2000 Issue 11 - World of Science Fiction
Ray Bradbury Zeng Zhen
The rain continued to fall. It was a fierce rain, a rain that did not stop for a long time, a rain that was an agitating tide. It was a torrential rain, like a whip that lashes at the eyes, and like an undercurrent that surges at the knees. This rain flooded all the memories associated with rain. The rain poured down, splitting the dense forest, cutting through trees like branch shears, trimming lawns, smashing tunnels in the land, and fading the leaves of bushes. It drenched people's hands like the crumpled forepaws of apes. The stubborn, stagnant rain never stopped.
"How much farther, Lieutenant?"
"I don't know. A mile, ten miles, maybe a hundred."
"You're not sure?"
"How can I be sure?"
"I don't like the rain. As long as we know how far it is to Sun Dome, I'll feel better."
"It's an hour or two away."
"Do you really think so, Lieutenant?"
"Of course."
"Presumably you're just lying to keep us happy?"
"I'm just lying to make you happy. You shut up!"
The two men speaking were sitting side by side in the rain. Behind them, shriveled up, sat two soaked and weary men, like two melting lumps of mud.
The lieutenant looked up. His once brownish-red face was now a ghastly white from the rain, and his eyes had turned white from its cleansing, as had his hair. He was white from head to toe, and even his uniform had begun to whiten, perhaps taking on the color of a little green fungus.
The Lieutenant felt the rain on his cheek, "How many millions of years has it been since it last stopped raining on Venus?"
"Don't be crazy," said one of the other two, "It never stops raining on Venus, it just keeps raining and raining. I've lived here for ten years now, and I've never seen a minute, or even a second, when it wasn't pouring like rain."
"It's really no different than living underwater." The Lieutenant said as he stood up and shrugged his shoulders as he slung his gun upright, "Well, we'd better get underway, still have to find that sun dome."
"Maybe we won't even find it." A cynical man said.
"It's about an hour or so away."
"You are lying to me now, Lieutenant."
"No, I am lying to myself now. This is one of those times when you have to lie. I can't quite stand it."
No direction could be recognized anywhere. There was only the gray sky, the rain that was still falling, the dense forest and a path, and far behind them the rocket they had ridden in and had crashed. In the rocket sat two of their friends, dripping with rain, dead.
"Do it, Simmons." The Lieutenant ordered with a nod. Simmons pulled a small packet out of his backpack and inflated it into a large boat with the hidden chemicals. Under the Lieutenant's direction, they quickly cut down trees to make oars and set sail with agile strokes on the calm water.
The lieutenant felt the cold rainwater run down his cheeks, neck and swinging arms, the chill seeping right into his lungs. He felt the rain wash over his ears, eyes and thighs.
"I didn't sleep a wink last night." He said.
"Who slept? Who slept? When? How many nights did we total ****ing sleep? Thirty days and nights! Who can sleep when the rain hits their head hard? I'd give anything for a hat. Anything for the rain to stop hitting my head. I have a headache, it hurts so bad yet, it stirs me every moment."
"I regret coming to China." Another said.
"This is the first time I've heard Venus called China."
"Yes, China. The Chinese potion cure - remember that old torture method? Tying you to a post with a rope and dropping a drop of water on your head every half hour, and you're going crazy with anxiety waiting for the next drop. Here, this is Venus, only on a larger scale. We're not adapted to a world full of water, it makes it impossible to sleep, you can't breathe properly, you go crazy from being wet all day. If we'd been prepared for a crash before, we'd have brought waterproof uniforms and hats. But it's not the other way around. It's the rain that hits your head that attacks you. It's raining so hard, it's like an air-gun bullet. I don't know how much longer I can stand it."
"God, how I look forward to the sun dome! Whoever thought of that great idea is marvelous."
They crossed the river, and in the meantime kept thinking of Sun Dome shining brightly in the dense forest somewhere ahead. It would be a golden-colored house, round and bright, like the sun. The house was fifteen feet high and up to one hundred feet in diameter. It was warm and peaceful, with steaming food and protection from drenching. In the center of the dome, of course, was a sun-a little golden ball of fire, floating freely on top of the building. You could see it from where you sat, smoking or reading a book or drinking your hot coffee with little cubes of sugar. The little golden ball would be there, as warm and persistent as Earth's sun, and as long as they stayed inside to pass the time, they could forget the rainy world of Venus.
The lieutenant turned and looked back at the three men who were clenching their teeth and paddling. They were as white as mushrooms, not unlike him. In a few months, Venus had bleached everything, and even the dense forest had become a vast cartoon nightmare - how could it be green when there was no sunlight, replaced by constant rain and unchanging twilight? Pale dense forests, gray foliage, land as covered in Camembert cheese and tree trunks that look like giant poison ivy-everything is black and white. And how often do you see the actual soil itself? Isn't it mostly creeks, rivers, puddles, ponds, lakes, rivers, and ultimately down to an ocean?
"We're docked!"
They jumped ashore, shaking their bodies and splashing down. The boat was deflated and stowed in a smoker's bag. Then they stood on the raining shore and tried to light their cigarettes. After about five minutes, they shakily snapped on the inverted lighter, hiked their hands into cups, and took a few sharp puffs, but the smoke, with its erratic flames, then broke away from their lips in a sweeping gust of rain.
They moved on.
"Wait a minute," said the lieutenant, "I think I see something up ahead."
"A sun dome."
"I'm not sure, the rain is blocking my view again."
Simmons started running, "Sun Dome!"
"Come back, Simmons!"
"Sun Dome!"
Simmons disappeared into the rain. The others ran after him.
They found him in a small clearing and stopped to watch him and his discovery.
The rocket.
It was lying right where they had left it. They had inexplicably traveled in a circle back to where they had first set out. In the wreckage of the rocket, green mold grew from the mouths of the two dead men. As they stared, the mold bloomed, its petals fading in the rain, and died.
"What's gotten into us?"
"There must be a lightning storm coming. Throw away the compass, that is the cause of evil."
"You're right."
"So what do we do now?"
"Get back on the road."
"Jesus, we're completely stalled!"
"We need to stay calm, Simmons."
"Calm, calm! This rain will only force me to become savage!"
"We have enough food for two more days, if we arrange it carefully."
The rain danced on their skin and soaked uniforms, streaming down their noses, ears, fingers and knees. They looked as if they were frozen in a stone fountain in the middle of a dense forest, spewing water from every pore.
Just as they stood, there was a distant boom.
Then a huge object appeared in the rain.
The creature, supported by a thousand blue motorized legs, advanced with an agile and terrifying gait, carrying a powerful gust of wind with each heavy step. Where each leg swept, a tree fell and burst into flames. A strong odor of ozone filled the rainy air, and the smoke was dispersed by the wind and washed away by the rain. The monster, with its massive body half a mile wide and a mile high, touched the earth like a huge blind thing. Sometimes, for a split second, its legs were hidden, and then the thousand blue-white whip-like legs suddenly came out of its belly again, marching through the dense forest.
"The lightning storm is coming," said one of them, "it's what destroyed our compass. It's coming this way."
"Get down, guys." The lieutenant yelled.
"Run!" Simmons said.
"Don't be stupid, get down. It'll only hit the highest things, and chances are we'll get through unscathed. Get down fifty feet from the rocket, it might release its energy there and leave us here. Get down!"
People fell heavily to the ground.
"Is it coming?" They asked each other after a while.
"It's coming."
"Getting any closer?"
"Still two hundred yards away."
"Closer?"
"It's here!"
The monster came to them, standing tall. It threw down ten bolts of blue lightning that struck the rocket. The rockets flared like struck gongs and chimed metal. The creature threw another fifteen bolts of lightning, touching the dense forest and damp soil like a pantomime of lies.
"No, no!" A man leapt to his feet.
"Get down, you fool!" The lieutenant yelled.
"No!"
Lightning struck the rocket repeatedly again. The lieutenant twisted his head and saw the blue blazing lightning, saw the trees crack and crumble to the ground, and saw the strange, horrible, dark cloud become like a black disk over his head, firing out hundreds of beams of columns of electricity.
The man who jumped up was running for his life, as if he were running through a hall with many pillars. He ran and dodged between the pillars, finally collapsing with a thud under one, and the sound that came from it was like the squawk of a fly landing on a flytrap grid. The lieutenant remembered the sound from his childhood living on a farm. With it came the smell of people sizzling into ashes.
The lieutenant lowered his head. "Don't look up." He told the other people. He feared he might run up at any moment as well.
The storm overhead sent out a few more lightning bolts in quick succession, then walked away. The whole world was once again dominated by the rain alone, and quickly cleared the air of that burning odor. For a good while, the three remaining men sat where they were, waiting for their heartbeats to calm down again.
They made their way over to the body, thinking that there might still be a way to save the man's life. They couldn't believe that there was no way to save him, a natural reaction of those who hadn't yet come to terms with death, until they touched him, turned him over and planned whether to bury him or let the fast-growing dense forest bury him within the hour.
The body was twisted and hard as steel, encased in burnt leather. It looked like a paraffin portrait model that had first been thrown into an incinerator and then dragged out when the paraffin had turned into a charcoal skeleton. The only thing white were the teeth, which gleamed like strange white necklaces half-fallen from clenched black fists.
"He shouldn't have jumped." They said almost in unison.
Even while they were still standing next to the body, it began to disappear, and the spreading vegetation - tiny strips of trees, evergreens, creeping stems, even flowers that mourned the dead - was creeping up.
In the distance, the storm moves away in blue lightning, fading.
They crossed a river, a stream, and a dozen other rivers of various kinds. Before their eyes, the river ran and manifested itself. As the original river changed its course, a new one showed its face.
They came to the sea.
The Sea of Singh. There was only one continent on Venus, three thousand miles long and a thousand miles wide, and encircling this island was the Sea of Singh, which covered the entire rainy planet. It lay motionless on the dark, bloodless seashore ......
"This way." The lieutenant nodded to the south, "I'm sure there are two sun domes not far from here."
"Why didn't they build a hundred more domes when they were here?"
"There are a hundred here now, aren't there?"
"There were one hundred and twenty-six as of last month. A year ago, they tried to get a bill passed by Congress on Earth to build a few dozen more domes, but, as you know, no. They'd rather have a handful of people go crazy from getting wet."
They set off to the south.
The Lieutenant, Simmons, and a third man, Picard, marched through the rain that came and went. The rain poured down, falling for moments on the land, the sea, and the people walking.
Simmons was the first to see it, "There it is!"
"What's there?"
"The sun dome!"
The lieutenant blinked away the water droplets around his eyes and raised his hand to block out the frequent pounding of the rain. Far off in the distance, by the sea, at the edge of the dense forest, was a golden-colored glowing object. It was indeed the Sun Dome.
The three looked at each other and smiled.
"Looks like you were right, Lieutenant."
"Luck is on your side."
"Guys, the mere sight of it gets me all worked up. Come on! Whoever gets there last is a coward!" Simmons began to trot all the way up, and the other two couldn't help but gasp and follow suit. Despite their exhaustion, they fought their way forward.
"I'll have a big pot of coffee," Simmons said under his breath as he laughed, "and a whole plate of cinnamon cupcakes. Geez! I'm going to lie there and let the old sun shine on me. Whoever invented the sun dome deserves a medal of honor!"
They ran faster. The golden luminescence grew brighter and brighter.
"Guess how many people went crazy before they finished their treatment? Think about how obvious that is! It almost doesn't take much thinking to realize." Simmons gasped and said in rhythm with his running, "Rain, rain! Years ago, outside the dense forest, found, my, a friend, wandering in all directions. He was out in the rain, saying over and over, 'Don't know enough, come in, out in the rain.' Don't know enough, come in, go outside in the rain. Don't know enough-' Just like that. Poor lunatic. Shut the fuck up!"
They burst into a run.
They all laughed. They laughed as they came to the gates of the Sun Dome.
Simmons eagerly pulled the door open. "Hey!" He yelled, "Bring out the coffee and cake!"
No one answered.
They stepped through the door.
The sun dome was empty and dark, and there was no sign of the golden artificial sun sizzling in the center of the blue ceiling, or of prepared food; the house was as cold as a tomb. From the thousands of holes in the roof that had only been punctured, rain pattered down, soaking the thick blankets and heavy modern furniture, splashing down on the glass tables. The jungle grew like moss on the floor of the room, the tops of the bookshelves and the couch, and the rain fell from the holes like a whiplash on the faces of the three men.
Picard began to laugh out loud darkly.
"Shut up, Picard!"
"Goodness, look what's been laid out for us here - no food, no sun, everything empty. The Venusians - of course they did it!"
Simmons nodded as the rain leaked onto his face, running into his silver hair and white eyebrows. "Every so often there are Venusians who come out of the sea and attack the Sun Dome. They know that if they destroy Sun Dome, they can destroy us."
"I thought there were guns protecting the Sun Dome?"
"Of course there are," Simmons said as he stepped to a slightly drier spot next to it, "but it's been five years since the Venusians last tried to attack. The defenses were lax and they took the dome undetected."
"And where are the dead bodies?"
"The Venusians dragged them down. I was told they drowned you in a pleasing way. It took them about eight hours to do the job, and it was very pleasurable."
"I'll bet there's no food in the press here." Picard laughed.
The lieutenant frowned at Simmons and nodded again for him to see. Simmons shook his head and walked back into the room off to the side of the oval parlor. The kitchen was sprinkled with bread and meat that was soaked and had grown a layer of green hair, and rainwater was leaking through hundreds of holes in the kitchen roof.
"Very good." The lieutenant glanced toward the holes, "I don't think we can plug them all up and stay here comfortably."
"No food, sir?" Simmons grunted contemptuously, "I notice the sun machine is in pieces. We'd better move on to the next sun dome. How far is it from here?"
"Not far. As I recall they built two domes very close to each other here. Maybe if we wait here, a rescue force will come from the other dome ......"
"Maybe they came a few days ago and are gone now. In another six months, when they get the money from Congress, they'll send a small team to fix the place up. I think we'd better not wait."
"That's fine. Let's eat the rest of our rations and then go to the next dome."
Picard said, "I hope this rain doesn't hit me on the head again, even if it stops for a few minutes, just so I can remember what it's like to not be disturbed by it." He put his hand on his skull and held it close, "I remember when I was in school, a bully who loved to bully the weak used to sit in the back of me and screw me every five minutes all day long for weeks to months on end. My arms were so bruised and sore that I thought I was going crazy. Finally one day, I must have gotten a little unhinged from the continuous injury, I turned back around, grabbed a metal triangle ruler for mechanical drawing, and nearly killed the kid. I was close to cutting his lowly head off and gouging his eyes out before they dragged me out of the classroom. And I was screaming, 'Why won't he leave me alone? Why won't he leave me alone and be nice?' My God!" His hands tightened around his skull, his whole body trembled, and he curled up into a ball, his eyes shut tight, "But what can I do now? Who do I hit, who do I tell to stop and leave me alone? This damn rain, it's like someone is screwing you over and over. Rain is all you can hear and feel!"
"We can get to the next sun dome at four this afternoon."
"A sun dome? Just look at this one! What if all the sun domes on Venus disappear? What could be done then? What if all the ceilings had holes in them where rain could leak in!"
"We'll have to take our chances."
"I'm tired of taking chances. All I want is a roof over my head and some peace and quiet. I want to be left alone."
"Only eight hours left if you insist."
"Don't worry, I'll keep going." Picard smiled, not keeping his eyes on them.
"Eat." Simmons said as he watched him.
They set off toward the coast, heading south again. Four hours later, they had to walk a bit toward the island to get around a river. That river was a mile wide and was too swift for a boat to cross. When they had gone about six miles inland, the river suddenly boiled up from the ground as if mortally wounded. In the rain, they stepped on solid ground and turned back toward the sea.
"I've got to sleep," Picard finally said as he collapsed suddenly, "haven't slept in four weeks and couldn't be more tired. Just get some sleep here."
The sky became more overcast. Night had fallen on Venus, and the darkness all around made walking dangerous. Simmons and the Lieutenant knelt down as well. The Lieutenant said, "Well, think about what we can do. We've tried before, but I don't know. Sleeping is no easy task in this weather."
They stretched out completely, closed their eyes, and propped their heads up so the rain wouldn't run into their mouths. A spasm went through the Lieutenant's entire body.
He didn't sleep.
Something crawled on his skin, and something grew on him in layers. The raindrops fell, joining each other in a thin stream that slowly slid down. As the rain dripped down the grove began to take root on his shirt and slowly grew. He felt the ivy attach itself and make yet another long coat for him; he felt the tiny buds bloom and fade as the rain still patted his body and head. In the somewhat lighted night - as the vegetation shimmered in the darkness - he could see the silhouettes of the other two men outlined, like fallen logs covered in a purple shade of grass and flowers. It rained on his face, which he covered with his hands; on his neck, which he rolled over in the mud to lie prone on the rubbery vegetation; and on his spine and legs.
He suddenly leapt to his feet and brushed the water from his body. He felt as if a thousand hands were touching him, and he didn't want to be touched again; he couldn't stand it any longer. Struggling, he touched something. He knew it was Simmons standing in the rain, sneezing and coughing and choking. After a moment, Picard stood up as well, screaming and running in all directions.
"Wait, Picard!"
"Stop the rain, stop the rain!" Picard screamed, firing six shots into the night sky. In the glow of the gunpowder light, they could see great swarms of raindrops, seemingly hesitant from the explosions, hanging in mid-air like they were frozen in a giant block of amber. Fifteen billion droplets, fifteen billion teardrops, fifteen billion decorative jewels, were reflected in front of a white velvet viewing panel. As the light dimmed, the droplets, suspended and waiting to be photographed, fell violently onto his body like a cold, stinging cloud.
"Stop raining! Stop going down!"
"Picard!"
But Picard just stood there alone. When the lieutenant lit a hand lamp and dangled it in front of his face a few times, his eyeballs widened. His mouth was wide open, his face turned skyward, and the rain splashed on his tongue, drowning his glazed eyes and gurgling bubbles up his nostrils as well.
"Picard!"
He didn't say anything. For a long moment he stood frozen in the rain, letting the bubbles burst in his already bleached hair, listening to the rain fall like beaded chains down his wrists and neck.
"Picard! We have to go, we have some catching up to do. Come with us."
Rain dripped in lines from the base of Picard's ears.
"Do you hear me, Picard!"
It was no different than shouting at the bottom of a well.
"Picard!"
"Leave him alone." Simmons said.
"We can't leave him here."
"Then what, do we carry him?" Simmons snapped, "It won't do us or himself any good. You know what he's doing? He's just standing there waiting to give in to drowning."
"What did you say?"
"By now you should understand. Don't you know that story? He would stand there all the time with his head tilted back, letting the rain rush into his nostrils and mouth. He would inhale the rain."
"Never heard of it."
"This is from that time when they found General Mendet. He was sitting on a rock with his head tilted back, sucking in rainwater. His lungs were full of water."
The lieutenant turned the light on the expressionless face again. Picard's nostrils made a faint watery sound.
"Picard!" The lieutenant gave him a slap.
"He can't even feel you," Simmons said, "After a few days in this rain, you can barely feel your face or arms and legs yourself."
The lieutenant looked at his hand in horror; he could no longer feel it.
"But we can't leave Picard here."
"I'll tell you what we can do." Simmons said and shot him.
Picard fell to the rainy ground.
Simmons growled, "Don't move, Lieutenant. My gun is loaded for you as well. Think it over, he'll just give drown there either standing or standing, it's a quicker way to die."
The Lieutenant blinked at the body, "But you killed him."
"Yes, or else he would have been a burden for us to die with. You just saw his face, a look of madness."
After a moment, the lieutenant nodded and said, "All right."
They went back into the blanket of rain.
It was dark, and the dim light from the hand lamps could only penetrate less than a few feet in front of the curtain of rain. After half an hour, they had to stop again and sat hungrily waiting for dawn. At dawn, the sky was gray, the rain was falling as it always did, and they started forward again.
"We miscalculated the time." Simmons said.
"No, there's still an hour to go."
"Speak up, I can't hear what you're saying." Simmons stopped and laughed, "My God," he said, touching his ears, "My ears, it's like they don't belong to me anymore. This downpour is numbing my bones as well."
"Hear anything?" The lieutenant asked.
"What?" Simmons looked confused.
"Nothing. Go away."
"I think I'm going to wait here for a while while you go ahead."
"You can't do that."
"I can't hear you, just go, I'm tired. I don't think Sun Dome is on this road, and even if it is, it's likely to have a roof full of holes like the last one. I think I'll just sit here."
"You get up!"
"Farewell, Lieutenant."
"You can't quit now."
"My gun is telling me I have to stay here. I don't want to do anything anymore. I'm not crazy yet, but I'm close. I don't want to go crazy, so when you walk out of my sight, I'll end my life with my gun."
"Simmons!"
"You called my name, I can tell by the shape of your lips."
"Simmons."
"Naw, it's only a matter of time. I can either die now, or in a few hours, when I get to the next sun dome (if I can get to it) and find rain leaking through the roof. Wouldn't that be worse?"
The lieutenant waited a little longer. Afterward, he took another step forward through the rain. He had turned around and yelled once, but Simmons just sat there with his gun in his hand, waiting for him to step out of view and shaking his head at him, waving him on.
The lieutenant didn't even hear the gun go off.
Along the way, he began to eat the flowers on the road. They were non-toxic, but not very sustaining, and only stayed in his stomach for a moment, just a minute or so, before he began to vomit from nausea.
On one occasion, he picked some leaves to make himself a hat, though he had tried that before, but unfortunately the rain melted the leaves off his head. Those plants rotted quickly once picked and turned into a gray mass between his fingers.
"Five more minutes," he said to himself, "five more minutes and I'll walk into the sea and never look back. Such an environment is not for us, no earthling could endure it, never has been, never will be. Pull yourself together, pull yourself together."
He struggled through a sea of rot and leaves to a small hill.
A yellow dot loomed in the icy rain in the distance.
The next sun dome.
An oblong, golden-colored building could be seen in the distance through the trees. He stood there, swaying lightly for a long time.
He started to run, then slowed his pace with worry. He didn't scream in delight; what if this one was just like the last one? What if this is also a useless sun dome with no sun in it? He thought.
He stumbled and fell to the ground. Just lie here, he thought, this dome is useless. Just lie here. It's useless. Do with it what you will.
But he managed to pull himself up again and crossed several streams. The golden light grew brighter and brighter. He ran again, his footsteps sounding like he was stepping on mirror and glass, his arms waving with jewel-like droplets of water.
He stood before the golden gates with the sun dome carved into the lintel. He raised a numb hand to touch it. Then he twisted the lock and stumbled and fell inside.
He stood for a while, surveying his surroundings. Behind him, rain swirled sharply against the door. On a low table in front of him was a full silver pot of steaming coffee, with a square of sugar on a poured cup beside it; on another tray at the side, thick sandwiches were sandwiched between fat chicken, bright red tomatoes, and green onion rings; on the transom in front of him was a large, thick, green Turkish towel, and a box for wet clothes; in the cubbyhole on the right, where the heat rays would instantly dry, and above the chairs a fresh change of uniform was waiting for any guest-he, or a wayfarer-to use it. Farther away, there was coffee steaming in a copper kettle, a phonograph playing music quietly, and books neatly bound in red or brown leather. Next to the books was a bed, an unshaded warm bed. A man could lie down on it and eat and drink to his heart's content in the light of that bright thing that occupied the whole house.
He blocked his hand above his eyes and saw someone approaching him, but he said nothing to them. For a moment, he opened his eyes and looked. The water dripping from his uniform was pooling at his feet, and he felt it gradually evaporating away from his hair, face, chest, arms and legs.
The golden sun hung in the middle of the room, huge and warm, it didn't make a sound, the whole room was silent. The door closed tightly, the rain a mere memory to his slightly aching body. The sun was high in the rooftop blue sky, warm, clear.
He walked towards the front, removing his clothes as he went.
Zeng Li Photo