Isso é "Parasite Planet" (também conhecido como " O Parasite Planet"), uma novela por Stanley G. Weinbaum , a primeira história em seu Ham Hammond série; as outras histórias dessa série são "Os Comedores de Lótus" (também definido em Vênus, mas no "lado da noite" ") e " O Planeta da Dúvida " (definido em Urano). "Parasite Planet" apareceu em várias antologias e coleções , e está disponível em Projeto Gutenberg na Austrália . Os trechos abaixo são da coleção Weinbaum de 1949 Uma Odisséia Marciana e Outros .
A história foi escrita com a noção de que Vênus estava coberto de nuvens aquosas, por isso deve estar quente e úmido lá.
Luckily for "Ham" Hammond it was mid-winter when the mud-spout came. Mid-winter, that is, in the Venusian sense, which is nothing at all like the conception of the season generally entertained on Earth, except possibly by dwellers in the hotter regions of the Amazon basin, or the Congo.
Eu me lembro que o protagonista teve que lidar com mofo ou esporos que brotariam instantaneamente em qualquer coisa exposta ao ar externo.
One breath of unfiltered air anywhere near the warm edge of the twilight zone was quick and very painful death; Ham would have drawn in uncounted millions of the spores of those fierce Venusian molds, and they'd have sprouted in furry and nauseating masses in his nostrils, his mouth, his lungs, and eventually in his ears and eyes.
Breathing them wasn't even a necessary requirement; once he'd come upon a trader's body with the mold springing from his flesh. The poor fellow had somehow torn a rip in his transkin suit, and that was enough.
Eu acho que havia árvores hostis, também, que poderiam atacar com seus galhos para pegar e comer qualquer coisa que viesse por perto. "pegar árvores", talvez?
Ham trudged along, keeping always to the clearings about the Jack Ketch trees, since these vegetable omnivores kept other life beyond the reach of their greedy nooses. Elsewhere progress was impossible, for the Venusian jungle presented such a terrific tangle of writhing and struggling forms that one could move only by cutting the way, step by step, with infinite labor.
De resenha de Bleiler sobre "Planeta Parasita":
Most of Venus is either impossibly hot or cold for humans, but the libration zone offers a treacherous possibility of existence. It is filled with parasitic forms, notably carnivorous fungi of horrendous reproductive rate that make life outside a special suit impossible. There are also horrible creatures like giant amoebas. The landscape, too, is a threat, being perpetually unstable, what with underground boiling and frigid rivers that burst into destructive mud eruptions and resultant sinkholes that swallow up huge areas. * Politically, the libration zone is partly British and partly American, although the traders that wander about in search of xixtchil pods do not worry about boundaries. Xixtchil is highly prized on Earth for its ability to restore youth and sexual potency. * Ham Hammond, American trader, is dispossessed when his hut is swallowed by a mud upheaval. Planning to make his way to the closest American settlement, he comes upon another outpost maintained by Pat Burlingame, a Briton who is studying the flora for the Royal Society. But Pat is a woman. They set up a battle-of-the-sexes relationship, but when her establishment, too, is swallowed, they set out together for civilization. Along their unfriendly way they encounter expectable perils, and at the moment of decision discover that they love each other. A mean trick that Pat seems to have performed turns out to have been a hoax. * Miscellaneous: Among the curiosities are Jack Ketch trees that try in a clumsy way to lasso their prey and friendly quadruped natives that speak a complex language. There are also fiercely hostile, semi-intelligent creatures (trioptes) from the cold side who wander into the libration area.