Stanley G. Weinbaum - Sci Fi

https://theoviebooks.wordpress.com/ 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." Hamilton "Ham" Hammond is an American 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. "And again came a peal of hooting that sounded like laughter, while shadowy forms moved, flylike, on the sheer walls." First published: February 1935 Ovi Magazine: published April 2022