The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Venus Trap, by Evelyn E. Smith

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Venus Trap

Author: Evelyn E. Smith

Illustrator: Dick Francis

Release Date: March 10, 2010 [EBook #31583]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VENUS TRAP ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Josephine Paolucci and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

The Venus Trap

By EVELYN E. SMITH

Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS

Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction
June 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.

One thing Man never counted on to take along into space with
him was the Eternal Triangle--especially a true-blue
triangle like this!

"What's the matter, darling?" James asked anxiously. "Don't you like the
planet?"

"Oh, I love the planet," Phyllis said. "It's beautiful."

It was. The blue--really blue--grass, blue-violet shrubbery and,
loveliest of all, the great golden tree with sapphire leaves and pale
pink blossoms, instead of looking alien, resembled nothing so much as a
fairy-tale version of Earth.

Even the fragrance that filled the atmosphere was completely delightful
to Terrestrial nostrils--which was unusual, for most other planets, no
matter how well adapted for colonization otherwise, tended, from the
human viewpoint, anyway, to stink. Not that they were not colonized
nevertheless, for the population of Earth was expanding at too great a
rate to permit merely olfactory considerations to rule out an otherwise
suitable planet. This particular group of settlers had been lucky,
indeed, to have drawn a planet as pleasing to the nose as to the
eye--and, moreover, free from hostile aborigines.

[Illustration]

As a matter of fact, the only apparent evidence of animate life were the
small, bright-hued creatures winging back and forth through the clear
air, and which resembled Terrestrial birds so closely that there had
seemed no point to giving them any other name. There were insects, too,
although not immediately perceptible--but the ones like bees wer