INVADERS of the FORBIDDEN MOON by Raymond Z

»»« Tales ot Scientifiction S’ ----------------------- CONTENTS ----------------------- The Control Room................................... 2 Philosopher's Asteroid............................ 3 by Raymond Z. Gallun Invaders of the Forbidden M o o n ...................11 by Raymond Z. Gallun Beyond the Worlds We Know (Part I I ) ............39 by Lin Carter Captain Future: Yesterday's Man of Tomorrow . 53 by Will Murray Glad you're back from the de-contam- from the Time-Warp, Gallun's "Inva ination lab! We're more careful ders of the Forbidden Moon," re here since that nasty episode with trieved from its hiding place in the Venusian viral plague some the Summer 1941 Planet Stories by space-happy dope brought back from reprint editor Dan Gobbett. a mission some years ago— you remem Captain Astro is very sad to ber, the one that gave everybody tell you spacehounds that Part II a nauseated feeling whenever they of "Beyond the Worlds We Know" is touched a science fiction magazine! the very last Star Pirate adventure Wouldn't want that to happen again! written by Lin Carter before his Nossir! Well, now you're ready untimely death. So Star Pirate's to relax with the latest issue saga will remain unfinished, even . let's see, what're we up to though we are printing the "next now? Six? Yeah, that's it, number time" blurb Lin wrote at the end six of Astro-Adventures. of the story. We will have some The star of our nova-studded interesting Star Pirate and Hautley show this time is Raymond "Galactic" Quicksilver marginalia from Lin's Gallun, whose work you've seen in old spacetrunk to share with you the exciting pages of Astounding next time, though. Stories, Super Science Stories, Any veteran of the spacelanes Marvel Science Fiction, and of will be able to recognize that Star course Astro-Adventures among many Pirate is a sort of literary rein others. This time Captain Astro's carnation of both Captain Future unveiling "Philosopher's Asteroid," and Northwest Smith. So it is only a 1952 tale which has not seen star fitting to share with you Will Mur light until now, though it was a ray's article "Captain Future: Yes forerunner to Gallun's novelette terday's Man of Tomorrow." A slight "Ten to the Stars," as well as the ly different version of this article basis for his novel The Planet appeared five years ago in Comics Strappers. It is hard to get enough Buyers Guide. Gallun, so we'll satisfy your whet ted appetite with this issue's Tale Captain Astro PHILOSOPHER’S ASTERIOD by Raymond Z. Gallun The Harmon Fission Jet Motor took ments, a house, kids— the benefits space travel away from the scient of ancient domesticity— against ists and gave it to almost anybody an appalling bigness, and chose. who had the guts, a thousand dollars He was a fool, smart, or just anoth for this cheap, safe power-unit, er tame puppy for a woman. and another thousand to build a Norensen grinned at him gently, small ship with government-subsid wished him luck, but sneered with ized materials. his eyes, as did the others. But To Gerhard (Gerry) Norensen, Rollins' passing had done something a loose-jointed blond Iowan, this to him. seemed a wonderful glamor-tinted "I'll take to space slow," he opportunity, as to thousands of told Dorfer, Smythe, and Frisby, other young men. Wider horizons who meant to go to the rich mines and new sources of supply were with of the Asteroids. "Like some guys in reach. There was dusty old Mars, going into cold water. Maybe it's steaming Venus, and the wonders safer. I'll go just to the Moon, of the Asteroids— those fragments first— the nearest of other worlds." of a once populous world that had His reasoning wasn't all that been blown apart eons ago in war. it promised. By just going to the Norensen was one of eight Univ Moon he picked as his companion ersity seniors who worked all winter Parkins, the Momma's Boy and studi during their spare time, in an old ous screwball, and Mosser who had garage building, to complete their a special affinity for bad luck. homemade ships. Guys who felt that they had to go Rollins, an ex-combat flier, slow, too. The trouble was that test-flew his craft first. Maybe the ill-fortune of such buddies his automatic piloting device went could rub off on yourself. wrong. What happened shouldn't Norensen would not have worked have happened, and nobody ever found on the Moon for more than two out the real cause. But Rollins' months, except that Mosser— it would craft buried him and its wreckage be Mosser— was caught in a blast fifty feet deep in a potato patch while helping to bore a new tunnel, when it came down. Goodbye Rollins, and lost both of his legs. He had hero and leader of the group, strong no one to be sent home to. How man to look up to, prop of their could you desert him then? courage. He was fixed up right there in But Reiner, the motorcycle enthu the sealed underground lunar hos siast, was the only one to back pital. Fine platinum wires tapped out. He came to the workshop with the motor-nerves in his stumps; a dark, fiery little miss who cov and his new legs, thawed with steel ered his guilty embarrassment with cables that were powered by magnets her fury, saying: drawing current from small atomic "Dick is through with nonsense. batteries, responded to his will We're gonna be married." as readily as if they were alive. So Dick Reiner hid behind a But all this took another two skirt; or he balanced tender mo months. 3 4 / Astro-Adventures Parkins meanwhile developed the miles up on Earth, dry, and only habit of muttering to himself about tinged with oxygen. The crossing sucht hings as active lunar volcan valleys— once ribbons of cultivated oes a billion and a half years ago. land, misnamed "canals"— brooded Good Glory, what did a dreamy, book enigmatically under a shrunken but ish, sheltered kid like him want brilliant sun. Their flat floors, living the harsh, artificial exis cluttered with rust-stained mono tence of the underground Mooncamps, liths and clumps of paper-dry shag- anyhow? How had his mother ever trees and pulpy blue-green sprawl- let him leave the Earth for the ers, extended away to the brown airless lunar scene in the first hills of the desert. place? Norensen had met her once— Here was the hardy plant-life small like her son, and harder than of Mars, storing scant moisture you’d think. within itself, hoarding even the As he tired of the novelty of oxygen it freed from carbon-dioxide brittle stars and jagged mountains, by photosynthesis, the common pro Norensen wished a million times cess of green vegetation everywhere that he’d gone on to the equally — keeping it to sustain slow tissue- harsh Asteroids with Dorfer, Symthe, oxidation to ward off nocturnal and Frisby. For the promise, there, cold. was richer; there was the charm, Out of the cluster of airtight even, of the artifacts of a smashed Nisson huts that was Cross Valleys, civilization, drifting in the void. the paths radiated, trampled by He felt outpaced, left behind, a spaceboots. Here, people— young stick in the mud. The Asteroids men, mostly— were following some were pieces of a broken planet, restless and wordless poem in their and one knew the structure of all hearts, seeking wealth in some odd worlds: way, perhaps, or a mood of strange The lighter rocks on the surface, uninhabited spaciousness. Who knew? much meteoric steel underneath; But the overall purpose, of course, then, sunk to the center, the really was to build Mars into something heavy stuff— lead, gold, uranium, useful to humans. in quantities once only dreamed It would have been almost impos of. Out there it was exposed for sible to avoid a job. In a pressur easy mining— as intriguing as the ized restaurant where beer was five wreckage of an unhuman culture. bucks a glass, luck turned poisonous Norensen tried to sneak out on for Norensen and his companions, Mosser and Parkins. But when he though they didn't know it then. cleared the Moon the blue jets of A man who said he had been a profes their ships were tailing him. sor of English literature, and look They didn't get anywhere near ed the part, talked to them. the Asteroid Belt. Mosser was still That night, while the cold bit jinxed. A brace broke in his ship deep and the stars blazed in the and punctured the hull. By luck black sky, they rode two hundred he was wearing a spacesuit. His miles in the sealed cabin of a trac buddies towed his craft nineteen tor vehicle. Coffrin, their new million miles to Cross Valleys, employer, had even helped them find Ma r s . storage space for their ships, in They should have got off that Cross Valleys. planet as fast as possible. But By dawn they were in a camp of Parkins said, "Let's stick around low barracks at the foot of a bluff awhile." that had once been crested by a They were all charmed by Mars, Martian metropolis that had per though mostly it was still a death- ished ages ago, perhaps in less hole. The atmosphere was like nine than a minute. Buildings had been Philosopher’s Asteroid / 5 melted down to glassy slag.

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