A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, October 1950 — page 105: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

102 A. MERRITY’S FANTASY gold. Doctor Bull. Altogether, he sug- gested an incongruously aged and weighty cupid. Under the sky’s depthless inky blue, ruby tiles and gold rails glittered luxuri- ously. The white sun struck with invigor- ating force through the thin, cool synthetic atmosphere. A graviscreen under the pool halved the force of the gravity generators at the tiny moon’s core, so that one swam with an exhilarating and luxurious ease. Oblivious of the shadow of menace ap- proaching, Dr. Bull was floating on the warm bright water, watching his com- panion in the pool. She was a svelte blond nurse, in a green bathing suit. At forty- seven, Dr. Bull still possessed an acute ap- preciation, and Vera Frame was worthy of it. The sun glinted on her limbs as she dove. She came up, and made a playful splash. But a mellow gong had chimed over the pool, and the little doctor’s eyes went to a hooded telescreen above the water. The nurse looked over his shoulder —wondering a little at his continued in- terest in a telecast that had been repeated, with minor variations, every hour on the hour for thirteen years. The dark screen lit with the red outline of an extremely masculine bull, branded with the zodiacal sign. That faded into the neatly bearded face of Dr. Bull himself, telecast {rom a prepared sound film. “Hello, all the planets!” The little doctor’s canned voice was brisk and friendly. Above the starched looking white beard, his blue eyes twin- kled confidently through gold-rimmed glasses. (He didn’t really need the glasses, but they lent an air. The beard was im- portant, too. In the old days, before he could grow his own, he had used a false Van Dyke to launch the original Dr. Bull’s Interplanetary Carnival, Clinic, and Medi- cine Show.) The image smiled on the screen, with professional cheer. “This 1s Dr. Bull, the Planeteer, bringing you good news and good health over TAU, thé most powerful telecast station in the system—good news of how Taurium and my radiogenic re- activation treatment can bring good health to you.” . The telecast power of TAU, indeed, was calculated to penetrate the ionosphere of every planet. Patrol spacemen and ICC officials raged at its roaring, image-blur- ring interference. But meteor miners and remote colonists depended on it for news of the system, and came to regard Dr. Bull as a crusading saint. Any inhabitants of the hypothetical worlds of the nearer stars were doubtless becoming familiar with the astounding curative powers of Taurium and the radiogenic reactivation treatment. Dr. Bull was in very bad standing with the Interplanetary Medical Association. HE IMA, claimed that Taurium was common mud, manufactured from plain water and the blue clay of Taurus— and now largely adulterated with clay from Earth, since the extraordinary de- mand had threatened to use up the entire little planet. Outraged and impotent of- ficials of the Interplanetary Communica- tions Commission made unkind puns on his name. He had been forbidden to prac- tice medicine or operate a telecast trans- mitter anywhere within the jurisdiction of the Solar League. But— The pink little man floating contentedly beside the feline nurse was the only physician in the system—if, in defiance of the baffled IMA, you agreed that he was a physician—who was also undisputed dictator of a sovereign planet. TAURUS once had been a dead and useless rock. Exiled from the League, by the combined wrath of the IMA, the ICC, and Sun Patrol, Dr. Bull had spent hun- dreds of millions, to convert the bleak asteroid into ‘‘the moon of health.” In a shaft drilled to the little world’s heart, an) (C 6)(0)©) Ss (C(O)