Venus, the jewel of the sky, was once know by ancient astronomers as the morning star and evening star. Early astronomers once thought Venus to be two separate bodies. Venus, which is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty, is veiled by thick swirling cloud cover. Astronomers refer to Venus as Earth's sister planet. Both are similar in size, mass, density and volume. Both formed about the same time and condensed out of the same nebula. Venus is very different from the Earth. It has no oceans and is surrounded by a heavy atmosphere composed mainly of carbon dioxide with virtually no water vapor. Its clouds are composed of sulfuric acid droplets. At the surface, the atmospheric pressure is 92 times that of the Earth's at sea-level. Venus is scorched with a surface temperature of about 482° C (900° F). This high temperature is primarily due to a runaway greenhouse effect caused by the heavy atmosphere of carbon dioxide. Sunlight passes through the atmosphere to heat the surface of the planet. Heat is radiated out, but is trapped by the dense atmosphere and not allowed to escape into space. This makes Venus hotter than Mercury. A Venusian day is 243 Earth days and is longer than its year of 225 days. Oddly, Venus rotates from east to west. To an observer on Venus, the Sun would rise in the west and set in the east.

Homesteading on Venus - Are we the first? - Zachary "freefall" Vitruvian September 22, 2374 

You really have to hand it to the homesteaders on Venus.  Who would want to live at the bottom of a boiling ocean?  Professor Steve Stedman and his band of intrepid scientists, that's who. They live and work in caves and in balloons as they attempt to understand a planet that has been shrouded in mysteries since it was discovered. 

I met the professor on a connecting flight, while on my way home from my trip to Mercury.  He was on his way to a symposium on earth to give talks about his new findings on Venus, and he was hoping to secure additional funding.  

He let it slip, knowing who I am, that they might have discovered signs of a previous civilization on Venus. 

The scientists live in an underground base that helps to keep them cool, and it allows them to tunnel from place to place, pop up to the surface here and there and have robots construct small dome cabins.  There are hundreds of these cabins stretching out from the main cave system, like tentacles. 

During one of their digging operations, they came upon a large circular shaft.  They followed it, and found a chamber…And that’s all I could get out of him. 

I've just received word that Professor Stedman is missing.  Could it have anything to do with ancient civilizations on Venus, and a government cover up? 

That’s what I intend to find out… Stay tuned.

"Freefall" Vitruvian