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- Herausgeber: Al-Mashreq eBookstore
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Serie: Wonder Stories
- Sprache: Englisch
In Venus Mines, Incorporated, Arthur Leo Zagat transports readers to a perilous future where corporate greed knows no bounds. On the harsh, uncharted terrain of Venus, a ruthless mining company exploits both the planet's untapped resources and its desperate workers. As tensions rise between the company's executives and the miners risking their lives, a shocking discovery threatens to upend everything—an alien force lurking deep within Venus, ready to strike. With danger around every corner and a fierce fight for survival at stake, this thrilling tale of adventure and intrigue is perfect for fans of high-stakes science fiction.
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Seitenzahl: 55
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Table of Contents
Venus Mines, Incorporated
MAGAZINE EDITOR'S NOTE
I. — JOURNEY INTO CHAOS
II. — THROUGH THE CURTAIN
III. — THE CHASE THROUGH SPACE
IV. — CAUGHT!
V. — STRATEGY
Landmarks
Table of Contents
Cover
Venus Mines, Incorporated
MAGAZINE EDITOR'S NOTE
SOME stories are forgotten almost as soon as they are printed. Others stand the test of time.
Because "Venus Mines, Incorporated," by Nathan Schachner and Arthur Leo Zagat, has stood this test, it has been nominated for SCIENTIFICTION'S HALL OF FAME and is reprinted here.
In each issue we will honor one of the most outstanding fantasy classics of all time as selected by our readers. We hope in this way to bring a new permanence to the science fiction gems of yesterday and to perform a real service to the science fiction devotees of today and tomorrow.
***
When radioactive deposits are discovered on Venus, space war is imminent, but a veteran of the outer air lanes is courageous enough to pit himself against alien forces!
I. — JOURNEY INTO CHAOS
"HELLO, hello, hello—Chris, do you hear me?—hello, hello, hello!" Arnim Penger slammed down the tele-talker and turned to his companion. "No answer yet."
"It's queer, all right, Mr. Penger. But what's there to worry about? We got Mr. Bell's message that he was back from his exploratory trip hours ago. And there's nothing could happen to him at the post, is there? He wasn't to start trading until tomorrow, so he must have had his Curtain charged and no Venusians in the enclosure. Besides, they're a pretty harmless lot, anyway."
The veteran trader shrugged his broad shoulders. "Nothing much could happen to him, I suppose. But this is the first time communication has failed." He fell silent. But there was a brooding light in his steel-gray eyes, and a tense grimness about his fine bronzed features.
He stared unseeingly at the great pile of clotted spider web that filled half the trading room of the little post. A cool half million that accumulated result of half an earth year's dickering with the natives was worth. And all it had cost Venus Mines. Inc. were some bushels of brightly colored beads and glittering gewgaws dear to the savage heart.
"There's a Mitco post about some miles the other side of Bell's post," he mused aloud.
Britt Haldane turned from his contemplation of the grey bleached jungle, the dense, light-shot ceiling, the sheeted torrents of the typical Venusian landscape.
"I say, you don't think there's any chance of trouble from the Martians?"
Penger shot a quick glance at the fresh-colored youngster with the starry blue eyes, and the tow hair that persisted in falling over his forehead. This eighteen-year-old lad brought back memories of the time, two decades past, when he himself was taking over his first station, on Jupiter.
Those were unregenerate days, with the Board of Planetary Control yet unborn, and life made zestful by the continuous guerilla warfare with the forces of Mitco, the great Martian Interstellar Trading Company, the Earth company's only rival.
"No, not much chance," he drawled, in reply to the lad's question. "They'd hardly challenge the B. P. C.'s wrath. And yet, if the stakes were great enough..." He sighed, unaccountably. "I suppose I'm just fed up on these eternal rains. I'll be glad enough to get back to Earth when the relief ship comes, and leave you here."
Britt's face lit up.
"Gosh, I can hardly wait to take over. To be a real Venus trader at last, in charge of my own station." He saw the older man's amused smile and added hastily. "Of course, it isn't that I want to see you go, but—you know how is it."
Arnim nodded.
"Yes, I know how it is. I felt the same way when I took over my first assignment. It sure was a kick. Two days later I was crouched behind a barricade of ice blocks, taking pot shots at a bunch of Martians who were doing their darnedest to exterminate me and a couple of other Earthmen, and grab off the richest jovium mine on Jupiter for Mitco.
"There were no Interplanetary Filing Laws then, no taking a bunch of papers over to the office on Ganymede and thereafter being protected by the Mercurian patrol ships with their zeta-ray projectors.
"You took what you could get and held it by the power of your own guns."
The youth's eyes glowed.
"It must have been great! Wish I'd been in the game then!"
"You weren't born then, young fellow." Penger's eyes wandered past the lad to the teeming landscape revealed by the open door.
"Hello, I don't like that coppery tinge to the clouds down on the horizon. Looks as if we're going to have a taste of one of the electrical storms old Venus favors us with once in a blue moon.
"Get out in one of those, and you'll be ready to give up darn quick. Even the natives scurry to their caves when one of the big ones is on a rampage."
His eyes narrowed as he gazed out. The dripping jungle pressed its greyness close up against the interlacing net of copper filaments that was the Curtain, the apparently frail barrier around the liquid mud clearing of this outpost of Earth's commerce.
FROM the low ceiling of dun clouds poured a torrent of warm rain that might dwindle to a drizzle or increase to a devastating downpour, but which never for a moment ceased. Far away, the clouds were suffused with a reddish, ominous glare.
"Come on," he said at last, as he sealed the door. "Work's over for another twelve hours. Start the drying machine, and we'll get comfortable. Then I'll try to get Chris again. If he hadn't borrowed the Wanderer for that trip of his I'd be tempted to hop over and find out what's up."
Haldane obediently swung over the lever of the artificial atmosphere machine that reproduced Earth condition for the traders during the rest-periods. As the air dried, the two stripped off the sodden working suits. Britt stretched himself luxuriously as the moisture was sucked from the bronzed skin of his body.
"This is a little bit of all right. Let it storm for all I care."
