Venus, 1889
An ongoing letter to Clarence Forysth, from Captain Henry Forsyth, RE. (Regretfully, retired.)
Fort Collingwood.
The tedium continuous. The endless rain, the damnable heat. The rubber over coverings are a liability, they make one perspire even more and one positively cooks. I am sure it is a matter of time before fatalities are recorded due to the shear temperatures one experiences donning the accursed things.
While I do my best to absent myself from the squalid little town, surveying the locations for my proposed improvements, I am still subjected to these absurd dress dinners. Lord, knows India was bad enough, but here it feels like manners have regressed a century!
I do understand the remoteness and the relatively high proportion of officers to the small town. I shall confess that I do not think them the highest grade, no decent officer would want to be posted here.
For myself, I find the assertion when I took he post, although not many options were exactly open, that my considerable tropics experience would prove invaluable to be gibberish. Nothing can prepare a man for this hell hole. The heat and humidity are at the limit of man’s endurance.
I’ve drawn up a scheme which would hopefully bring some relief to domiciles and public buildings, but it’s met with predictably mixed reaction. Cost is immediately cited as a concern, but compared to the improvements , it should be small beer. Of course I’ve considered that and many other factors.
I will not bore you with the detail, but dams, canals, a water and sewage distribution network are but a part. My own, dare I say ingenious cooling pipes for houses, to be supplemented by a reverse engineering of the roman hypocaust system, incorporating the cooling system employed at the royal palace in Fatipur Sikri. I am sure I have previously told you of this exceptional Indian site.
At present I daren’t even moot my principle finding that Fort Collingwood should be relocated wholesale and rebuilt in a more practical manner, at a place that can more easily be served by the services I propose.
With my recommendations in the balance, I believe I may have achieved all I can here. The Colonial Office have been most supportive and I have a good deal of leeway in my activities. But I feel I need another assignment soon. This place is oppressive in every way.
I hope all is well with you brother, that the family is also well and you continue to prosper. I am unlikely to find sufficient paper which will survive the humidity to write to our parents, so please pass on my felicitations and assure them I am well.
For now, I need to get this sheet between two rubber mats as it’s already starting to degrade.
Aboard an airship, bound for Venusstadt.
Dear Clarence,
What excellent fortune! A party arrived on Venus, including two very well known explorers of Mars and a colleague from the Foreign Office. I am sure you will have heard of Wilhelm and Walmart! I was of some small service to them in the matter of paperwork and have taken the opportunity to accompany their party to Venusstadt.
I write to you from the Zeppelin that is conveying us there! It seems I have much in common with this party, but I regret that confidences dictate that I cannot go into detail. However, as I learn more, I am increasingly struck by what an excellent bunch of fellows I seem to have fallen in with.
There are some challenges ahead and I believe some danger. Yet those are things to be faced head on. I am most curious to see where this might lead. My only regret is that I do not have a bearer to hand.
A hotel in Venusstadt.
Dear brother,
I need to be brief. The most striking things have happened. As expected there are problems and grave danger here. In an effort to expose this, we are going on safari. I say ‘we’ because in an extraordinary generous act, I’ve been spotted by my famous associates to join the safari!
While it’s quite the adventure, it’s a real step into danger. There are some serious criminal activities going on here. I can say no more than that. If I don’t return, then open the instructions I have left.
The safari is being led by a Belgian, of dubious character, but then again which Belgians aren’t.
The Venus lowlands.
Hardily bearable down here. Swamps, heat and humidity beyond reason. We have a party of lizard kind bearers and porters. A group of ‘protectors’, thugs and mercenaries gathered from Venusstadt, whom I do not trust.
An utterly remarkable encounter. We encountered some raptors, these are best described as a man sized T-rex, which I’m sure be familiar with. However, they hunt in packs. I saw them out of fog, everything is fog or mist or rain here, circulating my bearer.
I’m not sure I’ve every drawn my revolver so fast or fired so true, but I took the first beast down. But only then did it become apparent how fast these killers are. Two leapt upon me faster than could re-cock my pistol.
We have a reverend with the party who leapt and pulled my bearer away and placed himself between this poor lizard man and himself. Such courage, an insane act of self sacrifice!
But then as one these wide jawed, big teeth killers, leap at him, there was a straight left jab that hit a critical spot and the monster went down.
I had to retreat, I’d been in the van and now two sets of lethal jaws napping at me were difficult to hold. My earlier marksmanship deserted me.
Then a few remarkable things happened.
A shot rang out and one of my tormentors went down.
As my vision began to blur, I saw most incredible sight, the good reverend landing a blow of monumental proportions that just launched the creature back where it’d come from. A finer administration of divine justice, I’ve not seen, save perhaps for that caper in Alexandria.
I believe I may have taken a knock during the exchange, but my new found friends (if they would have me call them that) have a wondrous healing mask. Within minutes I was right again and feeling tikatiboo at that.
I’d have barely credited it except I witnessed the same effect on the good reverend minutes later.
The situation is now tense. It’s clear that the leader of the safari, intends us ill. The good reverend has many of the bearers on our side after his most remarkable heroics, but it is mixed. Of far more concern...
Damn the insolence, they are manoeuvring----
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