Table Of ContentA R T H U R C . C L A R K E ’ S
V E N U S P R I M E
Arthur C. Clarke is the world-renowned author ofsuchscience
fiction classics as 2001: A Space Odyssey, forwhichheshared
an Oscar nomination with director Stanley Kubrick, and its
popularsequels,2010:OdysseyTwo,2061:OdysseyThree,and
3001:FinalOdyssey;thehighlyacclaimedTheSongsofDistant
Earth; the bestselling collection of original short stories, The
Sentinel; and over two dozen other books of fiction and non-
fiction. He received the Marconi International Fellowship in
1982. He resides in Sri Lanka, where he continuestowriteand
consult on issues of science, technology, and the future.
PAUL PREUSS
Paul Preuss began his successful writing career after years of
producing documentary and television films and writing
screenplays. He is the author of thirteen novels, including Ve-
nusPrime,Volumes1,2,and3,SecretPassages,andthenear-
futurethrillersCore,HumanError,andStarfire.Hisnon-fiction
has appeared in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times,
New York Newsday, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Besides
writing, he hasbeenascienceconsultantforseveralfilmcom-
panies. He lives in San Francisco, California.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE’S
VENUS
PRIME
4
V O L U M E
P A U L P R E U S S
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Introduction
by ARTHUR C. CLARKE
O
neoftheadvantagesoflivingontheEquator(well,
only 800 kilometers from it) is that the Moon and
planets pass vertically overhead, allowing one to
see them with a clarity never possible in higher latitudes.
This has prompted me to acquire a succession of ever-
larger telescopes during the past forty years, beginning
with the classic 3 1/2-inch Questar, then an 8-inch, and
finally a 14-inch, Celestron. (Sorry about the obsolete
units, but we seem stuck with them for small telescopes-
eventhough centimetersmakethemsoundmuchmoreim-
pressive.)
The Moon, with its incomparable and ever-changing
scenery, is my favorite subject, and I never tire ofshowing
it to unsuspecting visitors. As the 14-inch is fitted with a
binocular eyepiece, they feel they are looking through the
window of a spaceship, and not peering through the re-
stricted field of a single lens. The difference has to be ex-
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INTRODUCTION
perienced to be appreciated, and invariably invokes a gasp
of amazement.
After the Moon, Saturn and Jupiter compete for second
place as celestial attractions. Thanks to its glorious rings,
Saturn is breathtaking and unique-but there’s little else to
be seen, as the planet itself is virtually featureless.
The considerably larger disc of Jupiter is much more
interesting; it usually displays prominent cloud belts lying
parallel to the equator, and so many fugitive details that
onecouldspendalifetimetryingtoelucidatethem.Indeed,
men have done just this: for more than a century, Jupiter
has been a happy hunting ground for armies of devoted
amateur astronomers.*
Yet no view through the telescope can do justice to a
planet with more than a hundred times the surface area of
our world. To imagine asomewhatfarfetched“thoughtex-
periment,” if one skinned the Earth and pinned its peltlike
atrophyonthesideofJupiter,itwouldlookaboutaslarge
as India on a terrestrial globe. That subcontinent is no
small piece of real estate; yet Jupiter is to Earth as Earth
is to India. . . .
Unfortunately for would-be colonists,eveniftheywere
prepared to tolerate the local two-and-a-half gravities,Ju-
piter has no solid surface—or even a liquid one. It’s all
weather,atleastforthefirstfewthousandkilometersdown
toward the distant central core. (For details of which, see
2061: Odyssey Three. . . .)
*Ifeelaparticularsympathyforoneofthem,theBritishengineerP.B.Moles-
worth (1867-1908). Some years ago, I visited the relics of his observatory at
Trincomalee, on the east coast of Sri Lanka. Despite his early death, Moles-
worth’s spare-time astronomical work was so outstanding that his name has
nowbeengiventoasplendidcrateronMars,175kilometersacross.
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INTRODUCTION
Earth-based observers had long suspected this, as they
made careful drawings of the ever-changing Joviancloud-
scape. There was only one semipermanent feature on the
face of the planet, the famous Great Red Spot, and even
this sometimes vanished completely. Jupiter was a world
withoutgeography—aplanetformeteorologists,butnotfor
cartographers.
As I have recounted in Astounding Days: A Science-
fictional Autobiography, my own fascination with Jupiter
began with the very first science-fiction magazine I ever
saw—the November 1928 edition of Hugo Gernsback’s
Amazing Stories, which had been launched two years ear-
lier. It featured a superb coverby FrankR.Paul,whichone
could plausibly cite as proof of the existence of precogni-
tion.
Half a dozen earthmen are stepping forth onto one of
theJoviansatellitesemergingfromasilo-shapedspaceship
thatlooksuncomfortablysmallforsuchalongvoyage.The
orange-tinted globe of the giant planet dominates the sky,
withtwoofitsinnermoonsintransit.IamafraidthatPaul
has cheated shamelessly, because Jupiter is fully
illuminated—though the sun is almost behind it!
I’m not in a position to criticize, as it’s taken me more
than fifty years to spot this—probably deliberate—error. If
my memory is correct, the cover illustrates a story by Ga-
wain Edwards, real name G. Edward Pendray. Ed Pendray
was one of the pioneers of American rocketry and pub-
lished The Coming Age of Rocket Power in 1947. Perhaps
Pendray’smostvaluableworkwasinhelpingMrs.Goddard
editthemassivethreevolumesofherhusband’snotebooks:
he lived to see the Voyager closeups of the Jovian system,
and I wonder if he recalled Paul’s illustration.
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INTRODUCTION
What is so astonishing—I’m sorry, amazing—about this
1928 painting is that it shows, with great accuracy, details
which at the time were unknown to earth-based observers.
Not until 1979, when the Voyager spaceprobes flew past
Jupiter and its moons, was it possible to observe the intri-
cate loops and curlicues created by the Jovian tradewinds.
Yet half a century earlier, Paul had depicted them with
uncanny precision.
Many years later, I was privileged to work with the
doyen of space artists, Chesley Bonestell, on the book Be-
yond Jupiter (Little Brown, 1972). This was a preview of
the proposed Grand Tour of the outer solar system, which
it was hoped might take advantage of a once-in-179-year
configuration of all the planets between Jupiter and Pluto.
As it turned out, the considerably more modest Voyager
missions achieved virtually all the GrandTour’sobjectives,
at least out to Neptune. Looking at Chesley’s illustrations
with 20:20 clarity of hindsight, I am surprised to see that
Frank Paul, though technically the poorer artist, did a far
better job of visualizing Jupiter as it really is.
Since Jupiter is so far from the sun—five times the dis-
tance of the Earth—the temperature might be expected to
be a hundred or so degrees below the worst that the Ant-
arctic winter can provide. That is true of the upper cloud
layers, but for a long time astronomers have known that
theplanetradiatesseveraltimesasmuchheatasitreceives
from the Sun. Though it is not big enough to sustain ther-
monuclear fusion (Jupiter has been called “a star that
failed”), it undoubtedly possesses some internal sources of
heat. As a consequence, at some depth beneath the clouds,
the temperature is that of a comfortable day on Earth. The
pressure is another matter; but as the depths of our own
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INTRODUCTION
oceans have proved, life can flourish even at tons to the
square centimeter.
In the book and TV series Cosmos, the late Carl Sagan
speculated about possible life forms that might exist in
the purely gaseous (mostly hydrogen and methane) envi-
ronment of the Jovian atmosphere. My “Medusae” owe a
good deal to Carl, but I have no qualms about stealing
from him, as I introduced him to my former agent, Scott
Meredith, a quarter of a century ago, with results profit-
able to both.
Now a final bibliographic note. “A Meeting with
Medusa”—the story that inspired this volume of Venus
Prime—is one of the very few I ever wrote for a specific
objective. (Usually I write because I can’t help it, but I am
slowly getting this annoying habit under control.) “Me-
dusa” was produced because I needed wordage to round
out my final collection of short stories (The Wind from the
Sun, 1972). I am pleased to record that it won the Nebula
Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America forthe
best novella of the year-as well as a special bonus from
Playboy in the same category.
I happened to mention my association with this esti-
mable magazine, which has printed so many of my more
serious technical writings, when I registered a mild com-
plaint in New Delhi years ago. In his witty response after
IhaddeliveredtheNehruMemorialAddresson13Novem-
ber 1986, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi concluded with
these words: “Finally, let me assure Dr. Clarke that ifPlay-
boy is banned in this country, it is not becauseofanything
he may have written in it.”
Certainly there’s nothing in the original “A Meeting
with Medusa” to bring a blush to the most modest cheek.
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