Venusian I Ever Met.”
“The freud will see you now,” said the nurse, and Mrs. Garvy tottered into his office. His traditional glasses and whiskers were reassuring.
She choked out the ritual, “Freud, forgive me, for I have neuroses.”
He chanted the antiphonal, “Tut, my dear girl, what seems to be the trouble?”
“I got like a hole in the head,” she quavered. “I seem to forget all kinds of things. Things like everybody seems to know and I don’t.”
“Well, that happens to everybody occasionally, my dear. I suggest a vacation on Venus.”
The freud stared, openmouthed, at the empty chair.
His nurse came in and demanded, “Hey, you see how she scrammed? What was the matter with her?”
He took off his glasses and whiskers meditatively. “You can search me. I told her she should maybe try a vacation on Venus.” A momentary bafflement came into his face, and he dug through his desk drawers until he found a copy of the four-color, profusely illustrated journal of his profession. It had come that morning, and he had lip-read it, though looking mostly at the pictures. He leafed to the article “Advantages of the Planet Venus in Rest Cures.”
“It’s right there,” he said.
The nurse looked.
“It sure is,” she agreed. “Why shouldn’t it be?”
“The trouble with these here neurotics,” decided the freud, “is that they all the time got to fight reality. Show in the next twitch.”
He put on his glasses and whiskers again and forgot Mrs. Garvy and her strange behavior.
“Freud, forgive me, for I have neuroses.”
“Tut, my dear girl, what seems to be the trouble?”
* * * *
Like many cures of mental disorders, Mrs. Garvy’s was achieved largely by self-treatment. She disciplined herself sternly out of the crazy notion that there had been only one rocket ship and that one a failure. She could join without wincing, eventually, in any conversation on the desirability of Venus as a place to retire, on its fabulous floral profusion.
Finally she went to Venus. All her friends were trying to book passage with the Evening Star Travel and Real Estate Corporation, but naturally the demand was crushing. She considered herself lucky to get a seat at last for the two-week summer cruise.
The spaceship took off from a place called Los Alamos, New Mexico. It looked just like all the spaceships on television and in the picture magazines but was more comfortable than you would expect. Mrs. Garvy was delighted with the fifty or so fellow-passengers assembled before takeoff. They were from all over the country, and she had a distinct impression that they were on the brainy side. The captain, a tall, hawk-faced, impressive fellow named Ryan Something-or-other, welcomed them aboard and trusted that their trip would be a memorable one. He regretted that there would be nothing to see because, “due to the meteorite season,” the ports would be dogged down.
It was disappointing, yet reassuring that the line was taking no chances. There was the expected momentary discomfort at takeoff and then two monotonous days of droning travel through space to be whiled away in the lounge at cards or craps. The landing was a routine bump and the voyagers were issued tablets to swallow to immunize them against any minor ailments. When the tablets took effect, the lock was opened, and Venus was theirs. It looked much like a tropical island on Earth, except for a blanket of cloud overhead. But it had a heady, otherworldly quality that was intoxicating and glamorous. The ten days of the vacation were suffused with a hazy magic. The soap root, as advertised, was free and sudsy. The fruits, mostly tropical varieties transplanted from Earth, were delightful. The simple shelters provided by the travel company were more than adequate for the balmy days and nights. It was with sincere regret that the voyagers filed again into the ship and swallowed more tablets doled out to counteract and sterilize any Venus illnesses they might unwittingly communicate to Earth.
Vacationing was one thing. Power politics was another.
At the Pole, a small man was in a soundproof room, his face deathly pale and his body limp in a straight chair. In the American Senate Chamber, Senator Hull-Mendoza (Synd., N. Cal.) was saying, “Mr. President and gentlemen, I would be remiss in my duty as a legislature if’n I didn’t bring to the attention of the au-gust body I see here a perilous situation which is fraught with peril. As is well known to members of this au-gust body, the perfection of space flight has brought with it a situation I can only describe as fraught with peril. Mr. President and gentlemen, now that swift American rockets now traverse the trackless void of space between this planet and our nearest planetarial neighbor in space—and, gentlemen, I refer to Venus, the star of dawn, the brightest jewel in fair Vulcan’s diadome—now, I say, I want to inquire what steps are being taken to colonize Venus with a vanguard of patriotic citizens like those minutemen of yore.
“Mr. President and gentlemen! There are in this world nations, envious nations—I do not name Mexico—who by fair means or foul may seek to wrest from Columbia’s grasp the torch of freedom of space; nations whose low living standards and innate depravity give them an unfair advantage over the citizens of our fair republic.
“This is my program: I suggest that a city of more than 100,000 population be selected by lot. The citizens of the fortunate city are to be awarded choice lands on Venus free and clear, to have