Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930Various
Science
Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930
Various
Science fiction -- Periodicals; Science fiction, American -- Periodicals
Single Copies, 20 Cents (In Canada, 25 Cents) Yearly Subscription,
$2.00
Issued monthly by Publishers' Fiscal Corporation, 80 Lafayette St.,
New York, N. Y. W. M. Clayton, President; Nathan Goldmann, Secretary.
Entered as second-class matter December 7, 1929, at the Post Office at
New York, N. Y., under Act of March 3, 1879. Title registered as a
Trade Mark in the U. S. Patent Office. Member Newsstand Group--Men's
List. For advertising rates address E. R. Crowe & Co., Inc., 25
Vanderbilt Ave., New York; or 225 North Michigan Ave., Chicago.
* * * * *
The Planet of Dread
_By R. F. Starzl_
[Illustration: _This time Forepaugh was ready for it._]
[Sidenote: A stupid blunder--and Mark Forepaugh faces a life of
castaway loneliness in the savage welter of the planet Inra's
monster-ridden jungles.]
There was no use hiding from the truth. Somebody had blundered--a
fatal blunder--and they were going to pay for it! Mark Forepaugh
kicked the pile of hydrogen cylinders. Only a moment ago he had broken
the seals--the mendacious seals that certified to the world that the
flasks were fully charged. And the flasks were empty! The supply of
this precious power gas, which in an emergency should have been
sufficient for six years, simply did not exist.
He walked over to the integrating machine, which as early as the year
2031 had begun to replace the older atomic processes, due to the
shortage of the radium series metals. It was bulky and heavy compared
to the atomic disintegrators, but it was much more economical and very
dependable. Dependable--provided some thick-headed stock clerk at a
terrestrial supply station did not check in empty hydrogen cylinders
instead of full ones. Forepaugh's unwonted curses brought a smile to
the stupid, good-natured face of his servant, Gunga--he who had been
banished for life from his native Mars for his impiety in closing his
single round eye during the sacred Ceremony of the Wells.
The Earth man was at this steaming hot, unhealthful trading station
under the very shadow of the South Pole of the minor planet Inra for
an entirely different reason. One of the most popular of his set on
the Earth, an athletic hero, he had fallen in love, and the devoutly
wished-for marriage was only prevented by lack of funds. The
opportunity to take charge of this richly paid, though dangerous,
outpost of civilization had been no sooner offered than taken. In
another week or two the relief ship was due to take him and his
valuable collection of exotic Inranian orchids back to the Earth, back
to a fat bonus, Constance, and an assured future.
It was a different young man who now stood tragically before the
useless power plant. His slim body was bowed, and his clean features
were drawn. Grimly he raked the cooling dust that had been forced in
the integrating chamber by the electronic rearrangement of the
original hydrogen atoms--finely powdered iron and silicon--the "ashes"
of the last tank of hydrogen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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