Parasite Planet
Encyclopedia
"Parasite Planet" is a science fiction
short story
by Stanley G. Weinbaum
originally published in the February 1935 issue of Astounding Stories. It was Weinbaum's fourth published story, and the first to be set on Venus
. He quickly followed it up with a sequel called "The Lotus Eaters
".
In the story, tidal locking
keeps one side of Venus perpetually facing the Sun
. This side of the planet is a barren desert. Towards the planet's twilight region the temperature drops below the boiling point of water and the Hotlands begin: an area of the planet inhabited by native life forms, all of them parasitic to a greater or lesser degree. "A thousand different species, but all the same in one respect; each of them was all appetite. In common with most Venusian beings, they had a multiplicity of both legs and mouths; in fact, some of them were little more than blobs of skin split into dozens of hungry mouths, crawling on a hundred spidery legs." The air of the Hotlands is hazy with spores which instantly infest any life-form unfortunate enough to have its skin pierced, and at the top of the Venusian food chain
is the doughpot, a mass of fast-moving undifferentiated protoplasm that absorbs every living thing in its path, and whose touch is fatal to humans.
Close to the terminator
a constant wind from the night side of Venus brings the temperature below 80 degrees Fahrenheit
, too cold for the spores and most of the other Hotlands life. This is the Cool Country, where most of the planet's human settlers live. At the terminator itself, the lower wind from the night side meets a hot upper wind from the day side, resulting in a permanent violent thunderstorm. The precipitation
from that storm falls as snow on the night side of the terminator, forming a vast ice barrier which slumps under its own weight into the dayside, then melts into rivers that flow away from the terminator until they evaporate in the growing heat.
It is revealed in a later story, "The Planet of Doubt
", that the United States
had attempted to lay claim to all of Venus. The Council of Berne
ruled in 2059 that planetary explorers could only lay claim to as much of a planet as they had explored. As a result, the United States was only able to establish a claim to a quarter of the habitable zone of Venus, with the other three quarters being occupied by the United Kingdom
, France
, and the Netherlands
.
trader who lives in the Venusian Hotlands in the late 21st century. He makes his living collecting xixtchil spore-pods from the native Venusians, which are used to make a rejuvenation
drug on Earth
. When Hammond's shack is sucked under the surface by a mud-spout, he must make his way across 200 miles of hot, humid, hostile Venusian jungle to reach Erotia, a settlement in the American part of the planet.
Hammond comes upon a human dwelling which, contrary to custom, is locked. He forces his way inside and is confronted by Patricia Burlingame, daughter of the late British explorer Patrick Burlingame. As Hammond is in the British part of Venus, Burlingame denounces him as a poacher. A confrontation between the two is interrupted by the arrival of a doughpot which wrecks Burlingame's dwelling. The two grudgingly set aside their differences and travel west to the Cold Country, saving each others' lives on several occasions. Their truce ends when Hammond wakes to find that Burlingame has emptied his xixtchil pods onto the ground, exposing them to the destructive spores. Now destitute, Hammond angrily sets off north toward Erotia, leaving Burlingame to make her way south through the impassable Mountains of Eternity to the British settlement of Venoble alone.
After a time, Hammond suffers an attack of conscience, turns, and follows Burlingame south. He catches up with her in the foothills of the Eternities just before a huge doughpot traps them in a box canyon. Hammond is able to get off two shots of his flame pistol at the doughpot before the barrel shatters, reducing the thing's size but still leaving them trapped. They decide to go deeper into the box canyon, but in the darkness they are set upon by Triops noctivivans, vicious nightside-dwelling cousins of the Venusians. The trioptes drive them back toward the doughpot, dosing Burlingame with a soporific drug that renders her unconscious. Hammond is forced to make his way past the doughpot on a low, narrow shelf of rock while carrying Burlingame.
The two make it past the doughpot; when the pursuing trioptes arrive, they stop chasing the humans and start eating the doughpot instead. When Burlingame revives, she admits that instead of destroying the xixtchil pods, she had actually stolen them. She returns them to Hammond, and agrees to come with him to Erotia. She also agrees to marry him.
Jack-ketch trees use long, leathery branches, shaped with a hole like nooses, to strangle and kill their prey. They are black, for they have no need for photosynthesis
, and obtain all their sustenance from the creatures they catch. For the origin of the name, see Jack Ketch
.
Pharisee trees look just like Friendly trees, a resemblance they use to lure prey within their reach. They are much quicker than Friendly trees, though, stabbing their prey with sharp spikes. For the origin of the name, see Pharisee.
A uniped is a kangaroolike animal that travels by leaping on a single massive leg. It uses its ten-foot beak to spear its prey.
Triops noctivians is a three-eyed monstrosity that feeds upon anything it can find--it lives on the night side of Venus.
Doughpots are a huge collection of protoplasm that absorbs everything in its path.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
by Stanley G. Weinbaum
Stanley G. Weinbaum
Stanley Grauman Weinbaum was an American science fiction author. His career in science fiction was short but influential...
originally published in the February 1935 issue of Astounding Stories. It was Weinbaum's fourth published story, and the first to be set on Venus
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...
. He quickly followed it up with a sequel called "The Lotus Eaters
The Lotus Eaters (Weinbaum)
"The Lotus Eaters" is a science fiction short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum originally published in the April 1935 issue of Astounding Stories...
".
Weinbaum's Venus
Tidal locking
Tidal locking occurs when the gravitational gradient makes one side of an astronomical body always face another; for example, the same side of the Earth's Moon always faces the Earth. A tidally locked body takes just as long to rotate around its own axis as it does to revolve around its partner...
keeps one side of Venus perpetually facing the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
. This side of the planet is a barren desert. Towards the planet's twilight region the temperature drops below the boiling point of water and the Hotlands begin: an area of the planet inhabited by native life forms, all of them parasitic to a greater or lesser degree. "A thousand different species, but all the same in one respect; each of them was all appetite. In common with most Venusian beings, they had a multiplicity of both legs and mouths; in fact, some of them were little more than blobs of skin split into dozens of hungry mouths, crawling on a hundred spidery legs." The air of the Hotlands is hazy with spores which instantly infest any life-form unfortunate enough to have its skin pierced, and at the top of the Venusian food chain
Food chain
A food web depicts feeding connections in an ecological community. Ecologists can broadly lump all life forms into one of two categories called trophic levels: 1) the autotrophs, and 2) the heterotrophs...
is the doughpot, a mass of fast-moving undifferentiated protoplasm that absorbs every living thing in its path, and whose touch is fatal to humans.
Close to the terminator
Terminator (solar)
A terminator, twilight zone or "grey line" is a moving line that separates the illuminated day side and the dark night side of a planetary body...
a constant wind from the night side of Venus brings the temperature below 80 degrees Fahrenheit
Fahrenheit
Fahrenheit is the temperature scale proposed in 1724 by, and named after, the German physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit . Within this scale, the freezing of water into ice is defined at 32 degrees, while the boiling point of water is defined to be 212 degrees...
, too cold for the spores and most of the other Hotlands life. This is the Cool Country, where most of the planet's human settlers live. At the terminator itself, the lower wind from the night side meets a hot upper wind from the day side, resulting in a permanent violent thunderstorm. The precipitation
Precipitation (meteorology)
In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation (also known as one of the classes of hydrometeors, which are atmospheric water phenomena is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation...
from that storm falls as snow on the night side of the terminator, forming a vast ice barrier which slumps under its own weight into the dayside, then melts into rivers that flow away from the terminator until they evaporate in the growing heat.
It is revealed in a later story, "The Planet of Doubt
The Planet of Doubt
"The Planet of Doubt" is a science fiction short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum that was first published in the October 1935 issue of Astounding Stories...
", that the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
had attempted to lay claim to all of Venus. The Council of Berne
Berne
The city of Bern or Berne is the Bundesstadt of Switzerland, and, with a population of , the fourth most populous city in Switzerland. The Bern agglomeration, which includes 43 municipalities, has a population of 349,000. The metropolitan area had a population of 660,000 in 2000...
ruled in 2059 that planetary explorers could only lay claim to as much of a planet as they had explored. As a result, the United States was only able to establish a claim to a quarter of the habitable zone of Venus, with the other three quarters being occupied by the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
.
Plot summary
Hamilton "Ham" Hammond is an AmericanUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
trader who lives in the Venusian Hotlands in the late 21st century. He makes his living collecting xixtchil spore-pods from the native Venusians, which are used to make a rejuvenation
Rejuvenation (aging)
Rejuvenation is the hypothetical reversal of the aging process.Rejuvenation is distinct from life extension. Life extension strategies often study the causes of aging and try to oppose those causes in order to slow aging...
drug on Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
. When Hammond's shack is sucked under the surface by a mud-spout, he must make his way across 200 miles of hot, humid, hostile Venusian jungle to reach Erotia, a settlement in the American part of the planet.
Hammond comes upon a human dwelling which, contrary to custom, is locked. He forces his way inside and is confronted by Patricia Burlingame, daughter of the late British explorer Patrick Burlingame. As Hammond is in the British part of Venus, Burlingame denounces him as a poacher. A confrontation between the two is interrupted by the arrival of a doughpot which wrecks Burlingame's dwelling. The two grudgingly set aside their differences and travel west to the Cold Country, saving each others' lives on several occasions. Their truce ends when Hammond wakes to find that Burlingame has emptied his xixtchil pods onto the ground, exposing them to the destructive spores. Now destitute, Hammond angrily sets off north toward Erotia, leaving Burlingame to make her way south through the impassable Mountains of Eternity to the British settlement of Venoble alone.
After a time, Hammond suffers an attack of conscience, turns, and follows Burlingame south. He catches up with her in the foothills of the Eternities just before a huge doughpot traps them in a box canyon. Hammond is able to get off two shots of his flame pistol at the doughpot before the barrel shatters, reducing the thing's size but still leaving them trapped. They decide to go deeper into the box canyon, but in the darkness they are set upon by Triops noctivivans, vicious nightside-dwelling cousins of the Venusians. The trioptes drive them back toward the doughpot, dosing Burlingame with a soporific drug that renders her unconscious. Hammond is forced to make his way past the doughpot on a low, narrow shelf of rock while carrying Burlingame.
The two make it past the doughpot; when the pursuing trioptes arrive, they stop chasing the humans and start eating the doughpot instead. When Burlingame revives, she admits that instead of destroying the xixtchil pods, she had actually stolen them. She returns them to Hammond, and agrees to come with him to Erotia. She also agrees to marry him.
Bestiary
Friendly trees were so named by British explorer Patrick Burlingame because they are one of the few organisms on Venus sluggish enough to permit one to rest in their branches. It takes several hours for a Friendly tree to fasten its tendrils and sucking cups on its prey.Jack-ketch trees use long, leathery branches, shaped with a hole like nooses, to strangle and kill their prey. They are black, for they have no need for photosynthesis
Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis is a chemical process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight. Photosynthesis occurs in plants, algae, and many species of bacteria, but not in archaea. Photosynthetic organisms are called photoautotrophs, since they can...
, and obtain all their sustenance from the creatures they catch. For the origin of the name, see Jack Ketch
Jack Ketch
John Ketch was an infamous English executioner employed by King Charles II. An immigrant of Irish extraction, he became famous through the way he performed his duties during the tumults of the 1680s, when he was often mentioned in broadsheet accounts that circulated throughout the Kingdom of...
.
Pharisee trees look just like Friendly trees, a resemblance they use to lure prey within their reach. They are much quicker than Friendly trees, though, stabbing their prey with sharp spikes. For the origin of the name, see Pharisee.
A uniped is a kangaroolike animal that travels by leaping on a single massive leg. It uses its ten-foot beak to spear its prey.
Triops noctivians is a three-eyed monstrosity that feeds upon anything it can find--it lives on the night side of Venus.
Doughpots are a huge collection of protoplasm that absorbs everything in its path.
Collections
"Parasite Planet" appears in the following Stanley G. Weinbaum collections:- A Martian Odyssey and OthersA Martian Odyssey and OthersA Martian Odyssey and Others is a collection of science fiction short stories by author Stanley G. Weinbaum. It was first published in 1949 by Fantasy Press in an edition of 3,158 copies...
(1949) - A Martian Odyssey and Other Science Fiction Tales (1974)
- The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum (1974)
- Interplanetary Odysseys (2006)
External links
- "Parasite Planet" at Project Gutenberg of Australia.