Battle on Venus

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ON EVERY roll his name was entered as “Captain J. Freiburg.” He signed his checks “J. Freiburg.” Friends called him “Cap” or simply “J.”

He never let on, unless he had to, what “J” stood for. He’d always been sensitive about it and now he was downright superstitious about it. His given name was Jonah; he’d wrecked a ship once, and right now he had a hunch he was on the point of wrecking another. And there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. It wasn’t a question of skill: he was skillful enough. It was a question of luck. He’d used up a lot of luck on this trip, and he felt the last drops of it oozing away through his boot soles.

Inside the spaceship, the light was becoming unbearably bright. Freiburg felt he was standing at the focus point of a score of naked arc lamps. Meter dials shone like mirrors and defied reading. Handrails blazed like rods of white fire—a man hesitated to grasp them.

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