 Who is Joe?
A PLANET NAMED JOE By S. A. LOMBINO There were more Joes on Venus than you could shake a ray-gun at. Perhaps there was method in Colonel Walsh's madness—murder-madness—when he ordered Major Polk to scan the planet for a guy named Joe. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories November 1952. For example, he could have chosen a Second Looie for the job on Venus. We were somewhere in Area Two on Earth, takeoff point for any operations in Space II. The rest was gravy, and Colonel Walsh wasn't going to let me get by with gravy. "It will be a simple assignment, Major," he said to me, peering over his fingers. If Walsh really wanted to know the reasons for the revolt, I could give them to him in one word: Walsh. It had been going on for six months now and we'd lost at least a thousand men from Space II. "And this man is on Venus now?" "This man is on Venus." And now, through the fouled-up machinery that exists in any military organization, he outranked me. "Just Joe." "A native, you know. But then, it should be simple to find a man with a name like Joe. "Well, physically he's like any of the other Venusians, so I can't give you much help there. The trip to Venus came off without a hitch. And I thought about Colonel Leonard Walsh and how he was supposed to be quelling that revolt. Venus was hotter than I'd expected it to be. His features, his muscles, everything seemed to have been stretched like a rubber band. "You've got the wrong number," he said, and I was a little surprised at his use of Terran idiom. "You are Joe, aren't you? "Only thing I ever traded, though, was a pocketknife. I sighed and began wondering just how I should go about contacting the Joe I was looking for. My orders said I was to report to Captain Bransten immediately upon arrival. We'd probably walked for about ten minutes when he dropped my bags and said, "There it is." But then, it should be simple to find a man with a name like Joe. Walsh was about the lowest, most contemptible.... I started to pick up my bag as another Venusian entered. "Yes," I said, still thinking of Colonel Walsh.
 The entire population of Venus
 The Major’s senior officer  A Venusian who doesn’t like cigarettes  The entire population of Venus  A Venusian Trader