I knew that one clear print would ease Joan’s frustration and bitterness, and give her a sense of accomplishment. But I didn’t expect anything sensational. Venus is a frozen wasteland from pole to pole, and the dust-bowl deserts of Mars are exactly like the more arid landscapes of Earth.
Most of Earth is sea and desert and I felt sure that Jupiter would exhibit uniform surface features over nine-tenths of its crust. Its rugged or picturesque regions would be dispersed amidst vast, dun wastes. The law of averages was dead against our having landed on the rim of some blue-lit, mysterious cavern measureless to man, or by the shores of an inland sea.
But Joan’s eyes were shining again, so I didn’t voice my misgivings. Joan’s eyes were fastened on the little camera as though all her life were centered there.
“Well, Richard,” she urged.
My hands were shaking. “A few pictures won’t give me a lift,” I said. “Even if they show mountains and crater-pits and five hundred million people gape at them on Earth.”
“Don’t be such a pessimist, Richard. We’ll be back in a month with impermeable space suits, and a helmet filter of the Silo type. You’re forgetting we’ve accomplished a lot. It’s something to know that the temperature outside isn’t anything like as ghastly as the cold of space, and that the pebbles we’ve siphoned up show Widman-statten lines and contain microscopic diamonds. That means Jupiter’s crust isn’t all volcanic ash. There’ll be something more interesting than tumbled mounds of lava awaiting us when we come back. If we can back our geological findings with prints—”
“You bet we can,” I scoffed. “I haven’t a doubt of it. What do you want to see? Flame-tongued flowers or gyroscopic porcupines? Take your choice. Richard the Great never fails.”
“Richard, you’re talking like that to hide something inside you that’s all wonder and surmise.”
Scowling, I broke open the camera and the plates fell out into my hand. They were small three by four inch positive transparencies, coated on one side with a iridescent emulsion which was still slightly damp.
Joan’s eyes were riveted on my face. She seemed unaware of the presence of the crewmen below us. She sat calmly watching me as I picked up the topmost plate and held it up in the cube-light.
I stared at it intently. It depicted—a spiral of mist. Simply that, and nothing more. The spiral hung in blackness like a wisp of smoke, tapering from a narrow base.
“Well?” said Joan.
“Nothing on this one,” I said, and picked up another. The spiral was still there, but behind it was something that looked like an anthill.
“Thick mist getting thinner,” I said.
The third plate gave me a jolt. The spiral had become a weaving ghost shroud above a distinct elevation that could have been either a mountain or an anthill. It would have been impossible to even guess at the elevation’s distance from the ship if something hadn’t seemed to be crouching upon it.
The mist coiled down over the thing and partly obscured it. But enough of it was visible to startle me profoundly. It seemed to be crouching on the summit of the elevation, a wasplike thing with wiry legs and gauzy wings standing straight out from its body.
My fingers were trembling so I nearly dropped the fourth plate. On the fourth plate the thing was clearly visible. The spiral was a dispersing ribbon of mist high up on the plate and the mound was etched in sharp outlines on the emulsion.
The crouching shape was unmistakably wasplike. It stood poised on the edge of the mound, its wings a vibrating blur against the amorphously swirling mist.
From within the mound a companion shape was emerging. The second “wasp” was similar to the poised creature in all respects, but its wings did not appear to be vibrating and from its curving mouthparts there dangled threadlike filaments of some whitish substance which was faintly discernible against the mist.
The fifth and last plate showed both creatures poised as though for flight, while something that looked like the head of still another wasp was protruding from the summit of the mound.
I passed the plates to Joan without comment. Wonder and exaltation came into her face as she examined them, first in sequence and then haphazardly, as though unable to believe her eyes.
“Life,” she murmured at last, her voice tremulous with awe. “Life on Jupiter. Richard, it’s—unbelievable. This great planet that we thought was a seething cauldron is actually inhabited by—insects.”
“I don’t think they’re insects, Joan,” I said. “We’ve got to suspend judgment until we can secure a specimen and study it at close range. It’s an obligation we owe to our sponsors and—to ourselves. We’re here on a mission of scientific exploration. We didn’t inveigle funds from the Smithsonian so that we could rush to snap conclusions five hundred million miles from Earth.
“Insectlike would be a safer word. I’ve always believed that life would evolve along parallel lines throughout the entire solar system, assuming that it could exist at all on Venus, Mars, or on one of the outer planets. I’ve always believed that any life sustaining environment would produce forms familiar to us. On Earth you have the same adaptations occurring again and again in widely divergent species.
“There are lizards that resemble fish and fish that are lizardlike. The dinosaur Triceratops resembled a rhinoceros, the duck-billed platypus a colossal. Porpoises and whales are so fishlike that no visitor from space would ever suspect that they were mammals wearing evolutionary grease paint. And some of the insects look just like crustaceans, as you know.
“These creatures look like insects, but they may not even be protoplasmic in structure. They may be composed of some energy-absorbing mineral that has acquired the properties of life.”
Joan’s eyes were shining. “I don’t care what they’re composed of, Richard. We’ve got to capture one of those creatures alive.”
I shook my head. “Impossible, Joan. If the air outside wasn’t poisonous I’d be out there with a net.
