The 47th Golden Age of Science Fiction
Chester S. Geier
Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT INFO
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
ABOUT THE SERIES
RECOMMEND A FAVORITE STORY?
TYPOS
Dynamite Planet
The Beacons Must Burn
The FIRE GLOBE
Battle in Eternity
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
The Bottle
Needle Me Not
The Gods of Madness
Gods Under Glass
Outlaw in the Sky
The Floating Lords
The Astral Exile
Amazing New Discoveries of Ancient Egypt
Bewitched Apartment in Cincinnati
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COPYRIGHT INFO
The 47th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK®: Chester S. Geier (Vol. 5) is copyright © 2018 by Wildside Press, LLC. All rights reserved.
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The MEGAPACK® ebook series name is a trademark of Wildside Press, LLC. All rights reserved.
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“Dynamite Planet” originally published in Amazing Stories, October 1949.
“The Beacons Must Burn” originally published in Fantastic Adventures, October 1949.
“The Fire Globe” originally published in Amazing Stories, October 1949.
“Battle in Eternity” originally published in Amazing Stories, November 1949.
“The Bottle” originally published in Fantastic Adventures, December 1949.
“Needle Me Not” was originally published in Fantastic Adventures, November 1952.
“The Gods of Madness” was originally published in Fantastic Adventures, January 1953.
“Gods Under Glass” was originally published in Fantastic Adventures, February 1953.
“Outlaw in the Sky” was originally published in Amazing Stories, February 1953.
“The Floating Lords” was originally published in Amazing Stories, February 1953.
“The Astral Exile” was originally published in Mystic Magazine, November 1953.
“Amazing New Discoveries of Ancient Egypt” & “Bewitched Apartment in Cincinnati” was originally published in Fate Magazine, September 1954.
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
Chester S. Geier (1921-1990) was a U.S. author and editor whose first work, “A Length of Rope” appeared in Unknown in April 1941. Editor Ray Palmer recruited him to write for the Ziff-Davis group of pulp magazines, where he became a frequent contributor to Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures, and less frequently to mystery and western pulps. He published under his own name and several pseudonyms, including Guy Archette, Alexander Blade, P F Costello, Warren Kastel, S M Tenneshaw, Gerald Vance and Peter Worth.
This volume collects 13 more of his classic science fiction and fantasy stories Enjoy!
—John Betancourt
Publisher, Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidepress.com
ABOUT THE SERIES
Over the last few years, our MEGAPACK® ebook series has grown to be our most popular endeavor. (Maybe it helps that we sometimes offer them as premiums to our mailing list!) One question we keep getting asked is, “Who’s the editor?”
The MEGAPACK® ebook series (except where specifically credited) are a group effort. Everyone at Wildside works on them. This includes John Betancourt (me), Carla Coupe, Steve Coupe, Shawn Garrett, Helen McGee, Bonner Menking, Sam Cooper, Helen McGee and many of Wildside’s authors . . . who often suggest stories to include (and not just their own!)
RECOMMEND A FAVORITE STORY?
Do you know a great classic science fiction story, or have a favorite author whom you believe is perfect for the MEGAPACK® ebook series? We’d love your suggestions! You can post them on our message board at http://wildsidepress.forumotion.com/ (there is an area for Wildside Press comments).
Note: we only consider stories that have already been professionally published. This is not a market for new works.
TYPOS
Unfortunately, as hard as we try, a few typos do slip through. We update our ebooks periodically, so make sure you have the current version (or download a fresh copy if it’s been sitting in your ebook reader for months.) It may have already been updated.
If you spot a new typo, please let us know. We’ll fix it for everyone. You can email the publisher at [email protected] or use the message boards above.
Dynamite Planet
“HOLD TIGHT!” Steve Pearce gasped. “We’re going to crash any second now!”
Phineas T. Billings nodded weakly in his seat beside Pearce. His round, normally ruddy face was pale and unhappy.
The little two-passenger rocket sportster was arrowing down at a flat, low angle toward the vivid green and yellow surface of the Venusian jungle, scant hundreds of feet below. Already the towering vegetation was swelling in size and detail.
In a mixture of disgust and helpless despair, Steve Pearce waited as the catastrophe rushed to a climax. His long, spare body was pressed tensely against the safety straps that held him into his thickly cushioned seat. Through narrowed eyes he watched the swift descent of the sportster.
Bright foliage was a fantastic, undulating sea beneath the craft. And then there were slapping sounds as the topmost leaves and fronds whipped against the hull and wings.
“This is it!” Pearce said tautly.
Billings gulped and his features became a shade whiter. He closed his eyes and gripped the arms of his seat, his plump form quivering with dread.
The sportster was knifing into the lush vegetation amid a furious crackling, ripping, and pounding. One of the blunt wings locked with the upper boughs of a tree, and the craft whirled around in a dizzy half-circle. Despite their safety straps and the cushioning springs of their seats, Pearce and Billings were shaken violently.
The sportster had tilted crazily in its spin, and now the other wing plowed into the ground, raising a cloud of rich black earth before it crumpled like paper. Then the fuselage hit, rolling over and over until it was stopped by a brush-covered rise of ground.
Several seconds passed before Pearce accepted the realization that he and Billings had come through the crash in one piece. He shook his head to throw off the dizziness and nausea rising in him. From his nose ran a trickle of blood. Every muscle of his body ached with pain.
Movement was torture, but Pearce managed to summon the strength to unbuckle his safety straps. Billings was unconscious. An older man, he had been unable to completely withstand the force of the crash landing. Pearce freed him, then struggled erect.
The sportster was lying on one side, the rear end tilted up and resting upon the rise. Pearce had considerable difficulty in opening the cabin door, both because of the position of the craft and the distorting stresses to which it had been subjected. He crawled to the ground outside, then reached in to pull Billings after him. Finally he leaned against the dented hull in exhaustion.
After a while he recovered sufficiently to take stock of his surroundings. The rocket, he saw, rested against one
of a number of rises which ascended toward a line of rounded hills in the near distance. He remembered having seen a broad, deep valley from the air when the craft had so mysteriously gone out of control and started downward. He and Billings apparently had crashed near the valley’s upper end.
The scene was one of wild, primeval beauty. Great trees and plants grew everywhere, though they were less profuse here than deeper down in the valley. Their vivid, unearthly hues mingled in a riot of color. Overhead was the eternally cloudy sky of Venus—cloudy, yet containing a pearly brilliance not seen under similar conditions on Earth. The air was hot and humid, laden with exotic odors.
Pearce found no pleasure in what he saw. For all his and Billings’ narrow escape from death, they were in a position equivalent to a jump from the frying pan into the fire. Between them and the city of New Chicago lay more than a hundred miles of dangerous jungle country—swamps, poisonous insects, and animals that might have been taken from the dawn age of Earth itself.
Some little hope, however, lay in the possibility that he and Billings might run across a tribe of Venusian natives. For a promise of sufficient reward, the natives would guide them to an Interplanetary Ranger outpost, where a rocket would take them back to civilization.
But, Pearce remembered with an abrupt chill, if the natives happened to be unfriendly, he and Billings would very likely become a pair of painted skeletons decorating some grass-hut temple.
Pearce glanced at the wreckage beside him and frowned in bewilderment. It seemed impossible to explain how the disaster had come about. The demonstration flight he had been giving Billings in the sportster had gone well up to the point where he had started on the return trip to New Chicago. Then the propulsion mechanism had suddenly ceased functioning, and Pearce had been forced to land. He’d had time to study the instruments, though, and they had showed that the atomic drive unit had gone into an emergency condition—that is, had been dampened into uselessness. Only with a complete replacement of the pile ingredients would the unit function again.
PEARCE couldn’t understand how it had happened. He knew the mechanism of the sportster as well as he knew his own face, and in addition he had checked over everything carefully before the flight. It seemed incredible that the sportster could have been faulty. He wouldn’t have taken the job as salesman with Nova Rockets if he had suspected that the firm put out an inferior product.
Pearce shook his head bitterly. This would have to pop up—after he’d had a contract with Billings in the bag. Phineas T. Billings had come to Venus to open up a freighting business, and Pearce had interested him in the Nova line of freight rockets. Billings had come through with a large order, and Pearce told himself he should have been content with that. Instead he had gotten ambitious and had led Billings to consider buying the sportster, one of Nova Rockets’ latest models. He wished now that he hadn’t talked the other into the demonstration flight. It had ruined everything.
A large order from Billings would have been the turning point in his career, Pearce knew. But it was certain now that Billings would develop a terrific phobia toward rockets in general and Nova Rockets in particular. Billings was sure to cancel all the arrangements that had been made. And chances for future orders were as remote as Earth itself.
Glumly Pearce thought about his job. He was washed up, of course. He had been hoping to make a lot of money fast, so as to open up a business of his own. Venus was booming, and opportunities were everywhere—but they took capital. It had taken his entire savings t pay his passage to the planet. As a salesman, backing the right product, he could have earned enough from commissions to open up an outfit of his own within a short time.
Billings moaned and stirred, raising a hand feebly toward his head. Pearce bent down and helped the other to a sitting position.
“Where . . . where are we?” Billings muttered. “What happened?”
Still thinking of the damage to his personal plans, Pearce was edgy. “We’re in a particularly unhealthy section of Venus, and the fact that we crashed is painfully obvious,” he answered, his tone curt.
Billings glanced about him and stiffened: “Young man, do you realize that you came close to killing me?” he snapped.
Pearce shrugged dismally. “It wasn’t my fault. If the blame lies anywhere, it’s with Nova Rockets. You can sue the company for false pretenses, putting out a dangerously inferior product, or anything else you can think of. But leave me out of it.”
Scowling, Billings glanced about him again. “How are we going to get back to New Chicago?” he demanded.
“Walk, of course.”
“What! Why . . . why, it’ll take days—weeks! My business will go to ruin!”
Feeling decidedly unsympathetic, Pearce straightened. “Don’t worry about it,” he advised. “We might not get back anyway.”
TURNING back to the sportster, Pearce climbed into the cabin. In the storage compartment he found the emergency pack which was included as standard equipment on demonstration flights. This contained concentrated rations for two, a supply of water, a first aid kit, cigarettes, waterproof blankets, a flashlight, signal flares, a machete, and a pneumatic pistol with a belt and holster. Pearce nodded grimly over this last article. It would decidedly come in handy—at least as long as the ammunition held out.
He returned to Billings. “Well, let’s get going. If we expect to get anywhere, we might as well start now.”
“But where can we go?” the other asked in disgust.
Pearce pointed in the general direction of New Chicago. “That way. It’s as good as any.”
Billings looked at the bright, bizarre jungle that lay ahead of them. He shivered, “Have you read Into the Jungles of Venus by Paul Torrance, the explorer?” he asked Pearce.
“Nope,” Pearce said, lighting a cigarette. “Why?”
Billings shivered again. “It was highly . . . uhm . . . well, graphic. The animals, and the natives . . . .” His voice trailed off into gloomy suggestion.
“If Torrance got out of the jungles in one piece, maybe we can do it, too,” Pearce grunted. He buckled on the pneumatic and shouldered the pack. “Come on.”
With Billings trotting fearfully beside him, Pearce started off into the jungle. His every sense was pitched alertly, and his hand remained close to the butt of the pneumatic at his hip.
The going was difficult from the first. The ground was rough, rising and falling sharply, and covered everywhere with tenacious plant life of every description. Huge trees crowded one almost upon the other, and between them were great ferns and mushroom-like growths. Thick vines hung from every available support, like enormous spider webs, at points almost solidly interlaced.
Pearce and Billings fought their way through the jungle slowly, sometimes hacking a path through the growth with the machete, sometimes completely detouring dense walls of brush. Frequently they crouched in hiding while one or more of the huge and savage reptilian denizens of the jungle waddled ponderously by. Numerous smaller and more timid creatures scuttled from their path at every turn.
After several hours of almost continuous progress they reached a low hill, broad and covered with mossy rocks, which was situated near the point in the valley wall toward which they were moving. Billings seated himself wearily upon one of the rocks, while Pearce strode a short distance away, anxious to determine the distance and difficulties that lay ahead. He knew they had to keep moving. There could be no rest while the dangers of the jungle surrounded them. Only when they had reached the comparative safety of the hills forming the valley wall would they be able to make camp and rest awhile.
A yell brought Pearce whirling around Billings’ voice, he realized in the next instant, laden with shock and fright. Gripping the pneumatic, he ran back to where he had left the other.
He found Billings struggling frantically with a winged monstrosity that remotely resembled a prehistoric pterodactyl of Earth. The creature had its talons locked in Billings’ jacket and was flailing at the man’s face wi
th its leathery wings.
PEARCE ran close, darted in, and triggered the pneumatic at point-blank range. The winged reptile screamed shrilly. It released Billings and flapped away drunkenly, a trail of blood dripping in its wake.
Billings had fallen. Pearce dropped down beside him in concern and pulled him to a sitting position.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No—thank heavens!” Billings gasped breathlessly. “Just . . . just scared out of a couple of year’s growth.”
Pearce relaxed, staring up at the pearly sky, “What in the world was that thing anyway? It looked like a lizard with wings.”
“Torrance described something like it in his book,” Billings said. “He called it an aviansaur.” He added wistfully, “I wish Torrance was with us right now.”
“Most likely he wouldn’t want to be,” Pearce grunted.
They rested a short time longer, then resumed their trek, entering the short stretch of jungle which lay between the hill and the valley wall beyond.
As they strode over a rocky and relatively clear expanse of ground, Billings suddenly released a cry of delight and ran toward a group of tall flowers, which looked like Earthly lotus blossoms on tall, thick stalks.
“Say, what are you—” Pearce began startledly.
“Look!” Billings said in excitement. “Glycerine-plants! Lord, aren’t they beauties?” He fluttered over them like an ecstatic bee.
Pearce snorted in disgust. “Here we are, up to our necks in trouble, and you go daffy over a bunch of flowers!”
“I’m an amateur botanist,” the other explained defensively. “Growing plants is my hobby. I’ve never seen glycerine-plants as large as these. Mine look sick by comparison. Must be the city air. On Earth, you know, glycerine is produced chemically, but these plants secrete it as a natural product.” He pointed to a series of bright yellow ovoids which ringed the underside the flower. “The glycerine helps the seeds get a start in life, and—”
“Wait!” Pearce said sharply. “Listen!”
