The Avenging Martian

by John Russell Fearn, Vargo Statten

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

A cosmic atrocity of the ancient past-the murder of the planet Mars by Venusian super-scientists who strip the planet of its air and water, leaving only a handful of survivors on a dying world! Martian scientist Jad Inicus embarks on am amazing scheme of revenge-by sending two young Martians, male and female, to a prehistoric earth. His cry for revenge reverberated down the corridors of centuries, and when it throbbed to awaking in Arnath Layton, his remote ancestor on Earth, the descendants of the malign Venusians were truly doomed! Another cosmic saga of this prolific author, novelized from the pages of Astounding Stories.

Release date: March 31, 2015

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 92

Sample

There could be no doubt of one thing—Venus was dying. The mighty scientific civilisation which existed upon it had reached its zenith and now faced the ultimate problem which must come to all races sometime: how to continue living on a planet which is on the decline.

The death of Venus was the sole preoccupation of the scientists inhabiting the planet. For many centuries they had ignored the first evidences of coming disaster. The slow diminishment of clouds; the gradual evaporation of the oceans as they were sucked remorselessly into space; the almost total disappearance of water vapour. Venus was now a world of deserts, sun-blistered whenever the 720-hour revolution of the planet brought that part of the globe to the merciless luminary only 63-million miles away. High, hot winds swept over the powdery white plains, carrying vast dust clouds into the violet blue of the sky. The winds were the precursors of doom. Gradually the blistered landscape, the tortured, barren hills, the chasmed sea bottoms, would be eroded into a common level of sun-cracked extinction. The end was coming—and fast.

At the window of his home in the city of Tranil, the governing centre of the planet, Dal Kilrax, scientific ruler of the race, gazed out sadly upon the wilderness. At one time, within his very long memory—for his life had been three hundred years so far—there had been endless fields of produce expanding beyond this city, away to the mountains at the horizon. In those days the sky had been pale blue. There had been clouds, and rain, and soft encouraging breezes. Now it had all gone. The terrible luminary so close to hand had speeded up the doom of the planet. No rain fell any more. And at night, when the solitary Venusian moon rode the cloudless sky, the air turned piercingly cold as the heat of the day radiated out into the vacuum of space.

Dal Kilrax sighed as he thought on these things. He had planned so much for himself and his race, had deliberately shut his mind to the signs which were now so evident around him. The last thing he had wanted was migration. The task of starting again on a new, thriving planet would be full of hazards. If only there were some way to rejuvenate this senile world …

In appearance Dal Kilrax was a perfect product of his world, though unspeakably alien from ordinary standards. He resembled an upright slug—a complete shiny body, curiously slimy on the exterior, with a protuberance for a head. He had two pairs of arms, supplied with tentacled feelers. Hair was totally absent. Locomotion was gained by two extensions at the base of the body which served as feet. His face possessed a toothless mouth, an air-intake which would have been a nose in any other type of being, and two very large eyes. Here there was evidenced the creature’s tremendous intelligence. They were sagacious, thoughtful, mirroring the profound speculations which governed him at the moment.

Far away in the distance over the low mountain tops a whirling dust storm rose blackly against the blinding sun and then streamed to the south-west, blotting out the aridity of the desert. Out there was a temperature of 190 degrees Fahrenheit. Inside this building, however, silently rotating cooling fans kept the temperature at a reasonable level.

The sound of the door opening made Dal Kilrax turn. It was Yedi, his second-in-command, who had entered, and one of the most brilliant scientists in the race.

“Master,” he acknowledged, with his slight obeisance, “I thought I should report upon my findings to you concerning the state of our planet.”

“I hardly need a report, my good friend. The view from this window is quite sufficient. All I need to know is: how long has our world to live?”

“At the most; ten orbital circuits. After that; the atmosphere itself will start to leak into space. I need hardly add that there is one cause only of our troubles—the sun.”

Dal Kilrax gave his equivalent of a smile.

“Yes, I had already assumed that—which makes it a vicious circle my friend. If we use scientific means to blot out the sun from our world we kill life anyway; and yet if we let the sun shine normally our life is sucked away from us. Nature can be very exacting.”

“I have been wondering,” Yedi continued, reflecting, “if we could not migrate to the fourth world—the planet Maza. It is a thriving planet with plentiful air and water. It is populated by curious bipeds who sprout hair on their heads. As yet their science has not reached a particularly high level. I think we could very soon deal with them. I am prepared to dispatch scouts to survey, if you wish.”

Dal Kilrax shook his head. “No, Yedi. I had thought of that, but two factors make me abandon the idea. For one thing, even if we domiciled ourselves on Maza we would endure immense physical discomfort because it is only half the size of our planet. Its gravity is also proportionately less. That being so our brains would not be as efficient because of the effect of lesser gravity on our circulatory system. A brain must have a steady blood supply to keep it in order, and a weak gravity would cause untold trouble. Hundreds of our race might die off—that we could not afford. There are so few of us already. With the bad conditions of our home world here mating and offsprings are rare events. Our race is sadly depleted. On the other hand, even if we did decide to take over Maza we could only do so by means of resorting to arms. We would conquer: that would never be in doubt with our superior weapons—but in so doing many of our number would perish. No, Yedi, that is not the answer.”

Yedi watched a distant plume of dust rising to the zenith before he spoke again.

“Then how about the third world from the sun—Kronj?”

Again Kilrax shook his head. “No. It is a very, very young world, lashed by tempests and, in many parts, still steaming with mephitic vapours. The only point it has in common with this planet is that the gravity is almost the same. That would not compensate for the fetid seas and atmosphere and the vast struggle which would be necessary to tame that world’s exuberant youth.”

Yedi was silent. One by one he could sense the lights going out throughout the system. All the possibilities of migration seemed to be evaporating—and if migration was not the answer it meant death—absolute and complete, under the blazing sun or in the frigid night, upon a world from which the last trace of atmospheric vapour had vanished.

“What about our moon?” he asked at length. “I know it is airless, but we could perhaps overcome that difficulty by sealing ourselves underground——”

“Again, no. We can seal ourselves underground here if we wish—though the life is utterly unnatural for us. My main reason for refusing our moon as a haven, however, is because it is infested with inert life spores, utterly lethal to us. If those spores happened to seep into our underworld—on our moon—they would come to life in the warmth and air and emit deadly toxic vapours, chiefly carbon dioxide. Since we are essentially oxygen-nitrogen breathers that would be fatal.”

“Then, this is the end of the road?” Yedi questioned, finally. “We perish in the midst of our magnificent civilisation? We die because our science, mighty though it is, is not mighty enough to defy natural laws?”

“There is one way …” Dal Kilrax meditated through an interval. “It is not one which I like taking—viewing it from the standpoint of a living person who loves his world; but as a scientist, responsible for the continuance of our race, I have no alternative. It will mean the death of millions on the world of Maza, and the rapid decline of their planet into extinction, but that is the law of the Universe. Always it must be the survival of the fittest and the destruction of the weaker.”

“What have you in mind, Master?” Yedi inquired.

“The greatest feat ever attempted by the science of this planet—and the only possible course we can take if we are to survive. You had better summon the Governing Council, Yedi, and I will address them en masse. This is not a matter for you and I to talk over in secret conference.”

Yedi bowed himself out and before very long radio summonses were being disseminated throughout the planet for all the leaders of science to assemble in the City of Tranil at the earliest moment. In response, projectiles began to hurtle through the sun-drenched heavens from all quarters of the globe—until finally, perhaps two hours later—the entire number of scientific leaders was assembled in the enormous Council Chamber.

Dal Kilrax was in his usual seat of office, on an isolated rostrum near an enormous glassless window. Behind him, on the arid plains, dust fled inexorably over the parched wastes.

“That we face crisis has long been apparent to you,” he said, when the meeting had been formally opened. “The problem of our continuation as a scientific race has long preoccupied me—and it has forced me to a most unhappy decision. I fully expect that the scientists of future ages will write us down as fiends, heartless monsters, and men of evil intent—but that is because they will not be aware of how desperate is our need. We are left two choices: to rejuvenate this senile world of ours, or perish. No other world is suitable for us to live upon—so we must take the possessions of a happier world, that of Maza, the fourth planet from the sun.”

“May I ask what is meant by possessions?” asked a scientist of the North Circle.

“A planet has only two possessions worthy of mention,” Dal Kilrax answered. “Air—and water. The two things we most desperately need. I am suggesting that we should take them, as we can with our scientific power.”

“Without warning?” another scientist asked, aghast.

“Yes, without warning. You do not suppose the inhabitants of Maza would give up their air and water if we asked them, do you? And if they offered to share it it would be no use to either of us. It has to be all—or nothing. So, we shall take their seas and atmosphere and with them rejuvenate our world. They will probably die, like the fishes on a dry ocean bed—but that is only in the natural order of things. We have only one aim: survival.”

For a long time the issue was argued back and forth, just as Dal Kilrax had anticipated it would be—but in the final analysis it became more than obvious that his was the only plan which could save the race, ruthless though it was. So the matter turned to the scientific issues involved.

“What, kind of people are these Mazians?” asked one of the Council.

“They are fairly intelligent,” Yedi answered. “They have space travel by means of crude rocket propulsion, and they under. . .