Battle on Venus

Battle On Venus

by

William F. Temple

3S XHTML edition 1.0

click for scan notes and proofing history

contents

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THE ASTRONAUTS WERE EVERYONE’S TARGETS

Earth’s first spaceship to Venus landed amidst a war where strange weapons like the archaic ones used in the old wars on Earth in the Twentieth Century hurled shells at each other. Rut this war had lasted over a thousand years —and by remote control!

George Starkey had to find a way to stop the war before the little group of astronauts became early casualties. But how? Where were the headquarters of the contending sides and how do you tell a robot tank that you’re neutral?

But George had an ally, a Venusian girl who thought stealing was virtuous—and, unknowingly, he had something else that turned out to be the most valuable substance on Venus—a box of chocolate bars!

Turn this book over for second complete novel (proofers note: The Suns Of Amara available as a separate ebook) WILLIAM F. TEMPLE is a London-born Englishman, who was publishing science- fiction long before it became a respectable word. His youthful friends and fellow-authors were Arthur C. Clarke, John Wyndham, and John Christopher. Before World War II the Temple-Clarke flat was the headquarters of the British Interplanetary Society (Temple edited its Journal). Then, space travel was regarded as beyond the lunatic fringe. Now, the B.I.S is as respectable as science-fiction. Temple still lives in hopes of becoming respectable also.

He has had numerous science-fiction stories published on both sides of the Atlantic, and many have been anthologized. Besides four science-fiction novels, he has published a straight book on space travel, and a crime thriller.

He has written a good deal of (intentionally) juvenile general fiction, and has two children of his own.

For a brief dark space he was an editor but prefers to pretend it never happened.

ACE BOOKS

A Division of Charter Communications Inc.

1120 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10036

BATTLE ON VENUS

Copyright © 1963, by Ace Books, Inc. All Rights Reserved First Ace printing: April, 1963 Second Ace printing: June, 1973

printed as ACE DOUBLE #76380 with THE SUNS OF AMARA Copyright ©, 1962, by Ace Books, Inc.

Printed in U.S.A.

I

ON EVERY roll his name was entered as “Captain J. Freiburg.” He signed his checks “J. Freiburg.” Friends called him “Cap” or simply “J.”

He never let on, unless he had to, what “J” stood for. He’d always been sensitive about it and now he was downright superstitious about it. His given name was Jonah; he’d wrecked a ship once, and right now he had a hunch he was on the point of wrecking another. And there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. It wasn’t a question of skill: he was skillful enough. It was a question of luck. He’d used up a lot of luck on this trip, and he felt the last drops of it oozing away through his boot soles.

Inside the spaceship, the light was becoming unbearably bright. Freiburg felt he was standing at the focus point of a score of naked arc lamps. Meter dials shone like mirrors and defied reading. Handrails blazed like rods of white fire—a man hesitated to grasp them.

But it was all just light, nothing more. The temperature hadn’t risen a single degree, even though the ship was