The Long Rain

It’s still raining. The rain is “a mizzle, a downpour, a fountain, a whipping at the eyes, an undertow at the ankles,” and it makes the men’s look pruned, wrinkly and ape-like. The sheets of rain slash through the jungle, turn the soil into swamp lands, and shred the grass like razor blades.

One of the men asks the lieutenant how much farther they have to travel to get to a place called the Sun Dome. The lieutenant says that they only have another hour or two until they get there, but one of the men calls his bluff. The lieutenant admits that he’s lying to keep the men in good spirits and tersely tells them to shut up. The men pause to rest in the rain, sitting in groups of two—two in the front, two in the back— “slumped like clay that was melting.”

The lieutenant’s face, which used to be tan, is now pasty white. Even his eyes, hair, and uniform have turned white. He asks the other men if it’s ever stopped raining here on Venus. One says no—he’s lived here for ten years, and he’s never seen even a second when the rain wasn’t pummeling down on the soggy planet. The lieutenant compares living on Venus to living underwater.

The lieutenant tells the men they need to get moving if they want to find the Sun Dome. He reaffirms that they’re just an hour away—and admits that he’s still lying, but this time for his own benefit, because “this is one of those times when you’ve got to lie. I can’t take much more of this.”

The men continue tromping through the soggy jungle, eyes glued to their compasses. Somewhere behind them lies their destroyed rocket, “in which they had ridden and fallen. A rocket in which lay two of their friends, dead and dripping rain.” The men reach a river, and the lieutenant nods at Simmons knowingly. Simmons procures a small packet, which instantly swells into a large boat. The men quickly fashion a pair of paddles out of wood, and climb aboard.

As the men row, the lieutenant laments that he didn’t sleep at all the previous night. One of the men scoffs, reminding him that none of them have slept. He says it’s been impossible, for “thirty nights, thirty days,” to sleep with the rain pounding into their foreheads. The man says he’d do anything to have a hat just to protect his forehead from the pelting raindrops.

One of the other men says he regrets ever coming to China. The other men find this comment odd, but he explains that being on Venus is just like enduring Chinese water torture—a method of torture in which a prisoner is roped against a wall, and a single drop of water hits their forehead every thirty minutes. After a while, the prisoner goes crazy in anticipation for the next drop. The man declares that humans aren’t “made for water.” In this kind of rain, humans can’t sleep or breathe properly, and they go “crazy from just being soggy.”

Somewhere in the distance is the Sun Dome—a massive yellow house that boasts of warmth, hot meals, and a reprieve from the rain. At the center of the Sun Dome hovers a “small floating free globe of yellow fire,” and residents can watch it while they read or smoke or sip thick hot chocolates “crowned with marshmallow dollops.” The Sun Dome’s sun is “just the size of the Earth sun” (when looking at it from Earth), and it warms every inch of the Dome, making those inside forget about the surrounding torrential downpour.

The lieutenant watches the men as they row. They’re “white as mushrooms,” just like the rest of the Venusian jungle, which is like an “immense cartoon nightmare.” Deprived of sunlight but drenched with constant rain, the jungle is lush but pasty and white. Its “cheese-colored leaves” barely stand out against “the earth carved of wet Camembert.”

The men reach the shore and continue their trek through the waterlogged jungle. The lieutenant thinks he sees something in the distance, and Simmons runs ahead, hoping desperately that it’s the Sun Dome. The other men rush after him and finally find him in a small clearing. Looming in front of them is not the Sun Dome—it’s their abandoned rocket. The bodies of their two dead comrades are still sprawled among the rubble, their open mouths filled with moss and fungus.

The men realize that they’ve accidentally circled back around to their starting point, and that there must be an electrical storm nearby that threw off their compasses. Simmons cries out that they’re no closer to the Sun Dome, but the lieutenant tells him to remain calm—they still have two days’ worth of food.

Suddenly, a massive roar echoes in the distance, and a monster emerges through the rain. The monster has a thousand legs, each made of electric blue lightning bolts. Every time the monster takes a step, a tree plunges to the ground, scorched and smoking. “Great whiffs of ozone” drift through the air, and the raindrops cut through the curls of smoke. The monster, who is half a mile wife and a full mile tall, stumbles through the jungle like it’s blind. Sometimes it tumbles to the ground and lands in a heap, its legs disappearing for an instant under the rest of its body. But then, “a thousand whips would fall out of its belly, blue-white whips, to sting the jungle.”

The lieutenant instructs his comrades to lie flat in the mud, noticing that the monster “hits the highest points” in the jungle. Faces buried in the soggy soil, the men track the monster’s movement just by listening. Suddenly, the monster looms over them. Its lightning bolts slam against the crashed rocket, ringing like a metal gong.

Overcome by terror, an unnamed man in the group jumps up, screaming, “No, no!” The lieutenant yells at him to get down, but the man takes off running through the jungle, dodging crumpling trees and stinging lightning bolts. Suddenly, the lieutenant hears “the sound a fly makes when landing upon the grill wires of an exterminator,” which he remembers from his childhood on a farm. He can smell burning flesh.

The lieutenant orders the other men (later revealed as Simmons and Pickard) to stay put until the monster departs. When the coast is clear, the shaken-up comrades locate the unnamed man, believing that they might be able to save his life. Although this is hopeless, “they couldn’t believe that there wasn’t some way to help the man.” The narrator remarks that this is the “natural” response of men who haven’t come to terms with death until they’ve seen it with their own eyes and felt it with their own hands. The man looks “like a wax dummy that had been thrown into an incinerator and pulled out after the wax had sunk to the charcoal skeleton.” The men peer down at the body, watching as it disappears. Tangled masses of vegetation crawl over the body, swallowing it in one leafy gulp.

The lieutenant, Simmons, and Pickard continue onward, crossing milky creeks, streams, and rivers. Venus’ single continent, which floats like an island in the middle of its Single Sea, is three thousand miles long by three thousand miles wide. Soon, the men arrive at the Single Sea, which lies “upon the pallid shore with little motion.” The lieutenant beckons his men southward, remembering that there are two Sun Domes in this direction. The men talk about why there aren’t more Sun Domes, and one of the men explains that there are currently 126 of them. He explains that “they tried to push a bill through Congress back on Earth a year ago to provide for a couple dozen more, but oh no, you know how that is. They’d rather a few men went crazy with the rain.”

As the lieutenant, Simmons, and Pickard carry on southward, Simmons suddenly exclaims that he sees something. Sure enough, far in the distance is a sheer yellow glow—a Sun Dome. One of the men commends the lieutenant for leading them there, but the lieutenant attributes their success to pure luck.

Simmons takes off at a run, heartened by the sight of the Sun Dome. Panting, he dreams aloud of the hot coffee and cinnamon buns waiting for them inside, and claims that whoever invented the Sun Dome “should have got a medal.” Out of breath, he says, “Guess a lot of men went crazy before they figured out the cure. Think it’d be obvious!” He recounts the time that he found one of his friends wandering through the Venusian jungle, repeating the same crazed phrase, “Don’t know enough, to come in, outta the rain.” The men laugh.

Simmons, Pickard, and the lieutenant reach the Sun Dome. Simmons flings open the doors, yelling, “Bring on the coffee and buns!” The Sun Dome is silent. The men walk inside and are shocked at what they find: there is no hot food, no luxurious warmth, no beautiful sun hovering in the ceiling. The Sun Dome is cold, dark, and sopping wet, with rain rushing down from a thousand “newly punctured” holes in the ceiling. The plush rugs and modern furniture are soaked, and the bookcase is coated with moss. Pickard laughs sarcastically, but one of the men tersely tells him to shut up.

One of the men blames the Venusians. Simmons explains that the Venusians live in the sea but periodically come out to attack a Sun Dome, because “they know if they ruin the Sun Domes they can ruin us.” One of the other men (either the lieutenant or Pickard) asks how this is possible, since all of the Sun Domes are heavily protected with guns. Simmons says this is true, but since it’s been five years since the Venusians’ last attack, the Sun Domes have relaxed their defenses. The Venusians caught the residents of this particular Dome off guard.

One of the men asks where the bodies of the Earth people are who used to live in this Dome, but Simmons answers that the Venusians must have brought them down to the sea—“I hear they have a delightful way of drowning you. It takes about eight hours to drown the way they work it. Really delightful.” Pickard laughs bitterly and says that there’s probably no food left at this Sun Dome. Simmons and the lieutenant exchange a look. The men wander into the kitchen, which is full of furry green loaves of bread.

Simmons says they should try to make it to the next Sun Dome, but the lieutenant thinks if they just stay put, a rescue mission may come find them. Simmons reminds him that the rescues mission has probably already come and gone, and it will take at least six months for Congress to release the funds for a crew to come out and repair the Sun Dome.

Clutching his skull, Pickard cries that the constant rain reminds him of how a bully in grade school used to pinch him every five minutes, all day long, every day. After enduring the pinching for several months, Pickard’s arms were black and blue. One day, he finally cracked: he grabbed the metal trisquare he used for mechanical drawing and attacked the bully with it, nearly killing the boy. Now, Pickard says, he longs to attack the rain in the same way, “but what do I do now? Who do I hit? Who do I tell to lay off, stop bothering me, this damn rain, like the pinching, always on you, that’s all you hear, that’s all you feel!”

The lieutenant tells Pickard that they’ll be at the next Sun Dome in just eight hours. Pickard asks what they’re going to do if all the Sun Domes are destroyed, and says he’s “tired of chancing it.” The lieutenant tells him to “hold on” for just eight more hours. Pickard agrees, but he laughs flatly and avoids eye contact. Simmons watches him closely.

Four hours later, the lieutenant, Simmons, and Pickard are halfway to the next Sun Dome. Pickard declares that he can’t go any farther—he has to sleep, and hasn’t for four weeks. It’s nighttime, and the sky is so black that it’s “dangerous to move,” so the men agree to rest. The lieutenant cautions that they’ve tried this before, and it hasn’t worked. They lie down carefully, propping their chins up enough that the water can’t pool in their mouths.

The lieutenant tries to sleep, but the vines are climbing over his body, and the raindrops won’t stop pestering him. He jumps up wildly, unable to tolerate the “thousand hands [that] were touching him.” Suddenly, Pickard begins to scream and run around frantically. Pickard shoots his gun in the air six times, and the brief flashes of light illuminate fifteen billion raindrops, which look like tears, ornaments, and jewels. The droplets descend on the men like a thick cloud of insects.

Pickard suddenly goes quiet, and the lieutenant turns shines his hand lamp on Pickard’s face. To his horror, he sees that Pickard’s pupils are dilated, his mouth is agape, and his chin is turned upwards so that his mouth is filling with water. Pickard is unresponsive, standing there with “manacles of rain and jewels dripping from his wrists and his neck.” Simmons tells the lieutenant that Pickard is already gone. They can’t carry him along with them, and if they leave him, he’ll drown.

Startled, the lieutenant asks Simmons what he means by drown. Simmons can’t believe that the lieutenant doesn’t know the story of how General Mendt died. They found him “sitting on a rock with his head back, breathing the rain. His lungs were full of water.” The lieutenant turns his attention back to Pickard, and slaps him across the face. Simmons warns that Pickard can no longer feel his body. The lieutenant realizes his own limbs are starting to go numb, too.

The lieutenant says they can’t just leave Pickard here to drown, so Simmons turns around and swiftly shoots Pickard, who crumples to the ground. Simmons tells the lieutenant that if he makes a fuss, Simmons will shoot him too. He reminds the lieutenant that Pickard had gone insane and would have been a burden. The lieutenant is quiet, but finally agrees, and the pair continue to make their way to the Sun Dome.

After a half an hour, Simmons declares that they’ve “miscalculated” the location of the next Dome. The lieutenant affirms that they only have one more hour to go. Simmons asks him to speak up but then smiles suddenly, yelling that his ears have gone out because of the numbing rain. He yells to the lieutenant to go on without him. The lieutenant objects (which Simmons can’t hear), but Simmons yells that he’s tired and doesn’t think the Sun Dome is in this direction. Even if it is nearby, it’s probably destroyed just like the last one.

Simmons says he knows he’s on the brink of insanity but doesn’t want to die that way. He has a gun, and as soon as the lieutenant is out of sight, Simmons will kill himself. Reading the lieutenant’s lips, Simmons knows he’s protesting. Simmons explains that he’ll either die now or in a few hours. He asks the lieutenant to imagine the feeling of getting to the next Dome and finding it in shambles—“Won’t that be nice?” Unable to sway Simmons, the lieutenant leaves uneasily.

Miserable and alone, the lieutenant tells himself to tough it out for just five more minutes—“Another five minutes and then I’ll walk into the sea and keep walking.” He thinks about how Earth people weren’t made for the harsh Venusian environment.

Trudging through the leafy slush, the lieutenant comes to a small hill. There, in the distance, is the faint, sheer yellow glow of the next Sun Dome. Swaying unsteadily with exhaustion and hunger, the lieutenant just stands there staring at it. Then, he takes off at a run, crashing through the jungle. When he slips and falls, his inner voice tries to persuade him to stay put: “Lie here, he thought; it’s the wrong [Sun Dome]. Lie here. It’s no use. Drink all you want.” With great exertion, the lieutenant struggles to his feet and begins to run again, “his feet crashing into mirrors and glass, his arms flailing at diamonds and precious stones.”

The lieutenant reaches the door of the Sun Dome and stumbles inside. He immediately feels paralyzed. On the table is a steaming pot of hot chocolate and several platters of chicken sandwiches. There are stacks of plush Turkish towels, a dry uniform, copper urns filled with coffee, and leather-bound books. The lieutenant covers his eyes with his hands and, after a moment, looks around the room again. He sees other men approaching him, but he ignores them.

The lieutenant stares at the warm, yellow sun hovering in the “blue sky of the room.” Everything is silent, the door to the outside world is shut, and the rain is “only a memory to [the lieutenant’s] tingling body.” Pulling off his soggy uniform, the lieutenant walks toward the sun.