Boy meets dyevitza

"Yes. I saw it in one of your materialistic capitalistic magazines." She stood up a little straighter--an act that brought her harebell-blue eyes on a level with the topmost button of his fatigue-alls. "I am Major Sonya Mikhailovna, of the Soviet Space Force, and my ship is in the next valley. I arrived here yesterday."

He got the picture then, and he felt sick. He should have known from her too-correct, slightly stilted English, from the military cut of her clothing. He should have known in the first place, for that matter. It was the same old humiliating story. The manned Venus shot had been publicized for months before the actual launching, and he had been written up in every newspaper and magazine in the country. Articles had paid homage to his suburban upbringing, saluted his record at the Shepard Space Academy, praised his career as an orbital pilot, romanticized his bachelorhood, described how he liked his eggs, and inferred what a good catch he would be. Meanwhile, the Russians had gone quietly and systematically about their business, and at the precise psychological moment had pulled their usual unexpected coup. First it had been Laika, then Zrezdochka, then Gagarin, then Dymov, the first "Man in the Moon". Now it was Major Sonya Mikhailovna.

But why a woman? And why one so seemingly delicate that you marvelled at her ability to withstand the acceleration of take-off? Suddenly he got the whole picture, and he really felt sick. He could see the humiliating headlines--or rather, their English counterparts--in Pravda: SOVIET SPACE GIRL BEATS CAPITALIST COSMONAUT TO VENUS! USSR TRIUMPH AGAIN!

"I suppose you picked up my ship on your radar while I was coming in, and fixed the time and location of my landing," he said bitterly.

Sonya Mikhailovna nodded. "My own arrival-time has already been officially recorded, but the announcement of my success had to be withheld until I could establish your arrival-time and the exact time-difference could be computed. Soon now, the news of our glorious new victory will be released to the world."

She bent down, retrieved her stockings from the brook and wrung them out. Straightening, she hung them on a low-hanging branch of a nearby tree. They were cotton, he noticed, and there was a hole in one of the toes.

Suddenly she gave a start. Following the direction of her gaze, he gave one too. So did the man and the woman who had just emerged from the forest.

Since his arrival four hours ago, Gordon had been wondering--among a host of other things--whether the ultra-violet rays of the sun could penetrate the planet's thick cloud-cover. He saw now that they not only could, but did. The man and the woman were unquestionably members of a white-skinned race, and both possessed suntans so deep and golden that in contrast their dark blue eyes seemed even darker and their bright blond hair even brighter. Their white knee-length tunics augmented the effect, and in co-operation with their handsome faces, supplied them with a god- and goddess-like aspect. Unfortunately this aspect was somewhat marred by their one concession to personal adornment--gleaming neckbands forged from a copper-like metal.

As neither native appeared to be armed, Gordon saw no cause for alarm, and after his initial surprise, he regarded them quite calmly. So did Sonya Mikhailovna. This time, however, the two Venusians did not reciprocate. Their eyes had grown wide, and now an unmistakable expression of disbelief settled upon their handsome faces. At length the man touched his own neck and then the woman's; then he pointed, almost accusingly, it seemed, toward Gordon and Sonya, and demanded something in an unintelligible tongue.

Gordon proceeded to touch his own neck. Next he touched Sonya's ever so lightly of course. "Gordon," he said. "Sonya."

He was rewarded for his perspicacity by two horrified stares and a pair of hoarse gasps. Then before he could utter another word, the two Venusians turned and vanished into the forest.

He stared after them. So did Sonya Mikhailovna. "Did you know," he asked presently, "that Venus was inhabited?"

"Our scientists suspected that it might be." She shrugged. "Anyway, what does it matter now? By your stupid action you destroyed whatever chance we had of establishing friendly relations."

Gordon felt his face grow hot. "When you meet aliens, the first thing you always do is exchange names with them," he said. "Everybody knows that!"

"Everybody who reads your stereotyped science fiction knows it, you mean. And after you find out their names, you say, 'Take me to your leader,' and their leader turns out to be a big beautiful blond who is stacked. Well, I think I will be getting back to my ship."

"I don't see anybody stopping you," Gordon said.

She gave him a long look. In the roseate radiance of the Venusian afternoon, her face had a pink-cheeked little girl aspect. "In imperialistic idiom, that means, I suppose, that it is a matter of complete indifference to you what I do."

"It sure does," Gordon said. "Well, I'll be seeing you."

Leaving her standing by the brook, he re-entered the forest and struck out over the little hills that rolled back from the littoral like green inland waves to break riotously against the high ridge that encompassed the island's interior. In his initial enthusiasm, he had wandered farther from his ship than he had meant to, and he had been about to turn back when he had seen the girl. Now he had another reason for returning: a dark cloud was due to arrive over Washington in the very near future, and it was up to him to send out a bad-weather warning.

Multicolored flowers carpeted virtually every square inch of the forest floor; finch-like birds of rainbow hues darted overhead, leaving exquisite wakes of song; squirrel-like mammals spiraled tree trunks so swiftly that they were barely visible. Venus had turned out to be the Venus of the romantics, rather than the Venus of the scientists, and Gordon, who, for all his scientific training, was a romantic himself, found the eventuality exhilarating, even in his present doldrums. Perhaps when man reached Mars, he would find blue canals after all, no matter what the scientists said to the contrary, and fragile glass cities tinkling in cinnamon-scented winds.

The day was nearly done when he reached the cove, near the shore of which his spaceship stood, and darkness was upon him by the time he climbed the metal Jacob's ladder and stepped through the lock. (In blithe disregard of learned opinion, Venus's rotation period approximated Earth's; however, her cloud-cover brought about an abrupt and early departure of daylight.) In his haste, he did not bother to close the lock, but headed straight for the radio alcove and beamed the news of his historic meeting with Major Sonya Mikhailovna across the immensities to Space Force headquarters at New Canaveral, appending it with the information that the peoples of Earth could no longer consider themselves the sole inheritors of the solar system.

Owing to the distance involved, over five minutes elapsed before he received a reply. He was informed that the USSR had already released the news of the new space victory and that the Soviet premier had declared a national holiday in honor of the occasion. New Canaveral also provided him with an unsolicited thumbnail-biography of Major Sonya Mikhailovna. Her father Pëtr, was a famous Russian pianist, she was twenty-three years of age, unmarried, spoke six languages fluently, had a nodding acquaintance with eleven more, held a doctor's degree in anthropology, was an accomplished ballerina, and in the last Olympic games had won the gold medal in the gymnastics competition. She had been chosen for the Venus shot from a group of one hundred trained women volunteers, and the rank of major had been bestowed upon her in honor of her service to her country. Also--

Gordon heard the footsteps then, and whirled around. But the three Venusians who had crowded into the little control room were upon him before he could draw his pistol. They relieved him of it quickly and tossed it to one side; then two of them held him while the third covered his nose and mouth with a wet cloth that reeked of a cloying perfume. He blacked out in a matter of seconds.

A new day was dawning when he climbed out of the deep well of drug-induced unconsciousness and opened his eyes. His wrists and ankles were bound, and he was lying on a stretcher fashioned of lashed-together saplings. It was being carried by two gold-skinned Venusians, one of whom was the male member of the couple who had come upon him and Sonya the previous afternoon.

He raised his head. Apparently the perfume he had inhaled possessed only part of the properties of chloroform--in any event, he felt no ill effects. Turning his head, he discovered that his captors consisted of about two dozen natives, all told, and that every one of them wore a metal collar. Half of them were women, and one of the women was the one he and Sonya had seen the day before.

There was another stretcher just behind his own. Sonya Mikhailovna's face was hidden, but he could see her horse-chestnut colored hair. "Are you all right?" he called.

She did not answer. Clearly their captors had used the same drug on her that they had used on him, and she was still under its influence. A number of other things were also clear: the two original Venusians had been part of a larger group--an excursion party, perhaps--and after vanishing into the forest, they had rejoined the main body and reported his and Sonya's presence. The decision to capture them must have been made shortly afterward.