 Major Polk refers to his long hike through the jungle with guide Joe as being like. . .
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. He folded his fingers like a deck of cards and dropped them on his desk as if he were waiting for me to cut. 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. Revolt. He'd goofed off on a pile of uranium that could've, and almost did, blow the barracks sky-high that night. 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. Big plants and small ones, some blooming with flowers I'd never seen before, and some as bare as cactus. His features, his muscles, everything seemed to have been stretched like a rubber band. "Same here, Toots," he answered. "The guys back in Space II are searching high and low for you," I told him. "You are Joe, aren't you? My orders said I was to report to Captain Bransten immediately upon arrival. He picked up my bags and started walking up a heavily overgrown path. We'd probably walked for about ten minutes when he dropped my bags and said, "There it is." The Officer's Club was a plasteel hut with window shields that protected it from the heat of the sun. "Yes," I said, still thinking of Colonel Walsh. He was wearing a tropical tunic, but he still resembled a wilted lily more than he did an officer. "Cigarettes. Not nearly as developed as Mars." "And the natives are only now becoming acquainted with Terran culture. "It's impossible to tell exactly where it all started, of course," Bransten was saying.
 The time a friend took him on a journey through the city on his birthday.
 The time a friend took him on a journey through the city on his birthday.  The time Walsh fell asleep on the job and almost destroyed the barracks.  His time in boot camp.  The relentless way in which Venusians constantly ask for more cigarettes.