Lawrence Colby by the age of thirty had been a
Korean paratrooper, art student, PR man, scriptwriter,
a dealer in art forgeries, and newspaperman,
and had once ghost-written the autobiography of a
homicidal maniac; he had been married twice, once
to an Italian actress with kleptomania and once to a
wealthy middle-aged woman who stoned embassies
and slugged cops with protest signs at
demonstrations; he had been beaten up in riots, shot
through the leg in Houston, Texas, by a woman who
was trying to kill her husband, and had been down
the Cresta Run at St. Moritz three times; but
afterward he was prone to look back on all this part
of his life before he met Martine Randall as a time
when nothing ever happened.
They met just a week after his thirtieth birthday,
on a flight from Geneva to London. . . .
* * *
The flight had already been announced when he
checked in at Cointrin, so he was the last passenger
to board. There were two aisle seats left in the firstclass
section, one beside a bearded two-hundredpound
Sikh in travel-soiled khaki and the other next
to a dream of a girl who was reading the European
The Wrong Venus — 2
edition of Time, a luscious brunette with a striking
figure and deep blue eyes. She glanced up briefly as
he came to a decision and sat down.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, after he had fastened
his seat belt and verified his first appraisal of the
legs, “but aren’t you Pamela McCarthy?”
She smiled shyly. “Not really, I’m afraid. Pamela’s
my roommate. I just borrowed her leg.” She went
back to the Time.
He sighed. “Well, I’ll tell her you’re taking good
care of it. . . . Goodnight, David.” Lowering his seat
back, he closed his eyes.
Normally, he would have probed the defenses at
least once more, as the minimal tribute to so much
girl, but he was tired: he’d been up most of the night
before. In a minute or two he had dozed off, and was
only vaguely aware when the plane taxied to the
runway and made its take-off run. He was awakened
briefly by a stewardess offering lunch, but waved it
off, and went back to sleep again.
Then he was dreaming he was riding a roller
coaster in an amusement park, a ride full of
vertiginous swoops and sudden upswings that
threatened to throw him out of the car. It seemed to
go on forever. When he awoke at last he saw that
the plane had run into turbulence. White wool
streaked past outside the windows, and the FASTEN
SEAT BELTS sign was on.
They dropped a hundred feet in a sickening lunge
that threw him up against his belt, then fishtailed,
yawing wildly. He glanced at his watch and saw they
should be down in London in less than an hour.
Apparently the turbulence had been going on for
some time. Most of the other passengers had dozed
off, but up forward he could hear somebody being
sick. A stewardess came down the aisle clinging to
the seats with one hand and carrying one of the
white bags in the other.
The plane shot upward and to port. The
stewardess grabbed for the back of Colby’s seat,
The Wrong Venus — 3
missed, and caught his shoulder. She smiled. “So
soddy.” She was very British.
Colby grinned up at her and winked with the
kinship of those immune to motion sickness. He
turned to look at the girl beside him. She had put
her seat back so it was level with his, and was
apparently asleep, her face near his shoulder. She
was probably in her late twenties, but there was an
almost childlike innocence about her face in repose.
It was a fine-boned face with a good chin and a
beautiful clear complexion, the lashes dark smudges
against her skin. Her lips were slightly parted, and
he was conscious of the impulse to kiss her. That
was just what he needed, he thought, to go through
Customs at London with his face under his left ear.
The plane bucketed up and down, and took a long
skidding dive to starboard.
He had just turned away and was reaching for a
cigarette when he thought he heard her say
something. He hoped she wasn’t going to be sick.
Colby genuinely liked women, and never felt any
resentment at having been given the brush; if they
didn’t knock down the proffered arm of fellowship a
good part of the time, by now there wouldn’t be
room left to stand.
He looked around at her. “I beg your pardon?”
Her eyes were still closed, but her lips moved.
“You’re ticking.’’
He frowned. “I’m what?”
The lips moved again, the words just faintly
audible. “You’re ticking.”
He felt the first intimation of horror. The plane
bounced upward, yawed, and plummeted again.
The damned turbulence! And it hadn’t even
occurred to him till now. . . . While he was still numb
with this first chill of realization, she spoke again
from beside his shoulder, the words inaudible to
anyone else. “I hope you’re not carrying a bomb?”
The Wrong Venus — 4
Maybe he could convince her she’d only imagined
the ticking. “Well, actually, it’s just an old prewar
model. They don’t go off half the time.”
He stopped. The lips had begun to curve upward
at the corners; the eyes opened, and for the first
time he saw into them, saw the laughter, the blazing
intelligence, and the devil. She knew damned well
what he was carrying.
“They’re self-winding?” she asked.
He nodded dumbly, trying to think of something.
He listened, but he still couldn’t hear them. Probably
only a few had started now, but her ear was nearer
them, or her hearing was better. Of course, it was
impossible to hear the ticking of a watch more than
a few inches away, especially over the rushing sound
of the plane’s ventilating system, but fifty of them
ticking together was something else. And when they
all started—good God!
“How many?” she whispered.
“Three hundred.”
Then, just as he remembered with horror that a
hundred of them were alarms, with either buzzers or
chimes, there was a faint musical tinkle from inside
his sweater. It repeated itself twice, very slowly,
before it ran down.
He shuddered and looked around at the girl. Her
hand was up to her mouth, and the eyes were
overflowing with silent blue laughter. He wanted to
strangle her.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I was just thinking of you
going through Customs sounding like the “Bell
Song” from Lakmi—”
The plane bounced, lurched from side to side, and
swooped again. He closed his eyes and could see the
three hundred little rotors swinging, storing energy.
Damn the Swiss and their ingenuity.
“—and on a flight from Geneva,” the girl went on
in that faint voice full of suppressed mirth. “But I’ll
come visit you at Wormwood Scrubs. ... Or I’m sure
Pamela will.”
The Wrong Venus — 5
“If I had your sense of humor,” Colby said, “I’d
never fly. I’d just hang around airports waiting for
somebody to crash.”
“Oh, don’t be silly. We’ll get you through Customs
some way.”
“We?”
“Of course.” She gestured impatiently. “It was just
that you sound so funny, ticking away like a big
tweed bomb.”
There was another silvery tinkle from inside
Colby’s sweater. Ding . . . ding . . . ding . . . ding. . . .
“It must be four p.m. In New Delhi,” she said,
mirth bubbling up in the eyes again.
“Look—” Colby snapped.
“Precisely.” The teasing devils disappeared from
her eyes, and they narrowed with thought. “That’s
the first thing.” She gestured significantly toward
the seats in front and back of them.
Colby unsnapped his belt and stood up, pretending
to search for something in the overhead rack. He
had to grab the edge of the rack to remain upright
as the plane dropped away from under him, hit an
ascending column of air, and bounced upward again.
He looked around.
The two passengers in front of him, obviously
businessmen, were discussing something in German.
They could probably understand English, but were
busy with their own affairs. In the seats directly
behind, a woman was being sick into a bag while the
young boy beside her read one of the Tintin books,
French, or French-Swiss. The boy wouldn’t know
English yet, and if the woman did she was too sick to
care if they blew up the plane.
Directly across from them, the Sikh was asleep,
his beard a cresting hirsute wave poised above his
chest.
Nobody was astir in the aisle except the two
stewardesses going back and forth with Dramamine
or carrying away the paper bags of those who hadn’t
taken it soon enough. He sat down, strapped himself
The Wrong Venus — 6
in, and turned, his face close to hers. He could feel
time rushing by him like the shredded tufts of vapor
flung backward past the windows. He had to think of
something, and damned fast.
“Even if the turbulence stopped now,” he said,
“they won’t run down before we land at London.”
She glanced at her watch. “It’s less than forty
minutes. We’ve got to stop them some way.”
“If we had a magnet—” He stopped. Where would
you find a magnet aboard a plane? And the damned
things were probably anti-magnetic anyway. Trust
the Swiss.
“How are you carrying them?” she asked.
Colby was dressed in a shapeless old tweed suit
and lightweight green sweater. Under his shirt was
a vestlike garment made up of three hundred
individual pockets. He told her.
“They’re just movements?” she asked.
“Of course.” Nobody ever smuggled watches in
cases.
“Then just go into the loo, take off the vest thing,
and dunk it in the washbasin.”
“It’s not that simple. Each one’s sealed in a little
plastic bag.”
“Oh.” She looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure water
would do it, anyway. They might start again. . . .
Something viscous— I’ve got it!” The blue eyes
lighted up, and she pushed the button for the
stewardess.
“What?” Colby asked.
“A liqueur of some kind. Cointreau—crème de
menthe—”
“Hey, sure!”
The stewardess came. It was the tall dark one. Just
as she leaned in over Colby, holding onto the seat in
front, there was a faint ding . . . ding . . . from inside
his sweater. He jerked his left arm in across his
chest, shook the wrist, and looked at the watch with
annoyance.
The Wrong Venus — 7
The stewardess held out an empty airsickness bag,
automatically searching the floor for the other one.
Colby waved off the bag. “Do you have any
Cointreau?”
“Cointreau?” It was obvious she thought he was
crazy.
“You do sell liquor on these flights, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course. . . . But with this turbulence,
naturally we couldn’t bring the cart through. And we
don’t have any Cointreau, anyway.”
“Then crème de menthe?”
“Y-e-e-s, I think so. But I’m afraid only the white
—”
He was conscious again of time hurtling past him,
but managed a reassuring smile. “It’s all right. I only
drink in the dark.”
She went away and came back in a minute with
the bottle. He paid her. She departed, holding onto
the seats.
“After you get stripped down to that vest,” the girl
whispered, “unlock the door. I’ll come in and help
you.”
“You might get caught.”
“I’ll pick a time when they’re not looking. Don’t
argue, you’ll never get them done alone.”
“Right. And thanks a lot.”
“Hurry.”
He unsnapped his belt and stowed the bottle in a
pocket of his jacket. Both stewardesses were busy
forward. The washroom was three rows back, on the
starboard side. He made it, having to stop and hang
onto the seats only once.
It was the usual small compartment, not much
more than four feet square, with the chemical toilet
in one corner and a small washbasin and mirror on
the forward wall. He bolted the door, set the bottle
in the basin, and began hurriedly throwing off his
upper clothing, hanging the tweed jacket, sweater,
shirt, and tie on the hook on the back of the door.
The Wrong Venus — 8
For a moment, miraculously, the plane was steady.
Just as he was down to the vest at last, one of the
buzzer alarms went off with a raucous vitality that
sent a shiver up his back. They were putting on
muscle by the minute.
He stabbed at one of the pockets at random, and
saw it was going to be impossible to get the watches
out while still wearing the vest; the fabric was too
tight, and the tiny slits too narrow to put his fingers
into. He unzipped it and set it beside the basin, nude
to the waist now. Just as he picked up the bottle of
crème de menthe to unscrew the cap, he
remembered the door. He unbolted it. Almost at the
same instant, it swung open, and the girl slipped
inside. She closed and locked it. Colby tossed the
bottle aside.
“Just pour it in the basin,” she said, “and we’ll dip
them in it—oops—!”
The plane lurched sidewise. They wound up in the
corner beside the door. She was behind him, one
arm around his waist and her chin propped on his
shoulder. Colby still held onto the bottle, outthrust
and aloft but upright.
“Cozy, isn’t it?” she asked.
The plane lurched again, to the left this time, and
they shot off the door toward the opposite wall.
Colby put out a hand and stopped them before they
slammed into it. They managed to untangle
themselves. The plane steadied. He closed the
washbasin drain and upended the bottle over it. It
gurgled. She had already reached for the vest, and
was sliding watch movements from the bottom row
of pockets.
He stowed the empty bottle in the used-towel
disposal. She had two of the watch movements out
now and was trying to break open one of the little
plastic bags in which they were sealed. It was tough,
and she was making slow work of it. She solved this
by taking a corner of it between her teeth and
tearing it. He tore the other open. together they
dipped the two of them into the crème de menthe.
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