by Anthony Pelcher

It was as if someone had thrown a bomb into a Quaker meeting, when adventure suddenly

began to crowd itself into the life of the studious and methodical Leslie Larner, professor

of entomology. Fame had been his since early manhood, when

he began to distinguish himself in several sciences, but the adventure and thrills he

had longed for had always fallen to the lot of others.

His father, a college professor, had left him a good working brain and nothing else.

Later his mother died and he was left with no relatives in the world, so far as he knew.

So he gave his life over to study and hard work.

Still youthful at twenty-five, he was hoping that fate would "give him a break." It did.

He was in charge of a Government department having to do with Oriental beetles, Hessian

flies, boll weevils and such, and it seemed his life had been just one bug after another.

He took creeping, crawling things seriously and believed that, unless curbed, insects

would some day crowd man off the earth. He sounded an alarm, but humanity was not disturbed.

So Leslie Larner fell back on his microscope and concerned himself with saving cotton,

wheat and other crops. His only diversion was fishing for the elusive rainbow trout.

He managed to spend a month each year in the Colorado Rockies angling for speckled beauties.

Larner was anything but a clock-watcher, but on a certain bright day in June he was seated

in his laboratory doing just that. "Just five minutes to go," he mused.

It was just 4:25 P. M. He had finished his work, put his affairs in order, and in five

minutes would be free to leave on a much needed and well earned vacation. His bags were packed

and at the station. His fishing tackle, the pride of his young life, was neatly rolled

in oiled silk and stood near at hand. "I'll just fill my calabash, take one more

quiet smoke, and then for the mountains and freedom," he told himself. He settled back

with his feet on his desk. He half closed his eyes in solid comfort. Then the bomb fell

and exploded. B-r-r-r-r!

The buzzer on his desk buzzed and his feet came off the desk and hit the floor with a

thud. His eyes popped open and the calabash was immediately laid aside.

That buzzer usually meant business, and it would be his usual luck to have trouble crash

in on him just as he was on the edge of a rainbow trout paradise.

A messenger was ushered into the room by an assistant. The boy handed him an envelope,

said, "No answer," and departed. Larner tore open the envelope lazily. He read

and then re-read its contents, while a look of puzzled surprise disturbed his usually

placid countenance. He spread the sheet of paper out on his desk, and for the tenth time

he read: Confidential.

Memorize this address and destroy this paper: Tula Bela, 1726 88th Street, West, City of

Hesper, Republic of Pana, Planet Venus. Will meet you in the Frying Pan.

That was all. It was enough. Larner lost his temper. He crumpled the paper and tossed it

in the waste basket. He was not given to profanity, but he could say "Judas Priest" in a way that

sizzled. "Judas Priest!" he spluttered. "Anyone who

would send a man a crazy bunch of nonsense like that, at a time like this, ought to be

snuffed out like a beetle! "'Meet you in the Frying Pan,'" he quoted.

Then he happened to recall something. "By golly, there is a fishing district in Colorado

known as the Frying Pan. That's not so crazy, but the planet Venus part surely is cuckoo."

He fished the paper out of the waste basket, found the envelope, placed the strange message

within and put it in his inside coat pocket. Then he seized his suitcase and fishing tackle,

and, rushing out, hailed a taxi. Not long after he was on his way west by plane.

As the country unrolled under him he retrieved the strange note from his pocket. He read

it again and again. Then he examined the envelope. It was an ordinary one of good quality, designed

for business rather than social usage. The note paper appeared quite different. It was

unruled, pure white, and of a texture which might be described as pebbly. It was strongly

made, and of a nature unlike any paper Larner had ever seen before. It appeared to have

been made from a fiber rather than a pulp. "Wonder who wrote it?" Larner asked himself.

"It is beautiful handwriting, masculine yet artistic. Wonder where he got the Frying Pan

idea? At any rate, I'm not going to the Frying Pan this year—I'm camping on Tennessee Creek,

in Lake County, Colorado. The country there is more beautiful and restful.

"But this street address on the planet Venus. Seems to me I read somewhere that Marconi

had received mysterious signals that he believed came from the planet Venus. Hesper, Hesper

... it sounds familiar, somehow. Wonder if there could be anything to it?"

Something impelled him to follow out the instructions in the note. He spent the next few hours repeating

the address over and over again. When he was satisfied that he had memorized it thoroughly,

he tore the strange paper into bits and sent it fluttering earthward like a tiny snowstorm.

Larner was not a gullible individual, but neither was he unimaginative. He was scientist

enough to know that "the impossibilities of to-day are the accomplishments of to-morrow."

So while not convinced that the note was a serious communication, still his mind was

open. The weird address insisted on creeping into

his mind and driving out other thoughts, even those of his speckled playfellows, the rainbow

trout. "I've a notion to change my plans and go from

Denver to the Frying Pan," he cogitated. Then he thought, "No, I won't take it that seriously."

Anyone who knows the Colorado Rockies knows paradise. There is no more beautiful country

on the globe. Lake County, where Larner had chosen his fishing grounds, has as its seat

the old mining camp of Leadville. It has been visited and settled more for its gold mines

than the golden glow of its sunsets above the clouds, but the gold of the sunsets is

eternal, while the gold of the mines is fading quickly away.

Leadville, with its 5,000 inhabitants, nestles above the clouds, at an altitude of more than

10,000 feet. Mount Massive with its three peaks lies back of the town in panorama and

rises to a height of some 14,400 feet. In the rugged mountains thereabouts are hundreds

of lakes fed by wild streams and bubbling crystal springs. All these lakes are above

the clouds. Winter sees the whole picture decorated with

bizarre snowdrifts from twenty to forty feet deep, but spring comes early. The beautiful

columbines and crocuses bloom before the snow is all off the ground in the valleys. The

lands up to 12,000 feet altitude are carpeted with a light green grass and moss. Giant pines

and dainty aspens, with their silvery bark and pinkish leaves blossom forth and whisper,

while the eternal snows still linger in the higher rocky cliffs and peaks above.

Indian-paint blooms its blood red in contrast to the milder colorings. Blackbirds and bluebirds

chatter and chipmunks chirp. The gold so hard to find in the mines glares from the skies.

The hills cuddle in banks of snowy clouds, and above all a pure clear blue sky sweeps.

The lakes and streams abound with rainbow trout, the gamest of any fresh water fish.

It is indeed a paradise for either poet or sportsman.

In any direction near to Leadville a man can find Heaven and recreation and rest.

Finding himself on Harrison Avenue, the main street of the county seat, Larner, after renewing

some old acquaintanceships, started west in a flivver for Tennessee Creek. The flivver

is a modern adjustment. Until a few years ago the only means of traversing these same

hills was by patient, sure-footed donkeys, which carried the pack while the wayfarer

walked along beside. The first day's fishing was good. Trout seemed

to greet him cheerily and sprang eagerly to the fray. They bit at any sort of silken fly

he cast. The site chosen by Larner for his camp was

in a mossy clearing separated from the stream by a fringe of willows along the creek. Then

came a border of aspens backed by a forest of silver-tipped firs.

It was ideal and his eyes swept the scene with satisfaction. Then he began whittling

bacon to grease his pan for frying trout over the open fire.

Suddenly he heard a rustle in the aspens, and, looking up, beheld a picture which made

his eyes bulge. A man and a woman, garbed seemingly in the costumes of another world,

walked toward him. Neither were more than five feet tall but were physically perfect,

and marvelously pleasing to the eye. There was little difference in their dress.

Both wore helmets studded with what Larner believed to be sapphires. He learned later

they were diamonds. Their clothing consisted of tight trouserlike garments surmounted by

tunics of some white pelt resembling chamois save for color. A belt studded with precious

stones encircled their waists. Artistic laced sandals graced their small firm feet.

Their skin was a pinkish white. Their every feature was perfection plus, and their bodies

curved just enough wherever a curve should be. The woman was daintier and more fully

developed, and her features were even more finely chiseled than the man. Otherwise it

would have been difficult to distinguish their sex.

Larner took in these details subconsciously, for he was awed beyond expression. All he

could do was to stand seemingly frozen, half bent over the campfire with his frying pan

in his hand. The man spoke.

"I hope we did not startle you," he said. "I thought my note would partly prepare you

for this meeting. We expected to find you in the Frying Pan district. When you did not

appear there we tuned our radio locator to your heart beats and in that way located you

here. It was hardly a second's space-flying time from where we were."

Larner said nothing. He could only stand and gape.

"I do not wonder that you are surprised," said the strange little man. "I will explain

that I am Nern Bela, of the City of Hesper, on the planet Venus. This is my sister Tula.

We greet you in the interest of the Republic of Pana, which embraces all of the planet

you know as Venus." When Larner recovered his breath, he lost

his temper. "I don't know what circus you escaped from,

but I crave solitude and I have no time to be bothered with fairy tales," he said with

brutal bruskness. Expressions of hurt surprise swept the countenances

of his visitors. The man spoke again:

"We are just what we assert we are, and our finding you was made necessary by a condition

which grieves the souls of all the 900,000,000 inhabitants of Venus. We have come to plead

with you to come with us and use your scientific knowledge to thwart a scourge which threatens

the lives of millions of people." There was a quiet dignity about the man and

an air of pride about the woman which made Larner stop and think, or try to. He rubbed

his hand over his brow and looked questioningly at the pair.

"If you are what you say you are, how did you get here?" he asked.

"We came in a targo, a space-flying ship, capable of doing 426,000 miles an hour. This

is just 1200 times as fast as 355 miles an hour, the highest speed known on earth. Come

with us and we will show you our ship." They looked at him appealingly, and both smiled

a smile of wistful friendliness. Larner, without a word, threw down his frying

pan and followed them through the aspens. The brother and sister walking ahead of him

gave his eyes a treat. He surveyed the perfect form of the girl. Her perfection was beyond

his ken. "They certainly are not of this world," he

mused.

A few hundred yards farther on there was a beach of pebbles, where the stream had changed

its course. On this plot sat a gigantic spherical machine of a glasslike material. It was about

300 feet in diameter and it was tapered on two sides into tees which Larner rightly took

to be lights. "This is a targo, our type of space-flyer,"

said Nern Bela. "It is capable of making two trips a year between Venus and the earth.

We have visited this planet often, always landing in some mountain or jungle fastness

as heretofore we did not desire earth-dwellers to know of our presence."

"Why not?" asked Larner, his mouth agape and his eyes protruding. His mind was so full

of questions that he fairly blurted his first one.

"Because," said Bela, slowly and frankly, "because our race knows no sickness and we

feared contagion, as your race has not yet learned to control its being."

"Oh," said Lamer thoughtfully. He realized that humans of the earth, whom he had always