No 4 $4.50 , Toles of Scientif iction Adventures 'frStar Pirate battles the murder monsters of Mercury P l a n e t A \ s v Monorail to Eternity by Carl Jacobi Number Four Agril 1988 CONTENTS The Control Room 2 Monorail to Eternity................... Carl Jacobi 3 Condemned by the Rulers of an alien world to endless, aimless flight beneath the planet's surface! Planet in Peril Lin Carter 27 Star Pirate battles the murder monsters of Mer c u r y ! Zeppelins of the V o i d .............. Jason Rainbow 43 Can even galactic vigilante Solar Smith de­ feat the pernicious pirates of space? What Hath M e ? ........................ Henry Kuttner 55 He felt the lifeblood being sucked out of him— deeper stabbled the gelid cold . then the voice came, "Crush the heart!" Ethergrams........................................... 77 We've got quite a crew assembled some years back for the ill-starred here for our latest madcap mission pulp Spicy Zeppelin Stories before into make-believe mayhem! Me, I'm that mag folded. Alas! Finally, Captain Astro, and my trusty crew our terrific "Tales from the Time- of raygun-slingers are just itching Warp" features Henry Kuttner's "What to see some extraterrestrial action. Hath Me?," a neglected classic from Let me introduce you. First off, Planet Stories. Thanks to space- there's Carl Jacobi, veteral of pulps hounds Robert Weinberg who suggested from Startling Stories to Comet Sci­ this one and Dan Gobbett who dredged ence Fiction, bringing you this time up a copy for us! With a team like another atom-smashing epic from his this, I'm sure you'll agree that old space-trunk, "Monorail to Eter­ Astro-Adventures #4 is just the sec­ nity." Then galactic goodguy Lin ret weapon we need to save the uni­ Carter fires off another swashbuckle verse from the clutches of scheming starring Star Pirate, today's man aliens and plotting mad scientist of tomorrow, this one called "Planet masterminds! Will you join us? in Peril." Rollicking rocketeer Jason Rainbow contributes "Zeppelins of the Void," a tale first written Captain A s t r o MONORAIL TO ETERNITY by Carl Jacobi Condemned by the Rulers of an alien world to end­ less , aimless flight beneath the planet's surface! My Lord Chancellor was a pitiless The Chancellor languidly brushed man, hawkfaced, with little gimlet his lips with a plum-colored ker­ eyes that gazed upon me with bored chief. complacency. He took a pinch of "I sentence you to thirty years azaf in his high gilded box over­ on the monorail, and may the horrors looking the Royal Mercurian Court of The Core lead you to repentance and waved me forward. A moment later for your crime." I stood on the dais for the con­ Thirty years! What mockery of demned as a hush fell over the court­ trial was this that could condemn room. a man for something he did not under­ "Prisoner, you have been tried stand, let alone commit? Blind rage and found guilty of treason against seized me. I gripped the rail and the Oligarchy of Mercury. Have you shook my fist. "I'm innocent!" I anything to say?" shouted. "Innocent, do you hear?" Tense, dry-lipped, I looked up The Chancellor regarded me emo- into that bland face in silence. tionlessly and nodded again. Hands 3 4 / Astro-Adventures gripped my arms. Two saffon—clad a bachelor. I lived alone in guards dragged me out of the court­ third-tier apartment in the capita room, now a babel of confusion, down city of Umbra, and my only entertain­ a corridor and into a narrow cubile ment was my books. at the far end. One of the guards Up until that time I had nursed said, a promise that as soon as my savings "You leave in an hour. If you were sufficient I would quit Mercury have any last messages to write, take passage on one of the liners do it now." and begin anew on Mars or Venus where The door thudded shut, and an freedom still prevailed. But in overhead light went on, bathing the 3437 the Residence Manifesto was cubicle in a merciless violet glare. proclaimed, forbidding any citizen I slumped down on the bare settee to leave the planet, and I realized and buried my head in my hands. Thir­ my future was sealed. ty years . ! This then was my life until twen­ It wasn't possible. All this ty-six days ago. must be some wild dream from whose In the Bureau of Standards it phantasmagoria I would awake pres­ was my work to correlate the daily ently to laugh at my fears. But reports of the various utility organ­ no, the bare fibrex walls, the glar­ izations throughout the city. One ing light attested only too well morning as I was laboriously going to reality. Nervous reaction came through a stack of registries I came then, and I sat there in a kind of upon a square sheet of blue paper. stupor, conscious only of the hammer­ In the upper left corner was the ing of my heart. printed design of a comet against At the end of half an hour I got the background of a double circle. up, drank a cup of water from the And across the middle of the sheet urn on the table and took hold of was written: M. DAINLEY, YOUR APPLI­ myself. In slow deliberate retros­ CATION HAS BEEN' ACCEPTED. STAND pection I went over each detail of BY FOR ORDERS. this passing chain of events, vainly Though I must confess to having seeking an answer to it all. paid little attention to the visi reports during recent months, the My name is Mark Dainley. I was significance of that design suddenly born on Earth of Earth parentage, struck me hard. It was the emblem but moved at an early age to this for the Club of Revolt, a vague and planet nearer the sun. My father shadowy society dedicated in some was a Salvage-Ratio clerk, class uncertain way to the overthrow of 3, which is to say he had advanced the Oligarchy. Who were its leaders as far as he could in the complicated or members, no one knew, but the social strata of this shadow-belt government had issued stern warnings civilization. In 3412 my father against anyone possessing or distrib­ died, and being the eldest son, I uting its literature. followed custom and took over his And yet this paper bore my name. position in the governmental Bureau What did it mean? of Standards. A fellow clerk came forward then, For ten years I worked in this and I thrust the paper aside. But manner, and although I had once vowed on the morrow, hidden as before in I would never be shackled by the a stack of reports was a second mes“ monotony which the Mercurian over­ sage. Here again I saw my name and lords imposed on their citizens, read: PROCEED ACCORDING TO PLAN AND I gradually found myself settling ADVISE US ACCORDINGLY. down into my accepted social groove. It is strange what a man, con At the age of thirty-five I was still fronted by something he d o e s n ' t un Monorail to Eternity / 5 derstand, will do. By all manner vealing an iron cage suspended from of logic I should have reported the a cable. matter to the Chief Technician. Or We took our places, and with a failing that, I should have destroyed lurch the cage began to descend, the papers. I did neither. I placed slowly at first, then with breath­ them in an envelope and hid that taking speed. Blood pounded at my envelope in an inner drawer of my temples and my stomach reeled with desk. nausea. Enclosed lifts with hydro- In this fashion six different auricular stabilizers were of course communications made their appearance. common to Umbra, but no such luxur­ It was as I was reading the last ies were afforded the prisoners. that a shadow fell over my desk, An hour— a nightmare hour— passed and I looked up to face the accusing before the cage jarred to a stand­ eye of the Chief Technician. still before a lighted platform. The rest is confusion. I remember In a chained-off area were some two but vaguely the details of my arrest. dozen prisoners, prisoners like my­ All my denials were sneered at, and self guilty of offenses against the when in stubborn defiance I refused government. The majority were second to procure a defense-pleader, one and third class Earthmen, but a few was appointed for me by the state. were Venusians, and three were wafer­ That trial ran the gamut of hys­ headed high-caste Martians. Each terical oratory. The six messages bore the look of despair and resig­ were exhibited as evidence. But nation that I knew must be mirrored more than that— and here I could by my own face. Saffron-clad drag­ only close my eyes and wonder— wit­ oons looked on stoically. ness after witness came forward to But the thing that caught my gaze verify treasonable remarks which was the long tube-shaped monster the inquisitors put in my mouth. drawn up at the edge of the platform Now at length it was over with — the monorail in which I was to a single detail clear in my mind. make endless circumnavigations of I was but a key in a larger plan Mercury fifty miles beneath its still shrouded in secrecy.