Boy Meets Dyevitza A thrilling news bulletin dated September 11 1996 was recently handed to me by an assistantwho is too young to remember the star over Moscow and it is toward him and others like himthat the following history is directed. If it resembles fiction more than it does fact thesimilarity is wholly intentional for it is only through fiction that the past can be broughtback to life. When Gordon Andrews first saw the girl he took it for granted that she was a Venusian—anatural enough assumption in view of the fact that he was on Venus. She was kneeling beside asmall brook humming a little tune and washing out a pair of stockings and so intent was sheon her tune and her task that she did not hear him when he stepped out of the forest behindher. Her bobbed hair was the color of horse chestnuts and her clothing consisted of grayculottes a gray blouse black leather boots and a small gray kepi. The tune she was hummingwas a passage from Tchaikovskys Swan Lake. Thus far Gordon had taken Venus pretty much inhis stride. The data supplied by the Venus probes during the early 60s while obscure withregard to her cloud-cover had conclusively disproved former theories to the effect that shelacked a breathable atmosphere and possessed a surface temperature of more than 100 degreesCentigrade and had prepared him for what he had found—an atmosphere richer in oxygen contentthan Earths a comfortable climate and a planet-wide sea unbroken as yet save for anequatorial land mass no larger than a modest island. The data by its very nature had alsoprepared him for the possibility of human life. It had