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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wind, by Charles Louis Fontenay
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Wind
+
+Author: Charles Louis Fontenay
+
+Release Date: September 12, 2007 [EBook #22590]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  WIND
+
+                         By CHARLES L. FONTENAY
+
+
+            _When you have an engine with no fuel, and fuel
+            without an engine, and a life-and-death deadline
+           to meet, you have a problem indeed. Unless you are
+           a stubborn Dutchman--and Jan Van Artevelde was the
+                     stubbornest Dutchman on Venus._
+
+
+Jan Willem van Artevelde claimed descent from William of Orange. He had
+no genealogy to prove it, but on Venus there was no one who could
+disprove it, either.
+
+Jan Willem van Artevelde smoked a clay pipe, which only a Dutchman can
+do properly, because the clay bit grates on less stubborn teeth.
+
+Jan needed all his Dutch stubbornness, and a good deal of pure physical
+strength besides, to maneuver the roach-flat groundcar across the
+tumbled terrain of Den Hoorn into the teeth of the howling gale that
+swept from the west. The huge wheels twisted and jolted against the
+rocks outside, and Jan bounced against his seat belt, wrestled the
+steering wheel and puffed at his _pijp_. The mild aroma of
+Heerenbaai-Tabak filled the airtight groundcar.
+
+There came a new swaying that was not the roughness of the terrain.
+Through the thick windshield Jan saw all the ground about him buckle and
+heave for a second or two before it settled to rugged quiescence again.
+This time he was really heaved about.
+
+Jan mentioned this to the groundcar radio.
+
+"That's the third time in half an hour," he commented. "The place tosses
+like the IJsselmeer on a rough day."
+
+"You just don't forget it _isn't_ the Zuider Zee," retorted Heemskerk
+from the other end. "You sink there and you don't come up three times."
+
+"Don't worry," said Jan. "I'll be back on time, with a broom at the
+masthead."
+
+"This I shall want to see," chuckled Heemskerk; a logical reaction,
+considering the scarcity of brooms on Venus.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two hours earlier the two men had sat across a small table playing
+chess, with little indication there would be anything else to occupy
+their time before blastoff of the stubby gravity-boat. It would be their
+last chess game for many months, for Jan was a member of the Dutch
+colony at Oostpoort in the northern hemisphere of Venus, while Heemskerk
+was pilot of the G-boat from the Dutch spaceship _Vanderdecken_,
+scheduled to begin an Earthward orbit in a few hours.
+
+It was near the dusk of the 485-hour Venerian day, and the Twilight Gale
+already had arisen, sweeping from the comparatively chill Venerian
+nightside into the superheated dayside. Oostpoort, established near some
+outcroppings that contained uranium ore, was protected from both the
+Dawn Gale and the Twilight Gale, for it was in a valley in the midst of
+a small range of mountains.
+
+Jan had just figured out a combination by which he hoped to cheat
+Heemskerk out of one of his knights, when Dekker, the _burgemeester_ of
+Oostpoort, entered the spaceport ready room.
+
+"There's been an emergency radio message," said Dekker. "They've got a
+passenger for the Earthship over at Rathole."
+
+"Rathole?" repeated Heemskerk. "What's that? I didn't know there was
+another colony within two thousand kilometers."
+
+"It isn't a colony, in the sense Oostpoort is," explained Dekker. "The
+people are the families of a bunch of laborers left behind when the
+colony folded several years ago. It's about eighty kilometers away,
+right across the Hoorn, but they don't have any vehicles that can
+navigate when the wind's up."
+
+Heemskerk pushed his short-billed cap back on his close-cropped head,
+leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his comfortable
+stomach.
+
+"Then the passenger will have to wait for the next ship," he pronounced.
+"The _Vanderdecken_ has to blast off in thirty hours to catch Earth at
+the right orbital spot, and the G-boat has to blast off in ten hours to
+catch the _Vanderdecken_."
+
+"This passenger can't wait," said Dekker. "He needs to be evacuated to
+Earth immediately. He's suffering from the Venus Shadow."
+
+Jan whistled softly. He had seen the effects of that disease. Dekker was
+right.
+
+"Jan, you're the best driver in Oostpoort," said Dekker. "You will have
+to take a groundcar to Rathole and bring the fellow back."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So now Jan gripped his clay pipe between his teeth and piloted the
+groundcar into the teeth of the Twilight Gale.
+
+Den Hoorn was a comparatively flat desert sweep that ran along the
+western side of the Oost Mountains, just over the mountain from
+Oostpoort. It was a thin fault area of a planet whose crust was
+peculiarly subject to earthquakes, particularly at the beginning and end
+of each long day when temperatures of the surface rocks changed. On the
+other side of it lay Rathole, a little settlement that eked a precarious
+living from the Venerian vegetation. Jan never had seen it.
+
+He had little difficulty driving up and over the mountain, for the Dutch
+settlers had carved a rough road through the ravines. But even the
+2-1/2-meter wheels of the groundcar had trouble amid the tumbled rocks
+of Den Hoorn. The wind hit the car in full strength here and, though the
+body of the groundcar was suspended from the axles, there was constant
+danger of its being flipped over by a gust if not handled just right.
+
+The three earthshocks that had shaken Den Hoorn since he had been
+driving made his task no easier, but he was obviously lucky, at that.
+Often he had to detour far from his course to skirt long, deep cracks in
+the surface, or steep breaks where the crust had been raised or dropped
+several meters by past quakes.
+
+The groundcar zig-zagged slowly westward. The tattered violet-and-indigo
+clouds boiled low above it, but the wind was as dry as the breath of an
+oven. Despite the heavy cloud cover, the afternoon was as bright as an
+Earth-day. The thermometer showed the outside temperature to have
+dropped to 40 degrees Centigrade in the west wind, and it was still
+going down.
+
+Jan reached the edge of a crack that made further progress seem
+impossible. A hundred meters wide, of unknown depth, it stretched out of
+sight in both directions. For the first time he entertained serious
+doubts that Den Hoorn could be crossed by land.
+
+After a moment's hesitation, he swung the groundcar northward and raced
+along the edge of the chasm as fast as the car would negotiate the
+terrain. He looked anxiously at his watch. Nearly three hours had passed
+since he left Oostpoort. He had seven hours to go and he was still at
+least 16 kilometers from Rathole. His pipe was out, but he could not
+take his hands from the wheel to refill it.
+
+He had driven at least eight kilometers before he realized that the
+crack was narrowing. At least as far again, the two edges came together,
+but not at the same level. A sheer cliff three meters high now barred
+his passage. He drove on.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Apparently it was the result of an old quake. He found a spot where
+rocks had tumbled down, making a steep, rough ramp up the break. He
+drove up it and turned back southwestward.
+
+He made it just in time. He had driven less than three hundred meters
+when a quake more severe than any of the others struck. Suddenly behind
+him the break reversed itself, so that where he had climbed up coming
+westward he would now have to climb a cliff of equal height returning
+eastward.
+
+The ground heaved and buckled like a tempestuous sea. Rocks rolled and
+leaped through the air, several large ones striking the groundcar with
+ominous force. The car staggered forward on its giant wheels like a
+drunken man. The quake was so violent that at one time the vehicle was
+hurled several meters sideways, and almost overturned. And the wind
+smashed down on it unrelentingly.
+
+The quake lasted for several minutes, during which Jan was able to make
+no progress at all and struggled only to keep the groundcar upright.
+Then, in unison, both earthquake and wind died to absolute quiescence.
+
+Jan made use of this calm to step down on the accelerator and send the
+groundcar speeding forward. The terrain was easier here, nearing the
+western edge of Den Hoorn, and he covered several kilometers before the
+wind struck again, cutting his speed down considerably. He judged he
+must be nearing Rathole.
+
+Not long thereafter, he rounded an outcropping of rock and it lay before
+him.
+
+A wave of nostalgia swept over him. Back at Oostpoort, the power was
+nuclear, but this little settlement made use of the cheapest, most
+obviously available power source. It was dotted with more than a dozen
+windmills.
+
+Windmills! Tears came to Jan's eyes. For a moment, he was carried back
+to the flat lands around 's Gravenhage. For a moment he was a
+tow-headed, round-eyed boy again, clumping in wooden shoes along the
+edge of the tulip fields.
+
+But there were no canals here. The flat land, stretching into the
+darkening west, was spotted with patches of cactus and leather-leaved
+Venerian plants. Amid the windmills, low domes protruded from the earth,
+indicating that the dwellings of Rathole were, appropriately, partly
+underground.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He drove into the place. There were no streets, as such, but there were
+avenues between lines of heavy chains strung to short iron posts,
+evidently as handholds against the wind. The savage gale piled dust and
+sand in drifts against the domes, then, shifting slightly, swept them
+clean again.
+
+There was no one moving abroad, but just inside the community Jan found
+half a dozen men in a group, clinging to one of the chains and waving to
+him. He pulled the groundcar to a stop beside them, stuck his pipe in a
+pocket of his plastic venusuit, donned his helmet and got out.
+
+The wind almost took him away before one of them grabbed him and he was
+able to grasp the chain himself. They gathered around him. They were
+swarthy, black-eyed men, with curly hair. One of them grasped his hand.
+
+"_Bienvenido, señor_," said the man.
+
+Jan recoiled and dropped the man's hand. All the Orangeman blood he
+claimed protested in outrage.
+
+Spaniards! All these men were Spaniards!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jan recovered himself at once. He had been reading too much ancient
+history during his leisure hours. The hot monotony of Venus was
+beginning to affect his brain. It had been 500 years since the
+Netherlands revolted against Spanish rule. A lot of water over the dam
+since then.
+
+A look at the men around him, the sound of their chatter, convinced him
+that he need not try German or Hollandsch here. He fell back on the
+international language.
+
+"Do you speak English?" he asked. The man brightened but shook his head.
+
+"_No hablo inglés_," he said, "_pero el médico lo habla. Venga
+conmigo._"
+
+He gestured for Jan to follow him and started off, pulling his way
+against the wind along the chain. Jan followed, and the other men fell
+in behind in single file. A hundred meters farther on, they turned,
+descended some steps and entered one of the half-buried domes. A
+gray-haired, bearded man was in the well-lighted room, apparently the
+living room of a home, with a young woman.
+
+"_Él médico_," said the man who had greeted Jan, gesturing. "_Él habla
+inglés._"
+
+He went out, shutting the airlock door behind him.
+
+"You must be the man from Oostpoort," said the bearded man, holding out
+his hand. "I am Doctor Sanchez. We are very grateful you have come."
+
+"I thought for a while I wouldn't make it," said Jan ruefully, removing
+his venushelmet.
+
+"This is Mrs. Murillo," said Sanchez.
+
+The woman was a Spanish blonde, full-lipped and beautiful, with golden
+hair and dark, liquid eyes. She smiled at Jan.
+
+"_Encantada de conocerlo, señor_," she greeted him.
+
+"Is this the patient, Doctor?" asked Jan, astonished. She looked in the
+best of health.
+
+"No, the patient is in the next room," answered Sanchez.
+
+"Well, as much as I'd like to stop for a pipe, we'd better start at
+once," said Jan. "It's a hard drive back, and blastoff can't be
+delayed."
+
+The woman seemed to sense his meaning. She turned and called: "_Diego!_"
+
+A boy appeared in the door, a dark-skinned, sleepy-eyed boy of about
+eight. He yawned. Then, catching sight of the big Dutchman, he opened
+his eyes wide and smiled.
+
+The boy was healthy-looking, alert, but the mark of the Venus Shadow was
+on his face. There was a faint mottling, a criss-cross of dead-white
+lines.
+
+Mrs. Murillo spoke to him rapidly in Spanish and he nodded. She zipped
+him into a venusuit and fitted a small helmet on his head.
+
+"Good luck, _amigo_," said Sanchez, shaking Jan's hand again.
+
+"Thanks," replied Jan. He donned his own helmet. "I'll need it, if the
+trip over was any indication."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jan and Diego made their way back down the chain to the groundcar. There
+was a score of men there now, and a few women. They let the pair go
+through, and waved farewell as Jan swung the groundcar around and headed
+back eastward.
+
+It was easier driving with the wind behind him, and Jan hit a hundred
+kilometers an hour several times before striking the rougher ground of
+Den Hoorn. Now, if he could only find a way over the bluff raised by
+that last quake....
+
+The ground of Den Hoorn was still shivering. Jan did not realize this
+until he had to brake the groundcar almost to a stop at one point,
+because it was not shaking in severe, periodic shocks as it had earlier.
+It quivered constantly, like the surface of quicksand.
+
+The ground far ahead of him had a strange color to it. Jan, watching for
+the cliff he had to skirt and scale, had picked up speed over some
+fairly even terrain, but now he slowed again, puzzled. There was
+something wrong ahead. He couldn't quite figure it out.
+
+Diego, beside him, had sat quietly so far, peering eagerly through the
+windshield, not saying a word. Now suddenly he cried in a high thin
+tenor:
+
+"_Cuidado! Cuidado! Un abismo!_"
+
+Jim saw it at the same time and hit the brakes so hard the groundcar
+would have stood on its nose had its wheels been smaller. They skidded
+to a stop.
+
+The chasm that had caused him such a long detour before had widened,
+evidently in the big quake that had hit earlier. Now it was a canyon,
+half a kilometer wide. Five meters from the edge he looked out over
+blank space at the far wall, and could not see the bottom.
+
+Cursing choice Dutch profanity, Jan wheeled the groundcar northward and
+drove along the edge of the abyss as fast as he could. He wasted half an
+hour before realizing that it was getting no narrower.
+
+There was no point in going back southward. It might be a hundred
+kilometers long or a thousand, but he never could reach the end of it
+and thread the tumbled rocks of Den Hoorn to Oostpoort before the G-boat
+blastoff.
+
+There was nothing to do but turn back to Rathole and see if some other
+way could not be found.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jan sat in the half-buried room and enjoyed the luxury of a pipe filled
+with some of Theodorus Neimeijer's mild tobacco. Before him, Dr. Sanchez
+sat with crossed legs, cleaning his fingernails with a scalpel. Diego's
+mother talked to the boy in low, liquid tones in a corner of the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jan was at a loss to know how people whose technical knowledge was as
+skimpy as it obviously was in Rathole were able to build these
+semi-underground domes to resist the earth shocks that came from Den
+Hoorn. But this one showed no signs of stress. A religious print and a
+small pencil sketch of Señora Murillo, probably done by the boy, were
+awry on the inward-curving walls, but that was all.
+
+Jan felt justifiably exasperated at these Spanish-speaking people.
+
+"If some effort had been made to take the boy to Oostpoort from here,
+instead of calling on us to send a car, Den Hoorn could have been
+crossed before the crack opened," he pointed out.
+
+"An effort was made," replied Sanchez quietly. "Perhaps you do not fully
+realize our position here. We have no engines except the stationary
+generators that give us current for our air-conditioning and our
+utilities. They are powered by the windmills. We do not have gasoline
+engines for vehicles, so our vehicles are operated by hand."
+
+"You push them?" demanded Jan incredulously.
+
+"No. You've seen pictures of the pump-cars that once were used on
+terrestrial railroads? Ours are powered like that, but we cannot operate
+them when the Venerian wind is blowing. By the time I diagnosed the
+Venus Shadow in Diego, the wind was coming up, and we had no way to get
+him to Oostpoort."
+
+"Mmm," grunted Jan. He shifted uncomfortably and looked at the pair in
+the corner. The blonde head was bent over the boy protectingly, and over
+his mother's shoulder Diego's black eyes returned Jan's glance.
+
+"If the disease has just started, the boy could wait for the next Earth
+ship, couldn't he?" asked Jan.
+
+"I said I had just diagnosed it, not that it had just started, _señor_,"
+corrected Sanchez. "As you know, the trip to Earth takes 145 days and it
+can be started only when the two planets are at the right position in
+their orbits. Have you ever seen anyone die of the Venus Shadow?"
+
+"Yes, I have," replied Jan in a low voice. He had seen two people die of
+it, and it had not been pleasant.
+
+Medical men thought it was a deficiency disease, but they had not traced
+down the deficiency responsible. Treatment by vitamins, diet,
+antibiotics, infrared and ultraviolet rays, all were useless. The only
+thing that could arrest and cure the disease was removal from the dry,
+cloud-hung surface of Venus and return to a moist, sunny climate on
+Earth.
+
+Without that treatment, once the typical mottled texture of the skin
+appeared, the flesh rapidly deteriorated and fell away in chunks. The
+victim remained unfevered and agonizingly conscious until the
+degeneration reached a vital spot.
+
+"If you have," said Sanchez, "you must realize that Diego cannot wait
+for a later ship, if his life is to be saved. He must get to Earth at
+once."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jan puffed at the Heerenbaai-Tabak and cogitated. The place was aptly
+named. It was a ratty community. The boy was a dark-skinned little
+Spaniard--of Mexican origin, perhaps. But he was a boy, and a human
+being.
+
+A thought occurred to him. From what he had seen and heard, the entire
+economy of Rathole could not support the tremendous expense of sending
+the boy across the millions of miles to Earth by spaceship.
+
+"Who's paying his passage?" he asked. "The Dutch Central Venus Company
+isn't exactly a charitable institution."
+
+"Your _Señor_ Dekker said that would be taken care of," replied Sanchez.
+
+Jan relit his pipe silently, making a mental resolution that Dekker
+wouldn't take care of it alone. Salaries for Venerian service were high,
+and many of the men at Oostpoort would contribute readily to such a
+cause.
+
+"Who is Diego's father?" he asked.
+
+"He was Ramón Murillo, a very good mechanic," answered Sanchez, with a
+sliding sidelong glance at Jan's face. "He has been dead for three
+years."
+
+Jan grunted.
+
+"The copters at Oostpoort can't buck this wind," he said thoughtfully,
+"or I'd have come in one of those in the first place instead of trying
+to cross Den Hoorn by land. But if you have any sort of aircraft here,
+it might make it downwind--if it isn't wrecked on takeoff."
+
+"I'm afraid not," said Sanchez.
+
+"Too bad. There's nothing we can do, then. The nearest settlement west
+of here is more than a thousand kilometers away, and I happen to know
+they have no planes, either. Just copters. So that's no help."
+
+"Wait," said Sanchez, lifting the scalpel and tilting his head. "I
+believe there is something, though we cannot use it. This was once an
+American naval base, and the people here were civilian employes who
+refused to move north with it. There was a flying machine they used for
+short-range work, and one was left behind--probably with a little help
+from the people of the settlement. But...."
+
+"What kind of machine? Copter or plane?"
+
+"They call it a flying platform. It carries two men, I believe. But,
+_señor_...."
+
+"I know them. I've operated them, before I left Earth. Man, you don't
+expect me to try to fly one of those little things in this wind? They're
+tricky as they can be, and the passengers are absolutely unprotected!"
+
+"_Señor_, I have asked you to do nothing."
+
+"No, you haven't," muttered Jan. "But you know I'll do it."
+
+Sanchez looked into his face, smiling faintly and a little sadly.
+
+"I was sure you would be willing," he said. He turned and spoke in
+Spanish to Mrs. Murillo.
+
+The woman rose to her feet and came to them. As Jan arose, she looked up
+at him, tears in her eyes.
+
+"_Gracias_," she murmured. "_Un millón de gracias._"
+
+She lifted his hands in hers and kissed them.
+
+Jan disengaged himself gently, embarrassed. But it occurred to him,
+looking down on the bowed head of the beautiful young widow, that he
+might make some flying trips back over here in his leisure time.
+Language barriers were not impassable, and feminine companionship might
+cure his neurotic, history-born distaste for Spaniards, for more than
+one reason.
+
+Sanchez was tugging at his elbow.
+
+"_Señor_, I have been trying to tell you," he said. "It is generous and
+good of you, and I wanted _Señora_ Murillo to know what a brave man you
+are. But have you forgotten that we have no gasoline engines here? There
+is no fuel for the flying platform."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The platform was in a warehouse which, like the rest of the structures
+in Rathole, was a half-buried dome. The platform's ring-shaped base was
+less than a meter thick, standing on four metal legs. On top of it, in
+the center, was a railed circle that would hold two men, but would crowd
+them. Two small gasoline engines sat on each side of this railed circle
+and between them on a third side was the fuel tank. The passengers
+entered it on the fourth side.
+
+The machine was dusty and spotted with rust, Jan, surrounded by Sanchez,
+Diego and a dozen men, inspected it thoughtfully. The letters USN*SES
+were painted in white on the platform itself, and each engine bore the
+label "Hiller."
+
+Jan peered over the edge of the platform at the twin-ducted fans in
+their plastic shrouds. They appeared in good shape. Each was powered by
+one of the engines, transmitted to it by heavy rubber belts.
+
+Jan sighed. It was an unhappy situation. As far as he could determine,
+without making tests, the engines were in perfect condition. Two
+perfectly good engines, and no fuel for them.
+
+"You're sure there's no gasoline, anywhere in Rathole?" he asked
+Sanchez.
+
+Sanchez smiled ruefully, as he had once before, at Jan's appellation for
+the community. The inhabitants' term for it was simply "_La Ciudad
+Nuestra_"--"Our Town." But he made no protest. He turned to one of the
+other men and talked rapidly for a few moments in Spanish.
+
+"None, _señor_," he said, turning back to Jan. "The Americans, of
+course, kept much of it when they were here, but the few things we take
+to Oostpoort to trade could not buy precious gasoline. We have
+electricity in plenty if you can power the platform with it."
+
+Jan thought that over, trying to find a way.
+
+"No, it wouldn't work," he said. "We could rig batteries on the platform
+and electric motors to turn the propellers. But batteries big enough to
+power it all the way to Oostpoort would be so heavy the machine couldn't
+lift them off the ground. If there were some way to carry a power line
+all the way to Oostpoort, or to broadcast the power to it.... But it's a
+light-load machine, and must have an engine that gives it the necessary
+power from very little weight."
+
+Wild schemes ran through his head. If they were on water, instead of
+land, he could rig up a sail. He could still rig up a sail, for a
+groundcar, except for the chasm out on Den Hoorn.
+
+The groundcar! Jan straightened and snapped his fingers.
+
+"Doctor!" he explained. "Send a couple of men to drain the rest of the
+fuel from my groundcar. And let's get this platform above ground and tie
+it down until we can get it started."
+
+Sanchez gave rapid orders in Spanish. Two of the men left at a run,
+carrying five-gallon cans with them.
+
+Three others picked up the platform and carried it up a ramp and
+outside. As soon as they reached ground level, the wind hit them. They
+dropped the platform to the ground, where it shuddered and swayed
+momentarily, and two of the men fell successfully on their stomachs. The
+wind caught the third and somersaulted him half a dozen times before he
+skidded to a stop on his back with outstretched arms and legs. He turned
+over cautiously and crawled back to them.
+
+Jan, his head just above ground level, surveyed the terrain. There was
+flat ground to the east, clear in a fairly broad alley for at least half
+a kilometer before any of the domes protruded up into it.
+
+"This is as good a spot for takeoff as we'll find," he said to Sanchez.
+
+The men put three heavy ropes on the platform's windward rail and
+secured it by them to the heavy chain that ran by the dome. The platform
+quivered and shuddered in the heavy wind, but its base was too low for
+it to overturn.
+
+Shortly the two men returned with the fuel from the groundcar,
+struggling along the chain. Jan got above ground in a crouch, clinging
+to the rail of the platform, and helped them fill the fuel tank with it.
+He primed the carburetors and spun the engines.
+
+Nothing happened.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He turned the engines over again. One of them coughed, and a cloud of
+blue smoke burst from its exhaust, but they did not catch.
+
+"What is the matter, _señor_?" asked Sanchez from the dome entrance.
+
+"I don't know," replied Jan. "Maybe it's that the engines haven't been
+used in so long. I'm afraid I'm not a good enough mechanic to tell."
+
+"Some of these men were good mechanics when the navy was here," said
+Sanchez. "Wait."
+
+He turned and spoke to someone in the dome. One of the men of Rathole
+came to Jan's side and tried the engines. They refused to catch. The man
+made carburetor adjustments and tried again. No success.
+
+He sniffed, took the cap from the fuel tank and stuck a finger inside.
+He withdrew it, wet and oily, and examined it. He turned and spoke to
+Sanchez.
+
+"He says that your groundcar must have a diesel engine," Sanchez
+interpreted to Jan. "Is that correct?"
+
+"Why, yes, that's true."
+
+"He says the fuel will not work then, _señor_. He says it is low-grade
+fuel and the platform must have high octane gasoline."
+
+Jan threw up his hands and went back into the dome.
+
+"I should have known that," he said unhappily. "I would have known if I
+had thought of it."
+
+"What is to be done, then?" asked Sanchez.
+
+"There's nothing that can be done," answered Jan. "They may as well put
+the fuel back in my groundcar."
+
+Sanchez called orders to the men at the platform. While they worked, Jan
+stared out at the furiously spinning windmills that dotted Rathole.
+
+"There's nothing that can be done," he repeated. "We can't make the trip
+overland because of the chasm out there in Den Hoorn, and we can't fly
+the platform because we have no power for it."
+
+Windmills. Again Jan could imagine the flat land around them as his
+native Holland, with the Zuider Zee sparkling to the west where here the
+desert stretched under darkling clouds.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jan looked at his watch. A little more than two hours before the
+G-boat's blastoff time, and it couldn't wait for them. It was nearly
+eight hours since he had left Oostpoort, and the afternoon was getting
+noticeably darker.
+
+Jan was sorry. He had done his best, but Venus had beaten him.
+
+He looked around for Diego. The boy was not in the dome. He was outside,
+crouched in the lee of the dome, playing with some sticks.
+
+Diego must know of his ailment, and why he had to go to Oostpoort. If
+Jan was any judge of character, Sanchez would have told him that.
+Whether Diego knew it was a life-or-death matter for him to be aboard
+the _Vanderdecken_ when it blasted off for Earth, Jan did not know. But
+the boy was around eight years old and he was bright, and he must
+realize the seriousness involved in a decision to send him all the way
+to Earth.
+
+Jan felt ashamed of the exuberant foolishness which had led him to spout
+ancient history and claim descent from William of Orange. It had been a
+hobby, and artificial topic for conversation that amused him and his
+companions, a defense against the monotony of Venus that had begun to
+affect his personality perhaps a bit more than he realized. He did not
+dislike Spaniards; he had no reason to dislike them. They were all
+humans--the Spanish, the Dutch, the Germans, the Americans, even the
+Russians--fighting a hostile planet together. He could not understand a
+word Diego said when the boy spoke to him, but he liked Diego and wished
+desperately he could do something.
+
+Outside, the windmills of Rathole spun merrily.
+
+There was power, the power that lighted and air-conditioned Rathole,
+power in the air all around them. If he could only use it! But to turn
+the platform on its side and let the wind spin the propellers was
+pointless.
+
+He turned to Sanchez.
+
+"Ask the men if there are any spare parts for the platform," he said.
+"Some of those legs it stands on, transmission belts, spare propellers."
+
+Sanchez asked.
+
+"Yes," he said. "Many spare parts, but no fuel."
+
+Jan smiled a tight smile.
+
+"Tell them to take the engines out," he said. "Since we have no fuel, we
+may as well have no engines."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pieter Heemskerk stood by the ramp to the stubby G-boat and checked his
+watch. It was X minus fifteen--fifteen minutes before blastoff time.
+
+Heemskerk wore a spacesuit. Everything was ready, except climbing
+aboard, closing the airlock and pressing the firing pin.
+
+What on Venus could have happened to Van Artevelde? The last radio
+message they had received, more than an hour ago, had said he and the
+patient took off successfully in an aircraft. What sort of aircraft
+could he be flying that would require an hour to cover eighty
+kilometers, with the wind?
+
+Heemskerk could only draw the conclusion that the aircraft had been
+wrecked somewhere in Den Hoorn. As a matter of fact, he knew that
+preparations were being made now to send a couple of groundcars out to
+search for it.
+
+This, of course, would be too late to help the patient Van Artevelde was
+bringing, but Heemskerk had no personal interest in the patient. His
+worry was all for his friend. The two of them had enjoyed chess and good
+beer together on his last three trips to Venus, and Heemskerk hoped very
+sincerely that the big blond man wasn't hurt.
+
+He glanced at his watch again. X minus twelve. In two minutes, it would
+be time for him to walk up the ramp into the G-boat. In seven minutes
+the backward count before blastoff would start over the area
+loudspeakers.
+
+Heemskerk shook his head sadly. And Van Artevelde had promised to come
+back triumphant, with a broom at his masthead!
+
+It was a high thin whine borne on the wind, carrying even through the
+walls of his spacehelmet, that attracted Heemskerk's attention and
+caused him to pause with his foot on the ramp. Around him, the rocket
+mechanics were staring up at the sky, trying to pinpoint the noise.
+
+Heemskerk looked westward. At first he could see nothing, then there was
+a moving dot above the mountain, against the indigo umbrella of clouds.
+It grew, it swooped, it approached and became a strange little flying
+disc with two people standing on it and _something_ sticking up from its
+deck in front of them.
+
+A broom?
+
+No. The platform hovered and began to settle nearby, and there was Van
+Artevelde leaning over its rail and fiddling frantically with whatever
+it was that stuck up on it--a weird, angled contraption of pipes and
+belts topped by a whirring blade. A boy stood at his shoulder and tried
+to help him. As the platform descended to a few meters above ground, the
+Dutchman slashed at the contraption, the cut ends of belts whipped out
+wildly and the platform slid to the ground with a rush. It hit with a
+clatter and its two passengers tumbled prone to the ground.
+
+"Jan!" boomed Heemskerk, forcing his voice through the helmet diaphragm
+and rushing over to his friend. "I was afraid you were lost!"
+
+Jan struggled to his feet and leaned down to help the boy up.
+
+"Here's your patient, Pieter," he said. "Hope you have a spacesuit in
+his size."
+
+"I can find one. And we'll have to hurry for blastoff. But, first, what
+happened? Even that damned thing ought to get here from Rathole faster
+than that."
+
+"Had no fuel," replied Jan briefly. "My engines were all right, but I
+had no power to run them. So I had to pull the engines and rig up a
+power source."
+
+Heemskerk stared at the platform. On its railing was rigged a tripod of
+battered metal pipes, atop which a big four-blade propeller spun slowly
+in what wind was left after it came over the western mountain. Over the
+edges of the platform, running from the two propellers in its base, hung
+a series of tattered transmission belts.
+
+"Power source?" repeated Heemskerk. "That?"
+
+"Certainly," replied Jan with dignity. "The power source any good
+Dutchman turns to in an emergency: a windmill!"
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+This etext was produced from _Amazing Science Fiction Stories_ April
+1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
+typographical errors have been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wind, by Charles Louis Fontenay
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wind, by Charles Louis Fontenay
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Wind
+
+Author: Charles Louis Fontenay
+
+Release Date: September 12, 2007 [EBook #22590]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<h1><big>WIND</big></h1>
+
+<h2>By CHARLES L. FONTENAY</h2>
+
+
+<div class="cpoem">When you have an engine with no fuel, and fuel<br />
+without an engine, and a life-and-death deadline<br />
+to meet, you have a problem indeed. Unless you are<br />
+a stubborn Dutchman&mdash;and Jan Van Artevelde was<br />
+the stubbornest Dutchman on Venus.</div>
+
+
+<p class="cap">JAN WILLEM van Artevelde
+claimed descent from William
+of Orange. He had no genealogy
+to prove it, but on Venus there
+was no one who could disprove it,
+either.</p>
+
+<p>Jan Willem van Artevelde
+smoked a clay pipe, which only a
+Dutchman can do properly, because
+the clay bit grates on less
+stubborn teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Jan needed all his Dutch stubbornness,
+and a good deal of pure
+physical strength besides, to maneuver
+the roach-flat groundcar
+across the tumbled terrain of
+Den Hoorn into the teeth of the
+howling gale that swept from the
+west. The huge wheels twisted
+and jolted against the rocks outside,
+and Jan bounced against his
+seat belt, wrestled the steering
+wheel and puffed at his <i>pijp</i>. The
+mild aroma of Heerenbaai-Tabak
+filled the airtight groundcar.</p>
+
+<p>There came a new swaying
+that was not the roughness of
+the terrain. Through the thick
+windshield Jan saw all the
+ground about him buckle and
+heave for a second or two before
+it settled to rugged quiescence
+again. This time he was really
+heaved about.</p>
+
+<p>Jan mentioned this to the
+groundcar radio.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the third time in half
+an hour," he commented. "The
+place tosses like the IJsselmeer
+on a rough day."</p>
+
+<p>"You just don't forget it <i>isn't</i>
+the Zuider Zee," retorted Heemskerk
+from the other end. "You
+sink there and you don't come up
+three times."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry," said Jan. "I'll
+be back on time, with a broom at
+the masthead."</p>
+
+<p>"This I shall want to see,"
+chuckled Heemskerk; a logical
+reaction, considering the scarcity
+of brooms on Venus.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Two hours earlier the two men
+had sat across a small table playing
+chess, with little indication
+there would be anything else to
+occupy their time before blastoff
+of the stubby gravity-boat. It
+would be their last chess game
+for many months, for Jan was a
+member of the Dutch colony at
+Oostpoort in the northern hemisphere
+of Venus, while Heemskerk
+was pilot of the G-boat from
+the Dutch spaceship <i>Vanderdecken</i>,
+scheduled to begin an
+Earthward orbit in a few hours.</p>
+
+<p>It was near the dusk of the
+485-hour Venerian day, and the
+Twilight Gale already had arisen,
+sweeping from the comparatively
+chill Venerian nightside into
+the superheated dayside. Oostpoort,
+established near some outcroppings
+that contained uranium
+ore, was protected from
+both the Dawn Gale and the Twilight
+Gale, for it was in a valley
+in the midst of a small range of
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Jan had just figured out a combination
+by which he hoped to
+cheat Heemskerk out of one of
+his knights, when Dekker, the
+<i>burgemeester</i> of Oostpoort, entered
+the spaceport ready room.</p>
+
+<p>"There's been an emergency
+radio message," said Dekker.
+"They've got a passenger for the
+Earthship over at Rathole."</p>
+
+<p>"Rathole?" repeated Heemskerk.
+"What's that? I didn't
+know there was another colony
+within two thousand kilometers."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't a colony, in the sense
+Oostpoort is," explained Dekker.
+"The people are the families of a
+bunch of laborers left behind
+when the colony folded several
+years ago. It's about eighty kilometers
+away, right across the
+Hoorn, but they don't have any
+vehicles that can navigate when
+the wind's up."</p>
+
+<p>Heemskerk pushed his short-billed
+cap back on his close-cropped
+head, leaned back in his chair
+and folded his hands over his
+comfortable stomach.</p>
+
+<p>"Then the passenger will have
+to wait for the next ship," he
+pronounced. "The <i>Vanderdecken</i>
+has to blast off in thirty hours to
+catch Earth at the right orbital
+spot, and the G-boat has to blast
+off in ten hours to catch the <i>Vanderdecken</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"This passenger can't wait,"
+said Dekker. "He needs to be
+evacuated to Earth immediately.
+He's suffering from the Venus
+Shadow."</p>
+
+<p>Jan whistled softly. He had
+seen the effects of that disease.
+Dekker was right.</p>
+
+<p>"Jan, you're the best driver in
+Oostpoort," said Dekker. "You
+will have to take a groundcar to
+Rathole and bring the fellow
+back."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>So now Jan gripped his clay
+pipe between his teeth and piloted
+the groundcar into the teeth
+of the Twilight Gale.</p>
+
+<p>Den Hoorn was a comparatively
+flat desert sweep that ran
+along the western side of the
+Oost Mountains, just over the
+mountain from Oostpoort. It was
+a thin fault area of a planet
+whose crust was peculiarly subject
+to earthquakes, particularly
+at the beginning and end of each
+long day when temperatures of
+the surface rocks changed. On
+the other side of it lay Rathole, a
+little settlement that eked a precarious
+living from the Venerian
+vegetation. Jan never had seen it.</p>
+
+<p>He had little difficulty driving
+up and over the mountain, for the
+Dutch settlers had carved a
+rough road through the ravines.
+But even the 2&frac12;-meter wheels of
+the groundcar had trouble amid
+the tumbled rocks of Den Hoorn.
+The wind hit the car in full
+strength here and, though the
+body of the groundcar was suspended
+from the axles, there was
+constant danger of its being flipped
+over by a gust if not handled
+just right.</p>
+
+<p>The three earthshocks that had
+shaken Den Hoorn since he had
+been driving made his task no
+easier, but he was obviously
+lucky, at that. Often he had to
+detour far from his course to
+skirt long, deep cracks in the
+surface, or steep breaks where
+the crust had been raised or
+dropped several meters by past
+quakes.</p>
+
+<p>The groundcar zig-zagged
+slowly westward. The tattered
+violet-and-indigo clouds boiled
+low above it, but the wind was as
+dry as the breath of an oven.
+Despite the heavy cloud cover,
+the afternoon was as bright as
+an Earth-day. The thermometer
+showed the outside temperature
+to have dropped to 40 degrees
+Centigrade in the west wind, and
+it was still going down.</p>
+
+<p>Jan reached the edge of a
+crack that made further progress
+seem impossible. A hundred
+meters wide, of unknown depth,
+it stretched out of sight in both
+directions. For the first time he
+entertained serious doubts that
+Den Hoorn could be crossed by
+land.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment's hesitation,
+he swung the groundcar northward
+and raced along the edge of
+the chasm as fast as the car
+would negotiate the terrain. He
+looked anxiously at his watch.
+Nearly three hours had passed
+since he left Oostpoort. He had
+seven hours to go and he was
+still at least 16 kilometers from
+Rathole. His pipe was out, but
+he could not take his hands
+from the wheel to refill it.</p>
+
+<p>He had driven at least eight
+kilometers before he realized
+that the crack was narrowing.
+At least as far again, the two
+edges came together, but not at
+the same level. A sheer cliff
+three meters high now barred
+his passage. He drove on.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Apparently it was the result
+of an old quake. He found a spot
+where rocks had tumbled down,
+making a steep, rough ramp up
+the break. He drove up it and
+turned back southwestward.</p>
+
+<p>He made it just in time. He
+had driven less than three hundred
+meters when a quake more
+severe than any of the others
+struck. Suddenly behind him the
+break reversed itself, so that
+where he had climbed up coming
+westward he would now
+have to climb a cliff of equal
+height returning eastward.</p>
+
+<p>The ground heaved and buckled
+like a tempestuous sea.
+Rocks rolled and leaped through
+the air, several large ones striking
+the groundcar with ominous
+force. The car staggered forward
+on its giant wheels like a
+drunken man. The quake was so
+violent that at one time the vehicle
+was hurled several meters
+sideways, and almost overturned.
+And the wind smashed down
+on it unrelentingly.</p>
+
+<p>The quake lasted for several
+minutes, during which Jan was
+able to make no progress at all
+and struggled only to keep the
+groundcar upright. Then, in unison,
+both earthquake and wind
+died to absolute quiescence.</p>
+
+<p>Jan made use of this calm to
+step down on the accelerator and
+send the groundcar speeding
+forward. The terrain was easier
+here, nearing the western edge
+of Den Hoorn, and he covered
+several kilometers before the
+wind struck again, cutting his
+speed down considerably. He
+judged he must be nearing Rathole.</p>
+
+<p>Not long thereafter, he rounded
+an outcropping of rock and it
+lay before him.</p>
+
+<p>A wave of nostalgia swept
+over him. Back at Oostpoort, the
+power was nuclear, but this little
+settlement made use of the
+cheapest, most obviously available
+power source. It was dotted
+with more than a dozen windmills.</p>
+
+<p>Windmills! Tears came to
+Jan's eyes. For a moment, he
+was carried back to the flat
+lands around 's Gravenhage. For
+a moment he was a tow-headed,
+round-eyed boy again, clumping
+in wooden shoes along the edge
+of the tulip fields.</p>
+
+<p>But there were no canals here.
+The flat land, stretching into the
+darkening west, was spotted
+with patches of cactus and
+leather-leaved Venerian plants.
+Amid the windmills, low domes
+protruded from the earth, indicating
+that the dwellings of Rathole
+were, appropriately, partly
+underground.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>He drove into the place. There
+were no streets, as such, but
+there were avenues between lines
+of heavy chains strung to short
+iron posts, evidently as handholds
+against the wind. The savage
+gale piled dust and sand in
+drifts against the domes, then,
+shifting slightly, swept them
+clean again.</p>
+
+<p>There was no one moving
+abroad, but just inside the community
+Jan found half a dozen
+men in a group, clinging to one
+of the chains and waving to him.
+He pulled the groundcar to a
+stop beside them, stuck his pipe
+in a pocket of his plastic venusuit,
+donned his helmet and
+got out.</p>
+
+<p>The wind almost took him
+away before one of them grabbed
+him and he was able to
+grasp the chain himself. They
+gathered around him. They were
+swarthy, black-eyed men, with
+curly hair. One of them grasped
+his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Bienvenido, se&ntilde;or</i>," said the
+man.</p>
+
+<p>Jan recoiled and dropped the
+man's hand. All the Orangeman
+blood he claimed protested in
+outrage.</p>
+
+<p>Spaniards! All these men were
+Spaniards!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Jan recovered himself at once.
+He had been reading too much
+ancient history during his leisure
+hours. The hot monotony of
+Venus was beginning to affect
+his brain. It had been 500 years
+since the Netherlands revolted
+against Spanish rule. A lot of
+water over the dam since then.</p>
+
+<p>A look at the men around him,
+the sound of their chatter, convinced
+him that he need not try
+German or Hollandsch here. He
+fell back on the international
+language.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you speak English?" he
+asked. The man brightened but
+shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>No hablo ingl&eacute;s</i>," he said,
+"<i>pero el m&eacute;dico lo habla. Venga
+conmigo.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>He gestured for Jan to follow
+him and started off, pulling his
+way against the wind along the
+chain. Jan followed, and the
+other men fell in behind in single
+file. A hundred meters farther
+on, they turned, descended
+some steps and entered one of
+the half-buried domes. A gray-haired,
+bearded man was in the
+well-lighted room, apparently
+the living room of a home, with
+a young woman.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>&Eacute;l m&eacute;dico</i>," said the man who
+had greeted Jan, gesturing. "<i>&Eacute;l
+habla ingl&eacute;s.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>He went out, shutting the airlock
+door behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"You must be the man from
+Oostpoort," said the bearded
+man, holding out his hand. "I
+am Doctor Sanchez. We are very
+grateful you have come."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought for a while I
+wouldn't make it," said Jan ruefully,
+removing his venushelmet.</p>
+
+<p>"This is Mrs. Murillo," said
+Sanchez.</p>
+
+<p>The woman was a Spanish
+blonde, full-lipped and beautiful,
+with golden hair and dark, liquid
+eyes. She smiled at Jan.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Encantada de conocerlo,
+se&ntilde;or</i>," she greeted him.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this the patient, Doctor?"
+asked Jan, astonished. She looked
+in the best of health.</p>
+
+<p>"No, the patient is in the next
+room," answered Sanchez.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as much as I'd like to
+stop for a pipe, we'd better start
+at once," said Jan. "It's a hard
+drive back, and blastoff can't be
+delayed."</p>
+
+<p>The woman seemed to sense
+his meaning. She turned and
+called: "<i>Diego!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>A boy appeared in the door, a
+dark-skinned, sleepy-eyed boy of
+about eight. He yawned. Then,
+catching sight of the big Dutchman,
+he opened his eyes wide
+and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>The boy was healthy-looking,
+alert, but the mark of the Venus
+Shadow was on his face. There
+was a faint mottling, a criss-cross
+of dead-white lines.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Murillo spoke to him rapidly
+in Spanish and he nodded.
+She zipped him into a venusuit
+and fitted a small helmet on his
+head.</p>
+
+<p>"Good luck, <i>amigo</i>," said Sanchez,
+shaking Jan's hand again.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," replied Jan. He donned
+his own helmet. "I'll need it,
+if the trip over was any indication."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Jan and Diego made their way
+back down the chain to the
+groundcar. There was a score of
+men there now, and a few
+women. They let the pair go
+through, and waved farewell as
+Jan swung the groundcar around
+and headed back eastward.</p>
+
+<p>It was easier driving with the
+wind behind him, and Jan hit a
+hundred kilometers an hour several
+times before striking the
+rougher ground of Den Hoorn.
+Now, if he could only find a way
+over the bluff raised by that last
+quake....</p>
+
+<p>The ground of Den Hoorn was
+still shivering. Jan did not realize
+this until he had to brake the
+groundcar almost to a stop at one
+point, because it was not shaking
+in severe, periodic shocks as it
+had earlier. It quivered constantly,
+like the surface of quicksand.</p>
+
+<p>The ground far ahead of him
+had a strange color to it. Jan,
+watching for the cliff he had to
+skirt and scale, had picked up
+speed over some fairly even terrain,
+but now he slowed again,
+puzzled. There was something
+wrong ahead. He couldn't quite
+figure it out.</p>
+
+<p>Diego, beside him, had sat
+quietly so far, peering eagerly
+through the windshield, not saying
+a word. Now suddenly he
+cried in a high thin tenor:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Cuidado! Cuidado! Un abismo!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Jim saw it at the same time
+and hit the brakes so hard the
+groundcar would have stood on
+its nose had its wheels been
+smaller. They skidded to a stop.</p>
+
+<p>The chasm that had caused
+him such a long detour before
+had widened, evidently in the big
+quake that had hit earlier. Now
+it was a canyon, half a kilometer
+wide. Five meters from the edge
+he looked out over blank space
+at the far wall, and could not see
+the bottom.</p>
+
+<p>Cursing choice Dutch profanity,
+Jan wheeled the groundcar
+northward and drove along the
+edge of the abyss as fast as he
+could. He wasted half an hour before
+realizing that it was getting
+no narrower.</p>
+
+<p>There was no point in going
+back southward. It might be a
+hundred kilometers long or a
+thousand, but he never could
+reach the end of it and thread
+the tumbled rocks of Den Hoorn
+to Oostpoort before the G-boat
+blastoff.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing to do but
+turn back to Rathole and see if
+some other way could not be
+found.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Jan sat in the half-buried room
+and enjoyed the luxury of a pipe
+filled with some of Theodorus
+Neimeijer's mild tobacco. Before
+him, Dr. Sanchez sat with crossed
+legs, cleaning his fingernails
+with a scalpel. Diego's mother
+talked to the boy in low, liquid
+tones in a corner of the room.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Jan was at a loss to know how
+people whose technical knowledge
+was as skimpy as it obviously
+was in Rathole were able to build
+these semi-underground domes to
+resist the earth shocks that came
+from Den Hoorn. But this one
+showed no signs of stress. A religious
+print and a small pencil
+sketch of Se&ntilde;ora Murillo, probably
+done by the boy, were awry
+on the inward-curving walls, but
+that was all.</p>
+
+<p>Jan felt justifiably exasperated
+at these Spanish-speaking people.</p>
+
+<p>"If some effort had been made
+to take the boy to Oostpoort from
+here, instead of calling on us to
+send a car, Den Hoorn could have
+been crossed before the crack
+opened," he pointed out.</p>
+
+<p>"An effort was made," replied
+Sanchez quietly. "Perhaps you do
+not fully realize our position
+here. We have no engines except
+the stationary generators that
+give us current for our air-conditioning
+and our utilities. They
+are powered by the windmills. We
+do not have gasoline engines for
+vehicles, so our vehicles are operated
+by hand."</p>
+
+<p>"You push them?" demanded
+Jan incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"No. You've seen pictures of
+the pump-cars that once were
+used on terrestrial railroads?
+Ours are powered like that, but
+we cannot operate them when the
+Venerian wind is blowing. By the
+time I diagnosed the Venus Shadow
+in Diego, the wind was coming
+up, and we had no way to get
+him to Oostpoort."</p>
+
+<p>"Mmm," grunted Jan. He
+shifted uncomfortably and looked
+at the pair in the corner. The
+blonde head was bent over the
+boy protectingly, and over his
+mother's shoulder Diego's black
+eyes returned Jan's glance.</p>
+
+<p>"If the disease has just started,
+the boy could wait for the
+next Earth ship, couldn't he?"
+asked Jan.</p>
+
+<p>"I said I had just diagnosed it,
+not that it had just started,
+<i>se&ntilde;or</i>," corrected Sanchez. "As
+you know, the trip to Earth takes
+145 days and it can be started
+only when the two planets are at
+the right position in their orbits.
+Have you ever seen anyone die
+of the Venus Shadow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I have," replied Jan in a
+low voice. He had seen two people
+die of it, and it had not been
+pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>Medical men thought it was a
+deficiency disease, but they had
+not traced down the deficiency responsible.
+Treatment by vitamins,
+diet, antibiotics, infrared
+and ultraviolet rays, all were useless.
+The only thing that could
+arrest and cure the disease was
+removal from the dry, cloud-hung
+surface of Venus and return to a
+moist, sunny climate on Earth.</p>
+
+<p>Without that treatment, once
+the typical mottled texture of the
+skin appeared, the flesh rapidly
+deteriorated and fell away in
+chunks. The victim remained unfevered
+and agonizingly conscious
+until the degeneration
+reached a vital spot.</p>
+
+<p>"If you have," said Sanchez,
+"you must realize that Diego cannot
+wait for a later ship, if his
+life is to be saved. He must get
+to Earth at once."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Jan puffed at the Heerenbaai-Tabak
+and cogitated. The place
+was aptly named. It was a ratty
+community. The boy was a dark-skinned
+little Spaniard&mdash;of Mexican
+origin, perhaps. But he was
+a boy, and a human being.</p>
+
+<p>A thought occurred to him.
+From what he had seen and
+heard, the entire economy of Rathole
+could not support the tremendous
+expense of sending the
+boy across the millions of miles
+to Earth by spaceship.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's paying his passage?"
+he asked. "The Dutch Central
+Venus Company isn't exactly a
+charitable institution."</p>
+
+<p>"Your <i>Se&ntilde;or</i> Dekker said that
+would be taken care of," replied
+Sanchez.</p>
+
+<p>Jan relit his pipe silently, making
+a mental resolution that Dekker
+wouldn't take care of it alone.
+Salaries for Venerian service
+were high, and many of the men
+at Oostpoort would contribute
+readily to such a cause.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Diego's father?" he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"He was Ram&oacute;n Murillo, a very
+good mechanic," answered Sanchez,
+with a sliding sidelong
+glance at Jan's face. "He has
+been dead for three years."</p>
+
+<p>Jan grunted.</p>
+
+<p>"The copters at Oostpoort can't
+buck this wind," he said thoughtfully,
+"or I'd have come in one of
+those in the first place instead of
+trying to cross Den Hoorn by
+land. But if you have any sort of
+aircraft here, it might make it
+downwind&mdash;if it isn't wrecked on
+takeoff."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid not," said Sanchez.</p>
+
+<p>"Too bad. There's nothing we
+can do, then. The nearest settlement
+west of here is more than
+a thousand kilometers away, and
+I happen to know they have no
+planes, either. Just copters. So
+that's no help."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," said Sanchez, lifting
+the scalpel and tilting his head.
+"I believe there is something,
+though we cannot use it. This
+was once an American naval base,
+and the people here were civilian
+employes who refused to move
+north with it. There was a flying
+machine they used for short-range
+work, and one was left behind&mdash;probably
+with a little help
+from the people of the settlement.
+But...."</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of machine? Copter
+or plane?"</p>
+
+<p>"They call it a flying platform.
+It carries two men, I believe.
+But, <i>se&ntilde;or</i>...."</p>
+
+<p>"I know them. I've operated
+them, before I left Earth. Man,
+you don't expect me to try to fly
+one of those little things in this
+wind? They're tricky as they can
+be, and the passengers are absolutely
+unprotected!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Se&ntilde;or</i>, I have asked you to do
+nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you haven't," muttered
+Jan. "But you know I'll do it."</p>
+
+<p>Sanchez looked into his face,
+smiling faintly and a little sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"I was sure you would be willing,"
+he said. He turned and
+spoke in Spanish to Mrs. Murillo.</p>
+
+<p>The woman rose to her feet
+and came to them. As Jan arose,
+she looked up at him, tears in
+her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Gracias</i>," she murmured. "<i>Un
+mill&oacute;n de gracias.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>She lifted his hands in hers
+and kissed them.</p>
+
+<p>Jan disengaged himself gently,
+embarrassed. But it occurred to
+him, looking down on the bowed
+head of the beautiful young
+widow, that he might make some
+flying trips back over here in his
+leisure time. Language barriers
+were not impassable, and feminine
+companionship might cure
+his neurotic, history-born distaste
+for Spaniards, for more
+than one reason.</p>
+
+<p>Sanchez was tugging at his
+elbow.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Se&ntilde;or</i>, I have been trying to
+tell you," he said. "It is generous
+and good of you, and I wanted
+<i>Se&ntilde;ora</i> Murillo to know what a
+brave man you are. But have you
+forgotten that we have no gasoline
+engines here? There is no
+fuel for the flying platform."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The platform was in a warehouse
+which, like the rest of the
+structures in Rathole, was a
+half-buried dome. The platform's
+ring-shaped base was less than a
+meter thick, standing on four
+metal legs. On top of it, in the
+center, was a railed circle that
+would hold two men, but would
+crowd them. Two small gasoline
+engines sat on each side of this
+railed circle and between them on
+a third side was the fuel tank.
+The passengers entered it on the
+fourth side.</p>
+
+<p>The machine was dusty and
+spotted with rust, Jan, surrounded
+by Sanchez, Diego and a dozen
+men, inspected it thoughtfully.
+The letters USN*SES were
+painted in white on the platform
+itself, and each engine bore the
+label "Hiller."</p>
+
+<p>Jan peered over the edge of the
+platform at the twin-ducted fans
+in their plastic shrouds. They
+appeared in good shape. Each
+was powered by one of the engines,
+transmitted to it by heavy
+rubber belts.</p>
+
+<p>Jan sighed. It was an unhappy
+situation. As far as he could determine,
+without making tests,
+the engines were in perfect condition.
+Two perfectly good engines,
+and no fuel for them.</p>
+
+<p>"You're sure there's no gasoline,
+anywhere in Rathole?" he
+asked Sanchez.</p>
+
+<p>Sanchez smiled ruefully, as he
+had once before, at Jan's appellation
+for the community. The inhabitants'
+term for it was simply
+"<i>La Ciudad Nuestra</i>"&mdash;"Our
+Town." But he made no protest.
+He turned to one of the other
+men and talked rapidly for a few
+moments in Spanish.</p>
+
+<p>"None, <i>se&ntilde;or</i>," he said, turning
+back to Jan. "The Americans, of
+course, kept much of it when
+they were here, but the few
+things we take to Oostpoort to
+trade could not buy precious gasoline.
+We have electricity in
+plenty if you can power the platform
+with it."</p>
+
+<p>Jan thought that over, trying
+to find a way.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it wouldn't work," he
+said. "We could rig batteries on
+the platform and electric motors
+to turn the propellers. But batteries
+big enough to power it all
+the way to Oostpoort would be
+so heavy the machine couldn't lift
+them off the ground. If there
+were some way to carry a power
+line all the way to Oostpoort, or
+to broadcast the power to it....
+But it's a light-load machine,
+and must have an engine that
+gives it the necessary power from
+very little weight."</p>
+
+<p>Wild schemes ran through his
+head. If they were on water, instead
+of land, he could rig up a
+sail. He could still rig up a sail,
+for a groundcar, except for the
+chasm out on Den Hoorn.</p>
+
+<p>The groundcar! Jan straightened
+and snapped his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor!" he explained. "Send
+a couple of men to drain the rest
+of the fuel from my groundcar.
+And let's get this platform above
+ground and tie it down until we
+can get it started."</p>
+
+<p>Sanchez gave rapid orders in
+Spanish. Two of the men left at a
+run, carrying five-gallon cans
+with them.</p>
+
+<p>Three others picked up the
+platform and carried it up a ramp
+and outside. As soon as they
+reached ground level, the wind
+hit them. They dropped the platform
+to the ground, where it
+shuddered and swayed momentarily,
+and two of the men fell
+successfully on their stomachs.
+The wind caught the third and
+somersaulted him half a dozen
+times before he skidded to a stop
+on his back with outstretched
+arms and legs. He turned over
+cautiously and crawled back to
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Jan, his head just above
+ground level, surveyed the terrain.
+There was flat ground to
+the east, clear in a fairly broad
+alley for at least half a kilometer
+before any of the domes protruded
+up into it.</p>
+
+<p>"This is as good a spot for
+takeoff as we'll find," he said to
+Sanchez.</p>
+
+<p>The men put three heavy ropes
+on the platform's windward rail
+and secured it by them to the
+heavy chain that ran by the
+dome. The platform quivered and
+shuddered in the heavy wind, but
+its base was too low for it to
+overturn.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly the two men returned
+with the fuel from the groundcar,
+struggling along the chain.
+Jan got above ground in a
+crouch, clinging to the rail of the
+platform, and helped them fill
+the fuel tank with it. He primed
+the carburetors and spun the
+engines.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing happened.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>He turned the engines over
+again. One of them coughed, and
+a cloud of blue smoke burst from
+its exhaust, but they did not
+catch.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter, <i>se&ntilde;or</i>?"
+asked Sanchez from the dome entrance.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," replied Jan.
+"Maybe it's that the engines
+haven't been used in so long. I'm
+afraid I'm not a good enough
+mechanic to tell."</p>
+
+<p>"Some of these men were good
+mechanics when the navy was
+here," said Sanchez. "Wait."</p>
+
+<p>He turned and spoke to someone
+in the dome. One of the men
+of Rathole came to Jan's side and
+tried the engines. They refused
+to catch. The man made carburetor
+adjustments and tried
+again. No success.</p>
+
+<p>He sniffed, took the cap from
+the fuel tank and stuck a finger
+inside. He withdrew it, wet and
+oily, and examined it. He turned
+and spoke to Sanchez.</p>
+
+<p>"He says that your groundcar
+must have a diesel engine," Sanchez
+interpreted to Jan. "Is that
+correct?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes, that's true."</p>
+
+<p>"He says the fuel will not work
+then, <i>se&ntilde;or</i>. He says it is low-grade
+fuel and the platform must
+have high octane gasoline."</p>
+
+<p>Jan threw up his hands and
+went back into the dome.</p>
+
+<p>"I should have known that," he
+said unhappily. "I would have
+known if I had thought of it."</p>
+
+<p>"What is to be done, then?"
+asked Sanchez.</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing that can be
+done," answered Jan. "They may
+as well put the fuel back in my
+groundcar."</p>
+
+<p>Sanchez called orders to the
+men at the platform. While they
+worked, Jan stared out at the
+furiously spinning windmills that
+dotted Rathole.</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing that can be
+done," he repeated. "We can't
+make the trip overland because
+of the chasm out there in Den
+Hoorn, and we can't fly the platform
+because we have no power
+for it."</p>
+
+<p>Windmills. Again Jan could
+imagine the flat land around
+them as his native Holland, with
+the Zuider Zee sparkling to the
+west where here the desert
+stretched under darkling clouds.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Jan looked at his watch. A
+little more than two hours before
+the G-boat's blastoff time, and it
+couldn't wait for them. It was
+nearly eight hours since he had
+left Oostpoort, and the afternoon
+was getting noticeably
+darker.</p>
+
+<p>Jan was sorry. He had done his
+best, but Venus had beaten him.</p>
+
+<p>He looked around for Diego.
+The boy was not in the dome. He
+was outside, crouched in the lee
+of the dome, playing with some
+sticks.</p>
+
+<p>Diego must know of his ailment,
+and why he had to go to
+Oostpoort. If Jan was any judge
+of character, Sanchez would have
+told him that. Whether Diego
+knew it was a life-or-death matter
+for him to be aboard the
+<i>Vanderdecken</i> when it blasted
+off for Earth, Jan did not know.
+But the boy was around eight
+years old and he was bright, and
+he must realize the seriousness
+involved in a decision to send him
+all the way to Earth.</p>
+
+<p>Jan felt ashamed of the exuberant
+foolishness which had
+led him to spout ancient history
+and claim descent from William
+of Orange. It had been a hobby,
+and artificial topic for conversation
+that amused him and his
+companions, a defense against
+the monotony of Venus that had
+begun to affect his personality
+perhaps a bit more than he realized.
+He did not dislike Spaniards;
+he had no reason to dislike
+them. They were all humans&mdash;the
+Spanish, the Dutch, the Germans,
+the Americans, even the
+Russians&mdash;fighting a hostile
+planet together. He could not understand
+a word Diego said when
+the boy spoke to him, but he
+liked Diego and wished desperately
+he could do something.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, the windmills of Rathole
+spun merrily.</p>
+
+<p>There was power, the power
+that lighted and air-conditioned
+Rathole, power in the air all
+around them. If he could only use
+it! But to turn the platform on
+its side and let the wind spin the
+propellers was pointless.</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Sanchez.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask the men if there are any
+spare parts for the platform," he
+said. "Some of those legs it
+stands on, transmission belts,
+spare propellers."</p>
+
+<p>Sanchez asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said. "Many spare
+parts, but no fuel."</p>
+
+<p>Jan smiled a tight smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell them to take the engines
+out," he said. "Since we have no
+fuel, we may as well have no
+engines."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Pieter Heemskerk stood by the
+ramp to the stubby G-boat and
+checked his watch. It was X
+minus fifteen&mdash;fifteen minutes
+before blastoff time.</p>
+
+<p>Heemskerk wore a spacesuit.
+Everything was ready, except
+climbing aboard, closing the airlock
+and pressing the firing pin.</p>
+
+<p>What on Venus could have happened
+to Van Artevelde? The last
+radio message they had received,
+more than an hour ago, had said
+he and the patient took off successfully
+in an aircraft. What
+sort of aircraft could he be flying
+that would require an hour to
+cover eighty kilometers, with the
+wind?</p>
+
+<p>Heemskerk could only draw the
+conclusion that the aircraft had
+been wrecked somewhere in Den
+Hoorn. As a matter of fact, he
+knew that preparations were being
+made now to send a couple of
+groundcars out to search for it.</p>
+
+<p>This, of course, would be too
+late to help the patient Van Artevelde
+was bringing, but Heemskerk
+had no personal interest in
+the patient. His worry was all for
+his friend. The two of them had
+enjoyed chess and good beer together
+on his last three trips to
+Venus, and Heemskerk hoped
+very sincerely that the big blond
+man wasn't hurt.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at his watch again.
+X minus twelve. In two minutes,
+it would be time for him to walk
+up the ramp into the G-boat. In
+seven minutes the backward
+count before blastoff would start
+over the area loudspeakers.</p>
+
+<p>Heemskerk shook his head sadly.
+And Van Artevelde had promised
+to come back triumphant,
+with a broom at his masthead!</p>
+
+<p>It was a high thin whine borne
+on the wind, carrying even
+through the walls of his spacehelmet,
+that attracted Heemskerk's
+attention and caused him
+to pause with his foot on the
+ramp. Around him, the rocket
+mechanics were staring up at the
+sky, trying to pinpoint the noise.</p>
+
+<p>Heemskerk looked westward.
+At first he could see nothing,
+then there was a moving dot
+above the mountain, against the
+indigo umbrella of clouds. It
+grew, it swooped, it approached
+and became a strange little flying
+disc with two people standing on
+it and <i>something</i> sticking up
+from its deck in front of them.</p>
+
+<p>A broom?</p>
+
+<p>No. The platform hovered and
+began to settle nearby, and there
+was Van Artevelde leaning over
+its rail and fiddling frantically
+with whatever it was that stuck
+up on it&mdash;a weird, angled contraption
+of pipes and belts topped
+by a whirring blade. A boy stood
+at his shoulder and tried to help
+him. As the platform descended
+to a few meters above ground,
+the Dutchman slashed at the contraption,
+the cut ends of belts
+whipped out wildly and the platform
+slid to the ground with a
+rush. It hit with a clatter and its
+two passengers tumbled prone to
+the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Jan!" boomed Heemskerk,
+forcing his voice through the helmet
+diaphragm and rushing over
+to his friend. "I was afraid you
+were lost!"</p>
+
+<p>Jan struggled to his feet and
+leaned down to help the boy up.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's your patient, Pieter,"
+he said. "Hope you have a spacesuit
+in his size."</p>
+
+<p>"I can find one. And we'll have
+to hurry for blastoff. But, first,
+what happened? Even that
+damned thing ought to get here
+from Rathole faster than that."</p>
+
+<p>"Had no fuel," replied Jan
+briefly. "My engines were all
+right, but I had no power to run
+them. So I had to pull the engines
+and rig up a power source."</p>
+
+<p>Heemskerk stared at the platform.
+On its railing was rigged a
+tripod of battered metal pipes,
+atop which a big four-blade propeller
+spun slowly in what wind
+was left after it came over the
+western mountain. Over the
+edges of the platform, running
+from the two propellers in its
+base, hung a series of tattered
+transmission belts.</p>
+
+<p>"Power source?" repeated
+Heemskerk. "That?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," replied Jan with
+dignity. "The power source any
+good Dutchman turns to in an
+emergency: a windmill!"</p>
+
+
+<p class="theend">THE END</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="trans1"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b><br />
+
+This etext was produced from <i>Amazing Science Fiction Stories</i>
+April 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
+Minor spelling and typographical errors
+have been corrected without note.</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wind, by Charles Louis Fontenay
+
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+</pre>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wind, by Charles Louis Fontenay
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Wind
+
+Author: Charles Louis Fontenay
+
+Release Date: September 12, 2007 [EBook #22590]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  WIND
+
+                         By CHARLES L. FONTENAY
+
+
+            _When you have an engine with no fuel, and fuel
+            without an engine, and a life-and-death deadline
+           to meet, you have a problem indeed. Unless you are
+           a stubborn Dutchman--and Jan Van Artevelde was the
+                     stubbornest Dutchman on Venus._
+
+
+Jan Willem van Artevelde claimed descent from William of Orange. He had
+no genealogy to prove it, but on Venus there was no one who could
+disprove it, either.
+
+Jan Willem van Artevelde smoked a clay pipe, which only a Dutchman can
+do properly, because the clay bit grates on less stubborn teeth.
+
+Jan needed all his Dutch stubbornness, and a good deal of pure physical
+strength besides, to maneuver the roach-flat groundcar across the
+tumbled terrain of Den Hoorn into the teeth of the howling gale that
+swept from the west. The huge wheels twisted and jolted against the
+rocks outside, and Jan bounced against his seat belt, wrestled the
+steering wheel and puffed at his _pijp_. The mild aroma of
+Heerenbaai-Tabak filled the airtight groundcar.
+
+There came a new swaying that was not the roughness of the terrain.
+Through the thick windshield Jan saw all the ground about him buckle and
+heave for a second or two before it settled to rugged quiescence again.
+This time he was really heaved about.
+
+Jan mentioned this to the groundcar radio.
+
+"That's the third time in half an hour," he commented. "The place tosses
+like the IJsselmeer on a rough day."
+
+"You just don't forget it _isn't_ the Zuider Zee," retorted Heemskerk
+from the other end. "You sink there and you don't come up three times."
+
+"Don't worry," said Jan. "I'll be back on time, with a broom at the
+masthead."
+
+"This I shall want to see," chuckled Heemskerk; a logical reaction,
+considering the scarcity of brooms on Venus.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two hours earlier the two men had sat across a small table playing
+chess, with little indication there would be anything else to occupy
+their time before blastoff of the stubby gravity-boat. It would be their
+last chess game for many months, for Jan was a member of the Dutch
+colony at Oostpoort in the northern hemisphere of Venus, while Heemskerk
+was pilot of the G-boat from the Dutch spaceship _Vanderdecken_,
+scheduled to begin an Earthward orbit in a few hours.
+
+It was near the dusk of the 485-hour Venerian day, and the Twilight Gale
+already had arisen, sweeping from the comparatively chill Venerian
+nightside into the superheated dayside. Oostpoort, established near some
+outcroppings that contained uranium ore, was protected from both the
+Dawn Gale and the Twilight Gale, for it was in a valley in the midst of
+a small range of mountains.
+
+Jan had just figured out a combination by which he hoped to cheat
+Heemskerk out of one of his knights, when Dekker, the _burgemeester_ of
+Oostpoort, entered the spaceport ready room.
+
+"There's been an emergency radio message," said Dekker. "They've got a
+passenger for the Earthship over at Rathole."
+
+"Rathole?" repeated Heemskerk. "What's that? I didn't know there was
+another colony within two thousand kilometers."
+
+"It isn't a colony, in the sense Oostpoort is," explained Dekker. "The
+people are the families of a bunch of laborers left behind when the
+colony folded several years ago. It's about eighty kilometers away,
+right across the Hoorn, but they don't have any vehicles that can
+navigate when the wind's up."
+
+Heemskerk pushed his short-billed cap back on his close-cropped head,
+leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his comfortable
+stomach.
+
+"Then the passenger will have to wait for the next ship," he pronounced.
+"The _Vanderdecken_ has to blast off in thirty hours to catch Earth at
+the right orbital spot, and the G-boat has to blast off in ten hours to
+catch the _Vanderdecken_."
+
+"This passenger can't wait," said Dekker. "He needs to be evacuated to
+Earth immediately. He's suffering from the Venus Shadow."
+
+Jan whistled softly. He had seen the effects of that disease. Dekker was
+right.
+
+"Jan, you're the best driver in Oostpoort," said Dekker. "You will have
+to take a groundcar to Rathole and bring the fellow back."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So now Jan gripped his clay pipe between his teeth and piloted the
+groundcar into the teeth of the Twilight Gale.
+
+Den Hoorn was a comparatively flat desert sweep that ran along the
+western side of the Oost Mountains, just over the mountain from
+Oostpoort. It was a thin fault area of a planet whose crust was
+peculiarly subject to earthquakes, particularly at the beginning and end
+of each long day when temperatures of the surface rocks changed. On the
+other side of it lay Rathole, a little settlement that eked a precarious
+living from the Venerian vegetation. Jan never had seen it.
+
+He had little difficulty driving up and over the mountain, for the Dutch
+settlers had carved a rough road through the ravines. But even the
+2-1/2-meter wheels of the groundcar had trouble amid the tumbled rocks
+of Den Hoorn. The wind hit the car in full strength here and, though the
+body of the groundcar was suspended from the axles, there was constant
+danger of its being flipped over by a gust if not handled just right.
+
+The three earthshocks that had shaken Den Hoorn since he had been
+driving made his task no easier, but he was obviously lucky, at that.
+Often he had to detour far from his course to skirt long, deep cracks in
+the surface, or steep breaks where the crust had been raised or dropped
+several meters by past quakes.
+
+The groundcar zig-zagged slowly westward. The tattered violet-and-indigo
+clouds boiled low above it, but the wind was as dry as the breath of an
+oven. Despite the heavy cloud cover, the afternoon was as bright as an
+Earth-day. The thermometer showed the outside temperature to have
+dropped to 40 degrees Centigrade in the west wind, and it was still
+going down.
+
+Jan reached the edge of a crack that made further progress seem
+impossible. A hundred meters wide, of unknown depth, it stretched out of
+sight in both directions. For the first time he entertained serious
+doubts that Den Hoorn could be crossed by land.
+
+After a moment's hesitation, he swung the groundcar northward and raced
+along the edge of the chasm as fast as the car would negotiate the
+terrain. He looked anxiously at his watch. Nearly three hours had passed
+since he left Oostpoort. He had seven hours to go and he was still at
+least 16 kilometers from Rathole. His pipe was out, but he could not
+take his hands from the wheel to refill it.
+
+He had driven at least eight kilometers before he realized that the
+crack was narrowing. At least as far again, the two edges came together,
+but not at the same level. A sheer cliff three meters high now barred
+his passage. He drove on.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Apparently it was the result of an old quake. He found a spot where
+rocks had tumbled down, making a steep, rough ramp up the break. He
+drove up it and turned back southwestward.
+
+He made it just in time. He had driven less than three hundred meters
+when a quake more severe than any of the others struck. Suddenly behind
+him the break reversed itself, so that where he had climbed up coming
+westward he would now have to climb a cliff of equal height returning
+eastward.
+
+The ground heaved and buckled like a tempestuous sea. Rocks rolled and
+leaped through the air, several large ones striking the groundcar with
+ominous force. The car staggered forward on its giant wheels like a
+drunken man. The quake was so violent that at one time the vehicle was
+hurled several meters sideways, and almost overturned. And the wind
+smashed down on it unrelentingly.
+
+The quake lasted for several minutes, during which Jan was able to make
+no progress at all and struggled only to keep the groundcar upright.
+Then, in unison, both earthquake and wind died to absolute quiescence.
+
+Jan made use of this calm to step down on the accelerator and send the
+groundcar speeding forward. The terrain was easier here, nearing the
+western edge of Den Hoorn, and he covered several kilometers before the
+wind struck again, cutting his speed down considerably. He judged he
+must be nearing Rathole.
+
+Not long thereafter, he rounded an outcropping of rock and it lay before
+him.
+
+A wave of nostalgia swept over him. Back at Oostpoort, the power was
+nuclear, but this little settlement made use of the cheapest, most
+obviously available power source. It was dotted with more than a dozen
+windmills.
+
+Windmills! Tears came to Jan's eyes. For a moment, he was carried back
+to the flat lands around 's Gravenhage. For a moment he was a
+tow-headed, round-eyed boy again, clumping in wooden shoes along the
+edge of the tulip fields.
+
+But there were no canals here. The flat land, stretching into the
+darkening west, was spotted with patches of cactus and leather-leaved
+Venerian plants. Amid the windmills, low domes protruded from the earth,
+indicating that the dwellings of Rathole were, appropriately, partly
+underground.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He drove into the place. There were no streets, as such, but there were
+avenues between lines of heavy chains strung to short iron posts,
+evidently as handholds against the wind. The savage gale piled dust and
+sand in drifts against the domes, then, shifting slightly, swept them
+clean again.
+
+There was no one moving abroad, but just inside the community Jan found
+half a dozen men in a group, clinging to one of the chains and waving to
+him. He pulled the groundcar to a stop beside them, stuck his pipe in a
+pocket of his plastic venusuit, donned his helmet and got out.
+
+The wind almost took him away before one of them grabbed him and he was
+able to grasp the chain himself. They gathered around him. They were
+swarthy, black-eyed men, with curly hair. One of them grasped his hand.
+
+"_Bienvenido, senor_," said the man.
+
+Jan recoiled and dropped the man's hand. All the Orangeman blood he
+claimed protested in outrage.
+
+Spaniards! All these men were Spaniards!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jan recovered himself at once. He had been reading too much ancient
+history during his leisure hours. The hot monotony of Venus was
+beginning to affect his brain. It had been 500 years since the
+Netherlands revolted against Spanish rule. A lot of water over the dam
+since then.
+
+A look at the men around him, the sound of their chatter, convinced him
+that he need not try German or Hollandsch here. He fell back on the
+international language.
+
+"Do you speak English?" he asked. The man brightened but shook his head.
+
+"_No hablo ingles_," he said, "_pero el medico lo habla. Venga
+conmigo._"
+
+He gestured for Jan to follow him and started off, pulling his way
+against the wind along the chain. Jan followed, and the other men fell
+in behind in single file. A hundred meters farther on, they turned,
+descended some steps and entered one of the half-buried domes. A
+gray-haired, bearded man was in the well-lighted room, apparently the
+living room of a home, with a young woman.
+
+"_El medico_," said the man who had greeted Jan, gesturing. "_El habla
+ingles._"
+
+He went out, shutting the airlock door behind him.
+
+"You must be the man from Oostpoort," said the bearded man, holding out
+his hand. "I am Doctor Sanchez. We are very grateful you have come."
+
+"I thought for a while I wouldn't make it," said Jan ruefully, removing
+his venushelmet.
+
+"This is Mrs. Murillo," said Sanchez.
+
+The woman was a Spanish blonde, full-lipped and beautiful, with golden
+hair and dark, liquid eyes. She smiled at Jan.
+
+"_Encantada de conocerlo, senor_," she greeted him.
+
+"Is this the patient, Doctor?" asked Jan, astonished. She looked in the
+best of health.
+
+"No, the patient is in the next room," answered Sanchez.
+
+"Well, as much as I'd like to stop for a pipe, we'd better start at
+once," said Jan. "It's a hard drive back, and blastoff can't be
+delayed."
+
+The woman seemed to sense his meaning. She turned and called: "_Diego!_"
+
+A boy appeared in the door, a dark-skinned, sleepy-eyed boy of about
+eight. He yawned. Then, catching sight of the big Dutchman, he opened
+his eyes wide and smiled.
+
+The boy was healthy-looking, alert, but the mark of the Venus Shadow was
+on his face. There was a faint mottling, a criss-cross of dead-white
+lines.
+
+Mrs. Murillo spoke to him rapidly in Spanish and he nodded. She zipped
+him into a venusuit and fitted a small helmet on his head.
+
+"Good luck, _amigo_," said Sanchez, shaking Jan's hand again.
+
+"Thanks," replied Jan. He donned his own helmet. "I'll need it, if the
+trip over was any indication."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jan and Diego made their way back down the chain to the groundcar. There
+was a score of men there now, and a few women. They let the pair go
+through, and waved farewell as Jan swung the groundcar around and headed
+back eastward.
+
+It was easier driving with the wind behind him, and Jan hit a hundred
+kilometers an hour several times before striking the rougher ground of
+Den Hoorn. Now, if he could only find a way over the bluff raised by
+that last quake....
+
+The ground of Den Hoorn was still shivering. Jan did not realize this
+until he had to brake the groundcar almost to a stop at one point,
+because it was not shaking in severe, periodic shocks as it had earlier.
+It quivered constantly, like the surface of quicksand.
+
+The ground far ahead of him had a strange color to it. Jan, watching for
+the cliff he had to skirt and scale, had picked up speed over some
+fairly even terrain, but now he slowed again, puzzled. There was
+something wrong ahead. He couldn't quite figure it out.
+
+Diego, beside him, had sat quietly so far, peering eagerly through the
+windshield, not saying a word. Now suddenly he cried in a high thin
+tenor:
+
+"_Cuidado! Cuidado! Un abismo!_"
+
+Jim saw it at the same time and hit the brakes so hard the groundcar
+would have stood on its nose had its wheels been smaller. They skidded
+to a stop.
+
+The chasm that had caused him such a long detour before had widened,
+evidently in the big quake that had hit earlier. Now it was a canyon,
+half a kilometer wide. Five meters from the edge he looked out over
+blank space at the far wall, and could not see the bottom.
+
+Cursing choice Dutch profanity, Jan wheeled the groundcar northward and
+drove along the edge of the abyss as fast as he could. He wasted half an
+hour before realizing that it was getting no narrower.
+
+There was no point in going back southward. It might be a hundred
+kilometers long or a thousand, but he never could reach the end of it
+and thread the tumbled rocks of Den Hoorn to Oostpoort before the G-boat
+blastoff.
+
+There was nothing to do but turn back to Rathole and see if some other
+way could not be found.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jan sat in the half-buried room and enjoyed the luxury of a pipe filled
+with some of Theodorus Neimeijer's mild tobacco. Before him, Dr. Sanchez
+sat with crossed legs, cleaning his fingernails with a scalpel. Diego's
+mother talked to the boy in low, liquid tones in a corner of the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jan was at a loss to know how people whose technical knowledge was as
+skimpy as it obviously was in Rathole were able to build these
+semi-underground domes to resist the earth shocks that came from Den
+Hoorn. But this one showed no signs of stress. A religious print and a
+small pencil sketch of Senora Murillo, probably done by the boy, were
+awry on the inward-curving walls, but that was all.
+
+Jan felt justifiably exasperated at these Spanish-speaking people.
+
+"If some effort had been made to take the boy to Oostpoort from here,
+instead of calling on us to send a car, Den Hoorn could have been
+crossed before the crack opened," he pointed out.
+
+"An effort was made," replied Sanchez quietly. "Perhaps you do not fully
+realize our position here. We have no engines except the stationary
+generators that give us current for our air-conditioning and our
+utilities. They are powered by the windmills. We do not have gasoline
+engines for vehicles, so our vehicles are operated by hand."
+
+"You push them?" demanded Jan incredulously.
+
+"No. You've seen pictures of the pump-cars that once were used on
+terrestrial railroads? Ours are powered like that, but we cannot operate
+them when the Venerian wind is blowing. By the time I diagnosed the
+Venus Shadow in Diego, the wind was coming up, and we had no way to get
+him to Oostpoort."
+
+"Mmm," grunted Jan. He shifted uncomfortably and looked at the pair in
+the corner. The blonde head was bent over the boy protectingly, and over
+his mother's shoulder Diego's black eyes returned Jan's glance.
+
+"If the disease has just started, the boy could wait for the next Earth
+ship, couldn't he?" asked Jan.
+
+"I said I had just diagnosed it, not that it had just started, _senor_,"
+corrected Sanchez. "As you know, the trip to Earth takes 145 days and it
+can be started only when the two planets are at the right position in
+their orbits. Have you ever seen anyone die of the Venus Shadow?"
+
+"Yes, I have," replied Jan in a low voice. He had seen two people die of
+it, and it had not been pleasant.
+
+Medical men thought it was a deficiency disease, but they had not traced
+down the deficiency responsible. Treatment by vitamins, diet,
+antibiotics, infrared and ultraviolet rays, all were useless. The only
+thing that could arrest and cure the disease was removal from the dry,
+cloud-hung surface of Venus and return to a moist, sunny climate on
+Earth.
+
+Without that treatment, once the typical mottled texture of the skin
+appeared, the flesh rapidly deteriorated and fell away in chunks. The
+victim remained unfevered and agonizingly conscious until the
+degeneration reached a vital spot.
+
+"If you have," said Sanchez, "you must realize that Diego cannot wait
+for a later ship, if his life is to be saved. He must get to Earth at
+once."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jan puffed at the Heerenbaai-Tabak and cogitated. The place was aptly
+named. It was a ratty community. The boy was a dark-skinned little
+Spaniard--of Mexican origin, perhaps. But he was a boy, and a human
+being.
+
+A thought occurred to him. From what he had seen and heard, the entire
+economy of Rathole could not support the tremendous expense of sending
+the boy across the millions of miles to Earth by spaceship.
+
+"Who's paying his passage?" he asked. "The Dutch Central Venus Company
+isn't exactly a charitable institution."
+
+"Your _Senor_ Dekker said that would be taken care of," replied Sanchez.
+
+Jan relit his pipe silently, making a mental resolution that Dekker
+wouldn't take care of it alone. Salaries for Venerian service were high,
+and many of the men at Oostpoort would contribute readily to such a
+cause.
+
+"Who is Diego's father?" he asked.
+
+"He was Ramon Murillo, a very good mechanic," answered Sanchez, with a
+sliding sidelong glance at Jan's face. "He has been dead for three
+years."
+
+Jan grunted.
+
+"The copters at Oostpoort can't buck this wind," he said thoughtfully,
+"or I'd have come in one of those in the first place instead of trying
+to cross Den Hoorn by land. But if you have any sort of aircraft here,
+it might make it downwind--if it isn't wrecked on takeoff."
+
+"I'm afraid not," said Sanchez.
+
+"Too bad. There's nothing we can do, then. The nearest settlement west
+of here is more than a thousand kilometers away, and I happen to know
+they have no planes, either. Just copters. So that's no help."
+
+"Wait," said Sanchez, lifting the scalpel and tilting his head. "I
+believe there is something, though we cannot use it. This was once an
+American naval base, and the people here were civilian employes who
+refused to move north with it. There was a flying machine they used for
+short-range work, and one was left behind--probably with a little help
+from the people of the settlement. But...."
+
+"What kind of machine? Copter or plane?"
+
+"They call it a flying platform. It carries two men, I believe. But,
+_senor_...."
+
+"I know them. I've operated them, before I left Earth. Man, you don't
+expect me to try to fly one of those little things in this wind? They're
+tricky as they can be, and the passengers are absolutely unprotected!"
+
+"_Senor_, I have asked you to do nothing."
+
+"No, you haven't," muttered Jan. "But you know I'll do it."
+
+Sanchez looked into his face, smiling faintly and a little sadly.
+
+"I was sure you would be willing," he said. He turned and spoke in
+Spanish to Mrs. Murillo.
+
+The woman rose to her feet and came to them. As Jan arose, she looked up
+at him, tears in her eyes.
+
+"_Gracias_," she murmured. "_Un millon de gracias._"
+
+She lifted his hands in hers and kissed them.
+
+Jan disengaged himself gently, embarrassed. But it occurred to him,
+looking down on the bowed head of the beautiful young widow, that he
+might make some flying trips back over here in his leisure time.
+Language barriers were not impassable, and feminine companionship might
+cure his neurotic, history-born distaste for Spaniards, for more than
+one reason.
+
+Sanchez was tugging at his elbow.
+
+"_Senor_, I have been trying to tell you," he said. "It is generous and
+good of you, and I wanted _Senora_ Murillo to know what a brave man you
+are. But have you forgotten that we have no gasoline engines here? There
+is no fuel for the flying platform."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The platform was in a warehouse which, like the rest of the structures
+in Rathole, was a half-buried dome. The platform's ring-shaped base was
+less than a meter thick, standing on four metal legs. On top of it, in
+the center, was a railed circle that would hold two men, but would crowd
+them. Two small gasoline engines sat on each side of this railed circle
+and between them on a third side was the fuel tank. The passengers
+entered it on the fourth side.
+
+The machine was dusty and spotted with rust, Jan, surrounded by Sanchez,
+Diego and a dozen men, inspected it thoughtfully. The letters USN*SES
+were painted in white on the platform itself, and each engine bore the
+label "Hiller."
+
+Jan peered over the edge of the platform at the twin-ducted fans in
+their plastic shrouds. They appeared in good shape. Each was powered by
+one of the engines, transmitted to it by heavy rubber belts.
+
+Jan sighed. It was an unhappy situation. As far as he could determine,
+without making tests, the engines were in perfect condition. Two
+perfectly good engines, and no fuel for them.
+
+"You're sure there's no gasoline, anywhere in Rathole?" he asked
+Sanchez.
+
+Sanchez smiled ruefully, as he had once before, at Jan's appellation for
+the community. The inhabitants' term for it was simply "_La Ciudad
+Nuestra_"--"Our Town." But he made no protest. He turned to one of the
+other men and talked rapidly for a few moments in Spanish.
+
+"None, _senor_," he said, turning back to Jan. "The Americans, of
+course, kept much of it when they were here, but the few things we take
+to Oostpoort to trade could not buy precious gasoline. We have
+electricity in plenty if you can power the platform with it."
+
+Jan thought that over, trying to find a way.
+
+"No, it wouldn't work," he said. "We could rig batteries on the platform
+and electric motors to turn the propellers. But batteries big enough to
+power it all the way to Oostpoort would be so heavy the machine couldn't
+lift them off the ground. If there were some way to carry a power line
+all the way to Oostpoort, or to broadcast the power to it.... But it's a
+light-load machine, and must have an engine that gives it the necessary
+power from very little weight."
+
+Wild schemes ran through his head. If they were on water, instead of
+land, he could rig up a sail. He could still rig up a sail, for a
+groundcar, except for the chasm out on Den Hoorn.
+
+The groundcar! Jan straightened and snapped his fingers.
+
+"Doctor!" he explained. "Send a couple of men to drain the rest of the
+fuel from my groundcar. And let's get this platform above ground and tie
+it down until we can get it started."
+
+Sanchez gave rapid orders in Spanish. Two of the men left at a run,
+carrying five-gallon cans with them.
+
+Three others picked up the platform and carried it up a ramp and
+outside. As soon as they reached ground level, the wind hit them. They
+dropped the platform to the ground, where it shuddered and swayed
+momentarily, and two of the men fell successfully on their stomachs. The
+wind caught the third and somersaulted him half a dozen times before he
+skidded to a stop on his back with outstretched arms and legs. He turned
+over cautiously and crawled back to them.
+
+Jan, his head just above ground level, surveyed the terrain. There was
+flat ground to the east, clear in a fairly broad alley for at least half
+a kilometer before any of the domes protruded up into it.
+
+"This is as good a spot for takeoff as we'll find," he said to Sanchez.
+
+The men put three heavy ropes on the platform's windward rail and
+secured it by them to the heavy chain that ran by the dome. The platform
+quivered and shuddered in the heavy wind, but its base was too low for
+it to overturn.
+
+Shortly the two men returned with the fuel from the groundcar,
+struggling along the chain. Jan got above ground in a crouch, clinging
+to the rail of the platform, and helped them fill the fuel tank with it.
+He primed the carburetors and spun the engines.
+
+Nothing happened.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He turned the engines over again. One of them coughed, and a cloud of
+blue smoke burst from its exhaust, but they did not catch.
+
+"What is the matter, _senor_?" asked Sanchez from the dome entrance.
+
+"I don't know," replied Jan. "Maybe it's that the engines haven't been
+used in so long. I'm afraid I'm not a good enough mechanic to tell."
+
+"Some of these men were good mechanics when the navy was here," said
+Sanchez. "Wait."
+
+He turned and spoke to someone in the dome. One of the men of Rathole
+came to Jan's side and tried the engines. They refused to catch. The man
+made carburetor adjustments and tried again. No success.
+
+He sniffed, took the cap from the fuel tank and stuck a finger inside.
+He withdrew it, wet and oily, and examined it. He turned and spoke to
+Sanchez.
+
+"He says that your groundcar must have a diesel engine," Sanchez
+interpreted to Jan. "Is that correct?"
+
+"Why, yes, that's true."
+
+"He says the fuel will not work then, _senor_. He says it is low-grade
+fuel and the platform must have high octane gasoline."
+
+Jan threw up his hands and went back into the dome.
+
+"I should have known that," he said unhappily. "I would have known if I
+had thought of it."
+
+"What is to be done, then?" asked Sanchez.
+
+"There's nothing that can be done," answered Jan. "They may as well put
+the fuel back in my groundcar."
+
+Sanchez called orders to the men at the platform. While they worked, Jan
+stared out at the furiously spinning windmills that dotted Rathole.
+
+"There's nothing that can be done," he repeated. "We can't make the trip
+overland because of the chasm out there in Den Hoorn, and we can't fly
+the platform because we have no power for it."
+
+Windmills. Again Jan could imagine the flat land around them as his
+native Holland, with the Zuider Zee sparkling to the west where here the
+desert stretched under darkling clouds.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jan looked at his watch. A little more than two hours before the
+G-boat's blastoff time, and it couldn't wait for them. It was nearly
+eight hours since he had left Oostpoort, and the afternoon was getting
+noticeably darker.
+
+Jan was sorry. He had done his best, but Venus had beaten him.
+
+He looked around for Diego. The boy was not in the dome. He was outside,
+crouched in the lee of the dome, playing with some sticks.
+
+Diego must know of his ailment, and why he had to go to Oostpoort. If
+Jan was any judge of character, Sanchez would have told him that.
+Whether Diego knew it was a life-or-death matter for him to be aboard
+the _Vanderdecken_ when it blasted off for Earth, Jan did not know. But
+the boy was around eight years old and he was bright, and he must
+realize the seriousness involved in a decision to send him all the way
+to Earth.
+
+Jan felt ashamed of the exuberant foolishness which had led him to spout
+ancient history and claim descent from William of Orange. It had been a
+hobby, and artificial topic for conversation that amused him and his
+companions, a defense against the monotony of Venus that had begun to
+affect his personality perhaps a bit more than he realized. He did not
+dislike Spaniards; he had no reason to dislike them. They were all
+humans--the Spanish, the Dutch, the Germans, the Americans, even the
+Russians--fighting a hostile planet together. He could not understand a
+word Diego said when the boy spoke to him, but he liked Diego and wished
+desperately he could do something.
+
+Outside, the windmills of Rathole spun merrily.
+
+There was power, the power that lighted and air-conditioned Rathole,
+power in the air all around them. If he could only use it! But to turn
+the platform on its side and let the wind spin the propellers was
+pointless.
+
+He turned to Sanchez.
+
+"Ask the men if there are any spare parts for the platform," he said.
+"Some of those legs it stands on, transmission belts, spare propellers."
+
+Sanchez asked.
+
+"Yes," he said. "Many spare parts, but no fuel."
+
+Jan smiled a tight smile.
+
+"Tell them to take the engines out," he said. "Since we have no fuel, we
+may as well have no engines."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pieter Heemskerk stood by the ramp to the stubby G-boat and checked his
+watch. It was X minus fifteen--fifteen minutes before blastoff time.
+
+Heemskerk wore a spacesuit. Everything was ready, except climbing
+aboard, closing the airlock and pressing the firing pin.
+
+What on Venus could have happened to Van Artevelde? The last radio
+message they had received, more than an hour ago, had said he and the
+patient took off successfully in an aircraft. What sort of aircraft
+could he be flying that would require an hour to cover eighty
+kilometers, with the wind?
+
+Heemskerk could only draw the conclusion that the aircraft had been
+wrecked somewhere in Den Hoorn. As a matter of fact, he knew that
+preparations were being made now to send a couple of groundcars out to
+search for it.
+
+This, of course, would be too late to help the patient Van Artevelde was
+bringing, but Heemskerk had no personal interest in the patient. His
+worry was all for his friend. The two of them had enjoyed chess and good
+beer together on his last three trips to Venus, and Heemskerk hoped very
+sincerely that the big blond man wasn't hurt.
+
+He glanced at his watch again. X minus twelve. In two minutes, it would
+be time for him to walk up the ramp into the G-boat. In seven minutes
+the backward count before blastoff would start over the area
+loudspeakers.
+
+Heemskerk shook his head sadly. And Van Artevelde had promised to come
+back triumphant, with a broom at his masthead!
+
+It was a high thin whine borne on the wind, carrying even through the
+walls of his spacehelmet, that attracted Heemskerk's attention and
+caused him to pause with his foot on the ramp. Around him, the rocket
+mechanics were staring up at the sky, trying to pinpoint the noise.
+
+Heemskerk looked westward. At first he could see nothing, then there was
+a moving dot above the mountain, against the indigo umbrella of clouds.
+It grew, it swooped, it approached and became a strange little flying
+disc with two people standing on it and _something_ sticking up from its
+deck in front of them.
+
+A broom?
+
+No. The platform hovered and began to settle nearby, and there was Van
+Artevelde leaning over its rail and fiddling frantically with whatever
+it was that stuck up on it--a weird, angled contraption of pipes and
+belts topped by a whirring blade. A boy stood at his shoulder and tried
+to help him. As the platform descended to a few meters above ground, the
+Dutchman slashed at the contraption, the cut ends of belts whipped out
+wildly and the platform slid to the ground with a rush. It hit with a
+clatter and its two passengers tumbled prone to the ground.
+
+"Jan!" boomed Heemskerk, forcing his voice through the helmet diaphragm
+and rushing over to his friend. "I was afraid you were lost!"
+
+Jan struggled to his feet and leaned down to help the boy up.
+
+"Here's your patient, Pieter," he said. "Hope you have a spacesuit in
+his size."
+
+"I can find one. And we'll have to hurry for blastoff. But, first, what
+happened? Even that damned thing ought to get here from Rathole faster
+than that."
+
+"Had no fuel," replied Jan briefly. "My engines were all right, but I
+had no power to run them. So I had to pull the engines and rig up a
+power source."
+
+Heemskerk stared at the platform. On its railing was rigged a tripod of
+battered metal pipes, atop which a big four-blade propeller spun slowly
+in what wind was left after it came over the western mountain. Over the
+edges of the platform, running from the two propellers in its base, hung
+a series of tattered transmission belts.
+
+"Power source?" repeated Heemskerk. "That?"
+
+"Certainly," replied Jan with dignity. "The power source any good
+Dutchman turns to in an emergency: a windmill!"
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+This etext was produced from _Amazing Science Fiction Stories_ April
+1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
+typographical errors have been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wind, by Charles Louis Fontenay
+
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