Beauty, Personal -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Venus (Planet) -- Fiction
Meanwhile I did some snooping, and I found out several things about
Mrs. Campbell. She was worth eighteen and a half million bucks, and
she had spent half that much trying to regain a face, and figure, and
complexion of twenty years ago, that she probably remembered better
than they were.
I talked to one of her former servants and learned that Sukey could
expect a hard time working for her. The woman was a kind of sadist with
servants, but Sukey would put up with anything to get what she wanted,
and I knew what it was she was after now. I knew why she had taken the
job.
After I had learned this, I put in a visicall to the Oak Drive mansion.
The butler's face appeared on the screen. I was too late.
I got hold of Harry as quick as I could, but I could see right away
that he had already found out.
Mrs. Campbell had taken Sukey Jones and left last night for Venus.
* * * * *
I had known Harry Thurbley for ten years, and he was a phlegmatic sort.
He had the kind of unshakable calm and nerve you only find in a man
that's made peace with death a couple of times or so out beyond the
planets. Once I had seen him walk into a mining power plant on Callisto
and disarm a runaway pile that was due to explode in three minutes and
blast away half the moon.
When he came out he hadn't even been sweating.
But he was upset now. I tried to calm him, but I guess he had a hunch.
I had spent several years on Venus and knew the place as well as any
Terran. I tried to persuade him that Sukey Jones wouldn't be in any
danger so long as they stuck to the civilized northern part, but he
didn't seem to half hear what I was saying.
A month passed, and we made another trip beyond the Belt. When we got
back there was still no Sukey, and not even a letter. Harry and I went
into the Super's office and talked him into a transfer to the Venus run
for one trip.
It was less than five days later that we set the _Altair_ down on the
surface of the White Planet at Medea, the biggest port city on Venus.
The low, spidery towers of the native architects of old were crowded
and overshadowed by Earthstyle skyscrapers which had grown up, mostly,
since the last time I had seen Venus, fifteen years ago.
It was Harry's first trip to the sister planet of Earth, and he seemed
surprised at the mushrooming civilization. But he still couldn't rest
until we'd given the ship into the hands of the ground crew and gone to
hunt Sukey and her mistress.
Mrs. Campbell, we discovered, had checked in at the Majestic Hotel for
one week, and left, giving no forwarding address. After that she had
been heard from in two or three of the border cities. She had made the
rounds of all the beauty parlors and quack establishments in town. This
was her fourth trip to Venus, and all of the merchants knew her by
sight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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