Produced by Greg Weeks, Katherine Ward, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net ASTOUNDING STORIES OF SUPER-SCIENCE _On Sale the First Thursday of Each Month_ W. M. CLAYTON, Publisher HARRY BATES, Editor DR. DOUGLAS M. DOLD, Consulting Editor The Clayton Standard on a Magazine Guarantees _That_ the stories therein are clean, interesting, vivid, by leading writers of the day and purchased under conditions approved by the Authors' League of America; _That_ such magazines are manufactured in Union shops by American workmen; _That_ each newsdealer and agent is insured a fair profit; _That_ an intelligent censorship guards their advertising pages. _The other Clayton magazines are_: ACE-HIGH MAGAZINE, RANCH ROMANCES, COWBOY STORIES, CLUES, FIVE NOVELS MONTHLY, ALL STAR DETECTIVE STORIES, RANGELAND LOVE STORY MAGAZINE, WESTERN ADVENTURES, and WESTERN LOVE STORIES. _More than Two Million Copies Required to Supply the Monthly Demand for Clayton Magazines._ VOL. IV, No. 3 CONTENTS DECEMBER, 1930 COVER DESIGN H. W. WESSOLOWSKI _Painted in Oils from a Scene in "The Ape-Men of Xlotli."_ SLAVES OF THE DUST SOPHIE WENZEL ELLIS 295 _Fate's Retribution Was Adequate. There Emerged a Rat with a Man's Head and Face._ THE PIRATE PLANET CHARLES W. DIFFIN 310 _It is War. Interplanetary War. And on Far-Distant Venus Two Fighting Earthlings Stand Up Against a Whole Planet Run Amuck._ (Part Two of a Four-Part Novel.) THE SEA TERROR CAPTAIN S. P. MEEK 336 _The Trail of Mystery Gold Leads Carnes and Dr. Bird to a Tremendous Monster of the Deep._ GRAY DENIM HARL VINCENT 354 _The Blood of the Van Dorn's Ran in Karl's Veins. He Rode the Skies Like an Avenging God._ THE APE-MEN OF XLOTLI DAVID R. SPARKS 370 _A Beautiful Face in the Depths of a Geyser--and Kirby Plunges into a Desperate Mid-Earth Conflict with the Dreadful Feathered Serpent._ (A Complete Novelette.) THE READERS' CORNER ALL OF US 421 _A Meeting place for Readers of Astounding Stories._ * * * * * Single Copies, 20 Cents (In Canada, 25 Cents) Yearly Subscription, $2.00 Issued monthly by Readers' Guild, Inc., 80 Lafayette St., New York, N.Y. W. M. Clayton, President; Francis P. Pace, 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. Crow & Co., Inc., 25 Vanderbilt Ave., New York; or 225 North Michigan Ave., Chicago. * * * * * Slaves of the Dust _By Sophie Wenzel Ellis_