A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, October 1950 — page 112: what you’re looking at

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

RACKETEERS IN THE SKY 109 that his employees had not been a little more generously paid. Increasingly agitated, Dr. Bull ran out into the terrace garden. The westering Sun struck with the same cool brightness from the purple-black sky, yet it seemed to the trembling little doctor that a deadly night had already fallen. He peered up into the blackness, but his naked eye could not find the Valiant. He shrank from a fragrant breath that passed his face. The very air might al- ready be poisoned, for all he knew, with the invisible virus of the lightning death. Even Vera Frame might have been a carrier—few victims of the insidious dis- ease ever admitted or even realized its attack, before death struck. Taurus supported almost the largest and certainly the most profitable hospital in the system. Above the green bright con- vexity of the gardens, Dr. Bull could see the white spires rising. He shivered. In a few hours the staff and the patients might all be dead—all save the immunized members of the Iron Watch. Dr. Bull mopped at his pink forehead. Other disasters were equally possible. A single freak shot from the Valiant, or one act of sabotage by a trusted engineer, could stop the gravity generators—let air and all movables whiff outward in an in- stant puff of doom. CHAPTER 3 The Attack HIE cool windless air shuddered to a heavy detonation. For one re- lieved instant, Dr. Bull thought that at last the forts had opened fire. In a mo- ment, however, he realized that the ex- plosion was in the direction of the space- port. Apprehensively, he- peered eastward across the green bulge of the golf links— Taurus had the most interesting links in the system, as TAU often informed pos- sible visitors, because every drive carried beyond the horizon. No more than a thousand feet away, the space-port was out of sight, below the curve. Dr. Bull could see nothing un- usual. But the tiny planet quivered to a second blast. Probably, he thought, a rocket-shell, An auto-rifle chattered brief- ly. He heard the ominous purr of a de- mobilizer pelletgun. Hoarse strained voices echoed faintly. Open fighting, at the port! Dr. Bull retreated nervously from the parapet that surrounded the roof, and tried to guess what had happened. The port was guarded by the Special Planet- eers, a company of forty men, picked to impress visitors with their physiques and discipline. The Iron Watch must have tried to seize the port—striking, again, at communications. But the Special Planeteers were fight- ing back! Dr. Bull ran back into his penthouse office, and tried to call the port. The in- strument was still dead. The Iron Watch, he supposed, had already seized the tele- phone office. Aimlessly frantic, he ran back out on the terrace. The rattle of shots was near- er. In a moment he saw men coming into view, along the near horizon. He made out the silver and green of the Special Planeteers. That was lean young Lieutenant Car- stairs, commanding the retreat, taking skillful advantage of clumps of vegeta- tion, the hazards of the golf course, and the very curve of Taurus. Dr. Bull tried to count the men with him. They seemed alarmingly few. Brrram! A Planeteer with an auto-rifle had climbed to the tip of a mossy projection of the stony core of Taurus, to cover the withdrawal of his comrades. The minia- ture peak dissolved into dust, from the (C(O) nn) (C 6)(0)©) <S (C(O)