A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, October 1950 — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

104 has already entered our territorial space.”’ The continued independence of Taurus, in the face of the patrol’s open hostility, was a major political riddle. But Dr. Bull, with the magical combination of Imagina- tion, Audacity, Victory—plus millions, cannily spent—had made it a fact. The Sun Patrol was bound by several interplanetary treaties to respect the ter- ritorial zone of Taurus, a sphere extend- ing a hundred miles from the tiny moon’s surface. | Dr. Bull’s head abruptly went under the water, and came up looking more red than pink. He splashed furiously with his hands—half-gravity had awkward conse- quences, when one forgot oneself. Sputter- ing, he gasped : “They can’t do that!” The glassy-eyed officer said: “They have done it. The men in the forts are un- easy. And panic is spreading in the hotels and hospitals—some rumor has got out. The telephones are swamped with ques- tions.” Dr. Bull surged out of the pool. “Signal them again,” he snapped. “If they don’t answer, open fire.”’ Taurus was not, undefended. Since the daring raid of the pirate, Iron Scarr, ten years ago—when the patrol had refused its aid until after Taurus had been looted— Dr. Bull had spent millions to build two massive forts, at the little world’s poles. Their twenty-four-inch rifles were cap- able of dropping shells on Earth itself. Berg gulped apprehensively. “Our range-finders have identified the cruiser, sir. It’s the Valiant.” D—* BULL turned a little pale. Coming from over the graviscreen, he stag- gered violently to the full attraction of the generators, and caught himself against the crystal wall. He stared at Berg, dripping and gasping. For the Valiant was the newest and mightiest cruiser of the patrol—built in A. MERRITT’S FANTASY direct answer to the threat of Dr. Bull's two forts. Her rifles were also twenty- four-inch. The two thousand feet of her armored length exactly equalled the di- ameter of Taurus. She was invincible and invulnerable. Dr. Bull's trepidation lasted but a mo- ment, however. “Get back to your post. Prepare the forts for action.” He shook water out of his beard. “I'll! order Car- stairs to cancel all departures from the port. Mustn’t let the suckers be scared away. I’m going to speak to the Valiant, on my own telebeam.”’ General Berg saluted and departed. The situation appeared extremely alarming to Vera Frame. But she admitt- ed that Dr. Bull—whether she considered him as physician, actor, statesman, or warrior—was a very remarkable man. She regarded him with the confidence of love. In the steamy luxury of the glass-and- chromium bathhouse, Dr. Bull took a quick hot and cold shower, and slipped into the scarlet-and-silver of the Captain- General of the Planeteers. He refused to be thrown into a panic, but he was alarmed. He couldn’t understand the menacing approach of the Valiant. The IMA and the ICC, true, were yammering for his scalp—but they had yammered in vain for thirteen years. The patrol had been alarmed by the construc- tion of his two powerful forts, covering in their theoretical range both Earth and the impregnable patrol base on the summits of the Moons Appenines. But Dr. Bull, with his fountain of millions, had deftly de- veloped and exploited the venality exist- ing in the patrol. “If Batson has crossed me,” he mut- tered, “I'll raise a stench with TAU that will smoke him out of the base like a rat out of a hole.”” Batson was commander of the Appenine Base, and virtually a silent partner in Dr. Bull's far-flung en- terprises. nn) (C 6)(0)O) (C(O)