Venus: The Jungle Planet--Part 2

cover art by Rudolph Belarski

Leigh Brackett's Space Opera version of the Solar System is by far my favorite and she also gave us a Venus covered by tropical jungles and dangerous natives.

It's ironic, though, that the Venus-themed story by her I choose at random involves those jungles in only the most cursury way. Most of the story is set in orbit above the planet's sultry atmosphere.

"Interplanetary Reporter" was published in the May 1941 issue of Startling Stories, edited by future Superman editor Mort Weisinger. The main character is a war correspondent named Chris Barton, who was in the Venusian city of Vhia when war is declared between Venus and Jupiter. 

Vhia is a domed city, protecting the Earth-descended population from the heat and rain of the surrounding jungles. But when a bombardment from space cracks the dome and lets in that heat and rain, it looks like the city is doomed.

Barton himself have been trying to quit his job. Years of covering wars had left him too cynical to believe that what he did had any value other than provide a spectacle for the "boobs." 

Beyond the dome of pearly glass, on the other side of Venus, lay the swamp where he had left his boyish illusions, covering the Leng campaigns. Out beyound the steam canopy of clouds was Mars, where he had stood by a tele-transmitter until it was blown up under him, covering the Martian World War of 2504.

A protagonist who has been lost to cynicism or moral decay only to find himself again during the story is a common theme in Brackett's short stories, but she handles it well pretty much every time.  On this occasion, Barton finds himself with two other people, flying into space in a ship equipped with cameras and transmitters, hoping to get images of the Jovian fleet. One is a daredevil female Venusian/Martian pilot. The other is a terrified fellow reporter. 

But they don't find Jovian ship, but rather a ship painted black to hide it against the background of space while it lobs bombs down on Vhia. The current political situation involving the planets is complicated. Is there another faction involved, intent on seeing that the war between Venus and Jupiter doesn't end in negotiations? Someone who wants the fighting to continue until one side or the other wins?

By the time Barton deduces what is going on, his fellow reporter acts with courage despite his obvious fear and reminds the cynical reporter of the value of idealism. Now all he has to do is survive an orbital dogfight while in an unarmed ship and he can get back to Venus with information that will stop a war.

"Interplanetary Reporter" is a fast-paced and exciting story in which Brackett does some very effective and believable world-building with just a few words.