Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Worlds Beyond Lair of the Venusian Worm (In Three Parts)


. . .

Timeline for Mars
 ((Mars to Venus) (Part I of III))



  
Olympus Mons, Mars’ Giant Volcano



It was well known Dr. Marge Johnson of the Louisiana Space Station, one of the leading and foremost and youthful scientists, possessed amid her far-stretching theories of Mars, and life on Venus (and perhaps both places being resting charnel, a place of once great sufferings, and now a lone graveyard of bones, in essence, two world sarcophaguses).  For Ms. Johnson, a much kept secret from all her men and women envious scientists; for her more than theories, part from being a magician she could—so she felt— prove, her hypotheses.
       It was plain in 2034 A.D., she would be the first woman on Mars, and thereafter Venus, if the edifice went according to plan. She had ascertained regarding Mars’ interior, things as it required ((Quantum Elucidations) (brainstorming in essence))  given only by wizards of long ago legends, who spoke in riddles and rhyme, that none at the Space Station could interpret, or if they could, were too farfetched to ponder on. But her ardor for the unknown and owlish irony of it, superseded all their mown.
       Her last lecture was now being addressed at the nearby university where she would thereafter part on her first trip to Mars, and follow up with Venus.
       “Mars,” she started out plainly, “the red planet is the second and smallest in our solar system, forth from the sun. Red because of its iron oxide. It has a thin atmosphere, with a tinge of oxygen, just enough for lichens ((small papules) (or fungus)), we know they only need a dribble.
       “Mars has two moons that look more like asteroids, one being nearly eight miles wide the other per near fifteen. The soil on Mars has habitability I believe, as Mars itself, contains 3% water.  And I also have faith in at this very moment it can and does sustain life.
       “It will be considered an astrobiology mission for the most part, to Mars, as I am planned to leave within the next few days. 
       “Mars’ diameter is half the size of earth, and it has minerals, water, oxygen, metals. It has no global electromagnetic field per se. And it is 4.5 billion years old, thereabouts. On Mars, water and lava still flow, so it is not a dead planet, like our moon. We astronauts expect to land near Olympus Mons, which is 340-miles across, an old, very old volcano.  It has two polar ice caps, if they melt, it would flood Mars, deep into thirty-six feet of water, —global. And as anyone can all see from NASA’s photo shelf, it has much erosion, and its grand canyon ‘Ma’adim Valdisis’ is 430-miles long, its width 12-miles, and its depth is 1.2 miles. Perhaps the second largest canyon in the solar system. 
       “Furthermore, Mars has 96% carbon dioxide in its atmosphere, as mentioned before, small traces of oxygen, a dusty atmosphere for the most part, an odious sky to say the least for human habitation. But we know how to build cupolas like structures, so we’d not be living in a sarcophagus.
       “The Martian year is 687 days orbit around the sun, with temperatures between minus -225 F, and its high 95 0F (above)  its orbit is like Earth’s, counterclockwise, Venus’ is the only one opposite.
       “As I’ve indicated before, we have a form of life that can survive within Mars’ atmosphere, Lichens, but I do believe there is more than that life form on Mars. I believe there are true spiders, when I say true, I mean 305-million old spiders that have survived the ages and times; I believe I have seen their corpses encased in rock, the name has been christened Idmonarachne brasieri, found here on earth, perhaps gathered from wind to our atmosphere, and taken by way of asteroids that have crashed on Mars, having eight spidery limbs, and an imposing jaw. Do they survive today, I believe so. I believe for the most part they live underground.
       “Earth to Mars is between 93 to 76 million km, depending.  I know you all are looking suspicious at me, my youth I suppose, I’m only twenty-four years old, but I will let you in on a little secret I’ve not told even my fellow comrades, who consider me a genus in this field, in the year 2073 A. D., I predict from my observations, empirical data, calculations Mars’ moon Phobos will shift and move in closer to Mars’  surface, it is close already, but it will get so close it will tear parts of Mars’ surface by tidal stresses, its debris will produce a dusty ring around the planet; also,  the sun’s increasing luminosity will cause parts of the planet to move outwards, Mars then will become tidally locked with earth, and its expanding sun. In the process, Mercury, Venus and Mars along with Earth will be destroyed, unless there is a miracle, for Mars will be like an approaching baleful barbican, likened to Babel.
       “And for those non-believers of my spider story, I have already traced its cell history from Earth to Mars by what now we have is a tape-recorded DNA tracer, it can trace the family history of every cell in any organism, and from rocks I’ve gathered from Mars from previous Mars data, and the fossils here on earth, the spider ascended from a single egg from Earth to Mars, and thus came the trillion complex cells of its body.”
       Then suddenly someone called her “Asmodeus,” the old legendary demon of the Old Testament book, who killed seven of Sarah’s husbands. A troublemaker, by and large, for the nuclear family structure, who to this day haunts the world and humanity’s household; a specialist in family disorders, and is often exorcised and purged from individuals by trained priests in exorcisms.
       (She was simply creating nonsense out of her head thought many of the listeners— chrysalides like…) 
       And so, her lecture was quite grim to her listeners, with a mysterious salient ending, and the students could hardly fail to provoke curiosity and sundry differences; arousing so much concern her colleges had to pull her off stage, some feeling she was filled with evil and malignant substance.  Some of her listeners even accused her of being a warlock. The crowd was inimical seethed.

       Throughout the day, and the following day, extravagant whisperings took place at the Louisiana Space Station, Dr. McGee examined her thesis, seeing Mars’ larger moon, Phobos (Greek name, meaning Fear) and Deimos the second moon (Greek name, meaning: dread) were in fact more of an asteroid shape, something he never took into consideration, and he noticed both were lowering their orbits more quickly than the naked eye had noticed, or for that matter, telescopes had documented. And yes, it could—either one or both moons—possible crash into Mars’ surface should they continue—as they were—to drift their orbit at their present speed closer to the mother planet, and thus, like a falling gargoyle from a cathedral, bombard or fragment upon the crashing into Mars, so Dr. McGee  pondered, and concluded.

Lair of the Venusian Worm

((Mars to Venus) (Part II of III))





Astronauts Captain Greg Younger forty, commander of the spaceship Yig, Billy Colman thirty-eight chemical engineer, and Evolutionary Engineer, Professor Marge Johnson, PhD., age twenty-eight (with a background in   protein and molecular biology working on an algorithm system for interstellar life, on uninhabitable planets), all three, astronauts on a five-year program, had readied themselves for humankind’s first trip to the second planet from the Sun, Venus, it was set for the summer of, 2040 A.D.  They were all well aware Venus was the hottest of any planet—its surface—in the Solar System, at 896 F., hot enough to melt lead or zinc. They also knew of its heavy and dense atmosphere which entailed thick carbon dioxide and nitrogen gases along with sulphuric acid which is very toxic for humans.  To include the pressure of the planet being 92-times that of earth, a crushing weight for a human. The Louisiana Space Station, had planned to either land its astronauts on the North side of the planet, Ishtar Terra a high point, or Aphrodite Terra, on the South side of the planet, another high point, realizing 80% of Venus was plateau country, and 20% rocky plains, they would prefer to stay within the rocky plains for their encounter, away from the more settling of the lower layer of the hotter surface. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere acted like a blanket trapping heat from the sun, and was very strong over Venus’ surface; but the planet, like earth’s surface was made of rock, a terrestrial plant by and large and the mission was doable. Wherefore, they would transit from their spacecraft, onto   the surface of Venus in a special made machinelike, robotic form metallic suit. 
       Contrary to all other planets, such as earth whose orbit is counterclockwise to the sun, Venus is just the opposite, and spins on its axis much slower than earth. And it is a planet without a moon. Unlike Pluto, which has five moons, or earth with its singular moon; consequently, Venus being the closest to earth than all the other planets, having no moon to shade the planet, most scientists and astronauts felt there was no life to be found on Venus, Professor Johnson felt otherwise, that there was a possibility of an evolutionary form of life, or at least a possibility. And so as their spacecraft slipped within Venus’ orbit, with its infrared, and ultraviolet cameras and radar, they found themselves just above Aphrodite Terra, on the Southside of the planet, having seemingly trapped less heat from the sun than its northern side at this particular moment, its temperature on the surface being 852 F, and Aphrodite Terra being under 500 F, and hence, this would be their chosen spot to descend.

       Professor Marge Johnson had specifically made these spacesuits, with her own design, and they were working well. Her idea was the universe is hot and cold, the moon cold, Venus hot, as is Mercury. Hot does not contain fluid called caloric, but rather a substance in which atoms move more quickly, in clusters. Cold atoms or molecules move more slowly. Heat moves away from cold, even in metal, example a cold spoon in hot coffee. Or a Hot body to cold, put into the equation the nature of time now. When heat exchange occurs—negligible—the future is like the past.  This can be reversed by the law of physics being infringed. Once heat occurs it changes the past. No friction equals no swing, movement goes backswords, friction produces a loss of energy, slows down. Like winding up a clock. The winding produces the heat, as does the person winding it. This phenomenon distinguishes future from the past.
       The quicker moving atom (hot) collides with the cold atom, leaves some energy, this collision distributes its parts equalizing throughout the main item. In essence, a hot body can become hotter, through contact with a cold one, it is not improbable. At the roots of heat, nature is different, independent from quantum mechanics. Like a balloon, the suit is inflated, sealed, the molecules inside will slow the rapid molecules colliding with it, so says statistical physics and thermodynamics. Thus, for Dr. Johnson, she produced a suit that heat deflates when it enters the suit, like the balloon, the suit has reduced the set of properties entering it—changed them, in which interaction takes place within the change, it slows heat down, the body does not heat up, because there is not sufficient friction, plus it is being deflated.
. . .

       And so their adventure begins with a macabre framework and a thralldom of measureless evil as was about take place.
       Out-flung, from its stratosphere, came the space pod’s infernal landing not quite exactly where they wished to land, a solar wind swept them sideways, as fast as a clap of an eye, swaying them away from their original landing site, into an enclosed valley of sorts, surrounded by mountains, at 409 F., an eldritch gloom of a place: the captain of the mother ship still orbiting above Venus’ stratosphere, look on with insupportable terror, trepidation, what went wrong?
       Thought Professor Marge Johnson, and Captain Younger: it was perhaps a far better choice than the one they had chosen (contrary to the crew of the mother ship’s dilemma concerning the matter), with the exception they knew nothing of this area, yet still the Captain, felt it was a stroke of luck.  Billy Colman, chemical engineer—seeing ebon shadows all about through his porthole—had a different take on the situation, and a sixth sense, you could say, and a heavy sense of superstition through his everlasting grin and sardonic expression, as if they had landed in Venus’ perdition, —betwixt of the pods position, and thinking perhaps, where are all the were-wolves: in point of fact, wrath was lurking, just not the wolves. 
       But here they were and here they had to make the best of it, they had one and only one takeoff capability to the mother ship that circled above Venus’ troposphere, and there was no second space pod, if anything went wrong, no time to change maneuverings. And as they stepped from the spacecraft onto the hot rock, a stupendous phantasmagoria crept through the veins of Astronaut Colman, he looked up into the blue heavens, all heated up as if by witch fire, his recumbent bulk on the pod.
       Each of the three toiled to make headway within this pinned up valley of sorts—all in habitual vigilance, seeing towering cliff walls, and several huge apertures in the surface’s ravished charnel ground, unaware of their functions, since there was no oceans or sinkholes of water that they knew of. Amongst the surface grime, they found some plasma like substance, mixed within it, quite a discover, if indeed that was what it was, as Dr. Johnson inferred examining it closer: testing would bring it to reality of course, when the time came, and perhaps she would be the discoverer of a strange strain of a foreign terrestrial DNA if it was what she thought it was, and possibly be given the Millennium Technology Prize. 
       The more they looked about the more of this plasma substance they found on stones and within clay. And then Billy found squeamish, serpentine coil designs in and around one of the deep pitted fissures, similar to that of a large worm or serpent. Climbing a few feet up the side of the cliffs, Captain Younger discovered ruinous and fetid bones, all chewed to its marrow, cracked and ripped open, this confirmed for Dr. Johnson, what all earth scientists had rejected, and projected, that there was no life to be found on Venus!  Nor ever was, something that Edgar Rice Burroughs never took into considerations Venus’ dynamics, because they weren’t known back then, when he wrote his books, his Venus series, matter of fact it was only discovered during the first two decades of the 21st Century.    
       As I was about to say, Billy dropped a rope down—what he thought to be an inoffensive aperture, that looked more like a oubliette, around its edges being somewhat of a clammy substance: one of several cyclopean large ingresses thereabouts, this one taking several hundred feet of cable, and it went into sheer oblivion, what was down there?  (his thing: should he fall, he’d surly be immured); thus, Billy pulled up the rope slowly as if in a necromantic spell, up and out of its so called egress, the aperture and its flanks being of a great size, one that could accommodate a free-fall of even their space pod. And as he pulled up the corded rope, Dr. Johnson looking on with her camera, for there was heaviness on the end of the rope, as he got to the last few feet, then with a jerk of the rope he pulled several large worm like creatures, with rounded heads, and small sabre like teeth, out and as they whipped their bodies backwards, all fell, worms and Billy together, plunged down into the dark mass, into the ebony night of the worm lair, with a sonorous cry, the home of the Venusian worms: and up came a mephitic odor that was even repugnant to Dr. Johnson through her suite.
        Dr. Johnson getting it all on film, and Billy Colman—with sudden affright in his face—disappearing with the Venusian worms, whom were hissing as they—he and they—fell anon to their beleaguering doom. It was, I suppose an irrevocable perdition-drop for him.
       Now the captain hurried over heeding her bossed and eerie voice, Dr. Johnson quickly updated him (her thews and deltoids tightened): as he looked down into the aperture he saw nothing but eyes, — eyes as if they were phosphorescence in nature (a prodigious moment indeed) the worms were as if they were magnets to its soil, they had climbed the side of the lair in rapid speed, like spiders in their webs; Dr. Johnson per near came to a swoon, looking upward, welkin, as if into the vaults of heaven. The Captain had to steady her, he looked about the worms, and they were everywhere, athwart: crosswise, diagonally, it was impossible not to step on them; and in their faces, round, with fangs like a wildcat’s, showing malevolence, they snapped at the feet of the scientist and captain. His mind mingled in a strange confusion. For Dr. Johnson, it all seemed as if there was a dark science to all this.  Erebus-like, darkness to a horrid degree, in all this, as if this was Venus’ hell.
       “We need to leave immediately back to the space pod and get out of here before they come after us!” cried Dr. Johnson, with horripilation, in cyclopean dread. And as they made haste, there was a million or more worms chewing away on their pod. And the Captain’s last message to the mother spaceship was very ominous and baleful, “There is here a lair of Venusian worm like snakes, in a devil-haunted lair, don’t come down…” which was not all that impossible, although the ship was not conducive for such a landing, and as the worms closed in on them—they kind of performed a liturgy in that, they both took off their robotic uniforms that had a cooling system in it and was heat resistance, but not impregnable, in consequence, to meet their fate (humming in a dirge, the American Anthem, as they sacrificed themselves to the malefic planet), as ash to dirt, before the worms would and could eat them bit by bit, flesh and bone dry; save, now no one was left with the knowledge of its veritable form, that is to say, the form of those beleaguering little Titans, clotted in filth, who clung onto the pod like white on rice—; in the interim, the mother ship trying to make contact, effortlessly with the three astronauts, assumed the worse and left their orbit to return to earth.  As the pallid and motionless worms, raised high in stature, in satanic triumph.


Return Voyage of the Yig ((from Venus) (Part III of III)


The crew on the mother ship, shrieked and mumbled, giving incoherent pleas to the captain to land on Venus’ surface to investigate the three astronauts death, still others, the most courageous, prayed before the wooden Christ on the great crucifix in the chapel onboard, but the captain took no heed to them, he took the advice given him by Professor Marge Johnson, to hightail it out of Venus’ orbit. The loss was inexpressible, but loss is always part of a journey. What exactly took place was hollowed for the crew, and the ‘Yig’ at twenty-present light-speed, with a tempest borne echo followed the course back to earth, an ignominious flight from what was now considered a haunted stronghold on Venus.
       The crew with flame, filled eyes, peering out the ship’s port windows, so to see the last glimpses of Venus, shed no tears to escape that planet’s mayhem. In the far distance, came a gravitational wave, it hurdled the spacecraft, into a tumble, but did no excessive damage to the craft, and the Captain reset the course to earth, like being hit by a great catapult of astrophysical wind, and surviving its impact, the crew somewhat shaken grievously, but to no large extent, mortally. Then came the bombardment of fragments, likened to someone flinging rocks from an asteroid at the ship, as if some colossal being was behind this anarchy. Then a few of the crew members said they saw this being, anthropomorphic in character, called him Asmodeus, demon of destruction. And the walls of the chapel were breeched, and had to be closed, and locked off from the rest of the ship.
       Those that were in the chapel were crushed into blood pulp, it was as if this colossus demon was real, and had followed the Yig from Venus. Be that what it may, the chaos, were no travesties, the ship was being attacked. It would be recorded for posterity: as tales of the unexplained, ghostliness or wonton devil diabolism was not acceptable to the Captain.
       To and fro the ship’s crew went on with their daily chores, duties, all in a mad frenzy, awaiting for Asmodeus to do his next diabolical evil.
       The Chaplin put Rosaries everywhere possible, on door knobs, over everyone’s beds, and so on, to ward off this hatful soul that followed them like white on rice.  They questioned if they had awaken him from his lair on Venus! So it was rumored. The fiend had been viewed by several members of the ship’s crew; the being, did not openly identity itself, and then he disappeared, and so it would be tedious to make any more sense out of these enormities. And after months of space travel, the atrocities faded into lore, more than reality, and all aboard questioned if they had really saw what they said they saw, an  agitated hive, but stable, and steady, and no pandemonium, and as earth came into view, they would withhold this story, lest they lose a good paying job.

#5242/ 5-23 thru 25-2016
By Dennis L. Siluk, Dr. H.c.  Copyright © May, 2016