An Earthman on Venus. Copyright, 1950, by Avon Publishing Co., Inc.
1 The Message in the Meteor 3 2 Stranded in Space 8 3 Out of the Frying Pan 16 4 Go to the Ant, Thou Sluggard 22 5 A Vision 30 6 Radio Plays its Part 37 7 A Hunting Trip 48 8 The Conspiracy 56 9 The Rescue 63 10 Before Queen Formis 73 11 The Valley of the Shadow of Death 81 12 A Victim of Yuri 89 13 Kidnaped 96 14 In Disgrace 104 15 A New Game 110 16 Cabot Tells the World 119
Never had I been so frightened in all my life! It was a warm evening late in August, and I was sitting on the kitchen steps of my Chappaquiddick Island farmhouse, discussing the drought with one of the farm hands. Suddenly there appeared in the sky over our heads a flaming fiery mass, rushing straight downward toward us.
“Here’s where a shooting star gets me,” I thought, as I instinctively ducked my head, just as though such a feeble move as ducking one’s head could afford any possible protection from the flaming terror. The next instant there came a dull crash, followed by silence, which in turn was broken by the hired man dryly remarking: “I reckon she struck over to Cow Hill.” Cow Hill was the slight elevation just back of our farmhouse.
So the meteor hadn’t been aimed exactly at _me_, after all.
If that thing had hit me, some one else would be giving to the world this story.
We did nothing further about the meteor that night, being pretty well shaken up by the occurrence. But next morning, as soon as the chores were done, the hired man and I hastened to the top of Cow Hill to look for signs of last night’s fiery visitor.
And, sure enough, there were plenty of signs. Every spear of grass was singed from the top of the hill; the big rock on the summit showed marks of a collision; and several splinters of some black igneous material were lying strewed around. Leading from the big rock there ran down the steep side of the hill a gradually deepening furrow, ending in a sort of caved-in hole.
We could not let slip such a good opportunity to get some newspaper publicity for our farm. And so on the following Friday a full account of the meteoric visitation appeared in the _Vineyard Gazette_, with the result that quite a number of summer folks walked across the island from the bathing beach to look at the hole.