Thrilling Wonder Stories, February, 1937
Brain of Venus
by John Russell Fearn
CHAPTER I
desk of his superior. In silence he watched
Mutiny In Space
Commandant Bradley add the final official
seals to a bulky package, scribble the details
on a check-sheet, and finally hand them both
APTAIN BRANT, pilot of Liner 762
across.
of the Earth-Mars Transit Service,
“Brant,” the commandant said quietly,
C stood quietly at attention before the looking up, “you are undertaking an unusual
Thrilling Wonder Stories
2
delivery on this trip.”
those of the lowliest rocket-tube charge-hand
“Yes, sir,” Brant nodded.
to the cleverest space navigator. And now
“In this package, sealed in preserving
mutiny hovered. Black hate was in the cause
solution, is the brain of Lu Sang. At the order
that had formerly been one of good natured,
of the Imperial Surgical Council it was ambitious progress.
removed from that notorious Chinese
By no means was Brant blind to the
criminal’s body when he was under the danger signals. He secretly sympathized with anaesthetic preceding his death for his the men but an uneasy premonition that countless crimes. The object in removing it
danger was ahead had persisted in his mind
while he still lived was so that his brain would ever since his landing from Mars two days
still be alive when transferred to the before.
preserving solution. You will take it to Mars
and there deliver it to Kron, the head surgeon,
ONCE aboard the ship Brant went direct to his
who will send a special messenger to the own cabin and there, with a sigh of relief, space grounds to meet you. It is his wish to
deposited the living brain of Lu Sang within
study the brain of a criminal from Earth so
the safe. He felt better with the infernal thing that he may learn to eliminate similar traits in out of his hands. Hardly had he put the check-Martian brains. You understand?”
sheet in the file before the door quietly opened
“Perfectly, sir,” Brant answered and Sub-pilot Anderson entered, concern on crisply. He took the package gingerly, stuffing
his lean, swarthy face.
the check-sheet in his pocket.
“The men are grumbling again, sir,” he
“Very well, then, that is all. Have a
announced. “I thought I had better tell you.
good trip.”
I’ve heard rumors—about mutiny, about
Brandt departed with agile strides, but once
turning the passengers and masters adrift at
out in the long exterior corridor he permitted a the halfway line in a safety ship, taking over
frown to come to his face, it was not the
control of this vessel themselves. All sorts of
assignment that worried him; that was mere
things.”
routine—but the thought of the difficulties he
Brant stood with tightened lips for a
was likely to encounter on this particular moment, then he shrugged.
voyage to Mars.
“At the best, just rumors, Anderson,”
For months now, ever since the new
he said grimly. “We’ll meet trouble when it
Earth-Mars Corporation had been installed, comes. Get to your post—give the starting there had been a slowly growing trouble order. Time’s up.”
among the men—the grimy, embittered “Yes,
sir.”
wretches who toiled in the depths of the space
Andersen departed swiftly to the
monsters, tending the rocket-tube equipment,
control cabin. After a moment’s thought Brant
grinding out their beings in torrid heat and
followed suit.
yellow-lit gloom with scarcely any
He gave his orders for the departure
remuneration for their services.
mechanically, watched everything
The old system had been better, mechanically through the massive windows at controlled by the original discoverer of space
the black rotunda of the void as the liner,
conquest. But upon his death and the gathering momentum, cleaved through the last accession of the corporation into control, all
vestiges of Earth’s atmosphere into the
sentiment and mass unity had been flung infinity beyond. At once the outlook changed; overboard. Everywhere wages dropped, from
the silvery translucence of the stratosphere
Brain of Venus
3
heights had gone.
individual action when the time came to
Space was studded with brilliantly strike.
glittering points of light. To Brant it all had no meaning; he was completely familiar with the
stars. Mutiny! That was what dinned across
his brain and frayed his nerves.
And while he wondered, that which he
feared was maturing below in the bowels of
the ship. Blackie Grednow, perhaps the oldest
rocket charge-hand on the spaceways, stood
beside his own particular fueling unit, massive
hand on the metalwork. His little bloodshot
eyes peered at his eleven almost naked
comrades with the smoldering fire of
excitement.
“Everything’s
all
set,” he announced
eagerly. “We’ve got to strike on this trip;
we’ve waited long enough. You know the
plans—we take over the ship just as we near
the halfway line, drive her back to Earth, then
hold her there and refuse to land until new
conditions are agreed to. That understood?”
The men nodded silently.
“We’re facing Brant, Blackie,”
commented one of them. “Had you reckoned
with that?”
“Brant?” The dirt-and sweat-streaked
ex-criminal spat eloquently. “He’ll crumple up
like steel before a ray-tube when we get on to
him. But remember! There’s to be no CAPTAIN BRANT began to feel more at ease bloodshed—there are passengers aboard, as the days passed on and everything worked valuable passengers. We can’t afford to defeat
with perfect clocklike order. His vigilance
our own ends. You know your places when I
began to relax. It was the one move for which
give the signal. Now—back to work.”
Blackie Grednow had been waiting.
Silently the men returned to their tasks,
Suddenly, without the least warning,
but in the mind of one of them at least were
the repulsor rocket-tubes came into being. The
personal plans. Newton reflected that it was
ship began to slow down rapidly in its
one thing to achieve amenable conditions tremendous headlong rush toward the red aboard a space ship by force—but it was planet. Far away in the infinite blackness of distinctly another to make use of the wealth
the void the planet hung, a roseate globe no
the ship contained. There must be gold and
larger than a tennis ball.
valuables aboard—there always were on an
Immediately the alarm bell rang.
Earth-Mars voyage. Captain Brant’s safe Passengers raced to and fro, heading for the usually held cargo of tremendous value. It was
safety space ships. Brant, tight-lipped, swung
of this that Newton thought, and plotted for
Thrilling Wonder Stories
4
round from his controls, Anderson by his bellowed back, striding forward. Then he side—then both of them stopped in their stopped, uttered the faintest of sounds, and fell movement as they beheld Blackie himself prone to the floor, killed on the spot by the standing just inside the doorway, a leveled
deadly force of Benson’s ray-tube.
ray-tube in his grimy fist.
For perhaps three seconds there was
“Better not,” he advised grimly. horrified silence. Passengers and men alike
“Nothing will happen if you do as I say. Just
looked on in blank stupefaction—then Brant
remember the passengers.”
leaped into action and charged forward.
“Well, what do you want?” Brant Anderson came behind him like a whirlwind.
snapped, glancing helplessly at his own ray-
In the space of a minute the main
tube in its rack.
stateroom was a tumbled mass of fighting,
“Complete control of the ship. You are
battling figures. Ray-tubes flashed
to obey my orders. Everybody is covered; I’m
dangerously, men and women fell. When at
warning you. You’re going down below where
last it was over the figures of Benson,
we’ve been. You know the work down there.
Newton, and another man named Mason rose
I’m giving orders from now on—”
up from the carnage, blood-streaked and
Blackie broke off with a sudden start at
victorious figures, gazing down on the dead
the sound of the scream from the corridor
bodies of Captain Brant and Anderson, and
outside. He took a step back, glanced in the others who had been mowed down in their amazement, then looked back into the cabin.
efforts at escape.
“Brant, forget my demands for the
“So that’s how it is,” Benson muttered
moment,” he said curtly. “You know I’m only
thickly. “All right—so be it. You men”—he
aiming at getting justice. Some dirty skunk
glared savagely at a half dozen first-class
among that rabble of mine has betrayed me.
passengers— “can get your coats off and find
Come on!”
out what it’s like controlling the rocket-tubes.
Instantly Brant and Anderson seized
You others, will stay here for the time being,
their weapons and followed the cursing and don’t attempt any moves if you want to Blackie from the control chamber. They came
live to get back to Earth. Come on, you two!”
upon a scene that caused Blackie mercilessly
He made a motion to his two surviving
to level his weapon for action. The rocket
comrades and they strode off to the control
crew, seizing upon their mistaken idea of cabin.
liberty, was completely out of hand, forcing
the shouting, furious passengers back into the
ONCE within they looked at each other
main stateroom. Those who were protesting
dubiously.
were not asked twice; ray-tubes mercilessly
“Clever enough,” commented Newton
mowed them down.
presently. “But how do you figure on living it
“Stop, damn you!” Blackie thundered.
down? Nine rocket hands, the captain and sub-
“Stop, you blasted space rats, or by—”
pilot, and some two dozen passengers—all
“Justice!” roared a voice, that of killed. We dare not return to Earth with all Arnold Benson, perhaps one of the most those dead.”
fractious members of the rocket crew.
“We’re not going to,” Benson growled.
“Justice! You were going to give us that,
“We’re going on to Mars and there we’ll
Blackie! Betray us more likely! We’re taking
become heroes. There was a mutiny—Blackie
what we can get and no questions—”
Grednow started it. We got things under
“Not while I’m in charge!” Blackie
control after a hard fight. The passengers
Brain of Venus
5
won’t talk, they’re too scared. Leave It to me.”
face faded as a shadow fell across the treasure.
“Say, do you realize that we’re nearly
He looked up sharply. Benson was
five thousand miles off our course?” immediately behind him, grim, rugged, cruel.
demanded Mason, turning from the route-
“So, you blasted rat, this is how you
checkers. “While that fight lasted we drifted—
fix the passengers, eh?” Benson asked slowly,
”
grinning viciously. “I come here to look for
“Then don’t waste time talking. Give
Brant’s charting directions, and I find you’ve
orders to those idiots down below to fire the
cleaned out the safe! All right—you’re
off-tubes. We’re drifting—and quickly.” finished!”
Benson glared through the observation
“Wait!” Newton implored hoarsely, as
window. Far away to the left hung the argent
Benson whirled him toward the emergency
ball of Venus, blazing silently through space.
space chamber. “Wait! I’ll do anything you
Through an immense arc lay Mars, miles out
want! Anything—”
of the charted deadline.
“You’ll do nothing!” Benson retorted,
“Sure you know how to chart the and with a tremendous shove sent the luckless course?” Newton asked.
Newton sprawling into the space chamber. A
“Of course I do.”
second afterward the heavy sealing door
“All right then—I’ll go and get the
closed, accomplishing two things. The closing
passengers and crew to work. You and Mason
of the door dropped the screaming Newton
can look after things here. Join you later.”
into the infinite void of space, reduced him
Newton departed, but not toward the
instantly to a tiny, frozen satellite of the space passengers locked in the stateroom. Instead he
ship itself. Used only for emergency
stole softly down the deserted promenade explorations in a space suit, or for repairs, the deck until he arrived at the dead Brant’s cabin.
space chamber was a death trap to anyone
Softly he opened the door and went inside.
unprotected.
Within a moment he had slid aside the
For a moment Benson stood gazing at
partition that concealed the regulation safe;
the hoard on the table, then he swung round as
with a grim smile on his face he leveled his
Mason came rushing in. The man took no
ray-tube.
notice of the treasure; his expression was one
“First come, first served,” he of utter terror.
commented thoughtfully, as he watched the
heavy door drip to molten metal beneath the
Taking care to avoid the hot metal edges he
reached inside and drew forth the contents.
The brain of Lu Sang he laid on the
table after a casual glance at it. To him it was worthless. There were other things of greater
Import. A cargo of precious stones from New
“Benson, unless we can chart the
York’s most lucrative coffers; a medicinal course we’re sunk!” he shouted desperately.
shrub of immense value for planting on Mars;
“Those damned fools down below don’t
money to the value of fifty thousand dollars in
understand rocketry. We’re being pulled
notes.
aside—we’re within the gravitational field of
Newton chuckled and rubbed his hands
Venus. Haven’t you found Brant’s charting
as he took stock. Then the broad smile on his
Thrilling Wonder Stories
6
sheets anywhere?”
Faster. . . .
“No.” Benson set his jaw. “I can’t
Until at last the space liner hit the
chart a course, Mason; I thought I could. I’m
outermost edges of the Venusian atmosphere,
only a rocket roan, not a navigator. Hell, if
screamed with unholy speed through it, and
only Brant had not been killed!”
crashed at last with terrific, buckling force
“Newton! What about him? H« knows
into an immense mountain.
more than most.”
“He won’t be able to help us,” Benson
answered slowly, and cast an unnoticed glance
CHAPTER II
out of the window at the frozen grey spot that