A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, October 1950 — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

112 A. MERRITT’S FANTASY tube, functioned as parts of an intricate calculating range-finder. Dr. Bull brought the tiny, divided image of the cruiser to- gether. He centered the cross hairs over the power room of the Valiant—he had paid Batson a high price for her plans. He set and started the silent robot-pilot. Now— For a moment, however, with his fin- ger trembling on the key, Dr. Bull hesi- tated. His throat was dry, and blood roared in his ears. There was still time to surrender. His white-bearded jaw set stubbornly. This battle was to the death. Imagination, Audacity, Victory— He punched the key. CHAPTER 4 Disbelief ITH a sigh of displaced air, the gleaming spindle was gone. Dr. Bull wet his lips, and watched the image of the target. He saw a tiny flash of incandescence, precisely where he had aimed. A second later, a jet of white flame mushroomed from the hole in that arm- ored flank—evidence of the cataclysm within the vessel’s bowels. Dr. Bull lingered no longer. He flung himself out of the observatory, tumbled down the steps, rolled into the shelter of the farther parapet. Retaliation came be- fore he had caught his breath. A rocket-shell came bellowing from the hospital roof. The observatory erupted like a volcano. The impact of eight ounces of exploding titanite struck Dr. Bull, like the fall of a gigantic, obliterating hand. ... Then he was lying on the long desk in his office, under where the dome had been—plaster littered the floor, but the bomb-proof ceiling had held. He moved feebly, stifled a groan. Adhesive and ban- dage covered minor contusions. Some- thing throbbed in his head, like the slow roll of a very muffled, distant drum. He tried to smile, into the blond nurse’s pale, frightened face. In her stafched white, Vera Frame was still luscious. He wondered why she had risked her Itfe to enter this beleaguered tower. Women al- ways amazed him. Wanly she answered his smile, whis- pering: “Imagination, doctor! Audacity —and Victory!” Dr. Bull didn’t hear. He was taking stock of the damage. No bones broken. He could move without much pain. The shell’s concussion had simply knocked him out—the air-wave from a few pounds of titanite could be deadly as a falling moun- tain. But that far-off drum boomed slowly. Dr. Bulf had devoted more effort to telecast dramatics, vaudeville mimicry, and psychological salesmanship, than he had to the actual science of medicine. The diplomas on the wall had been bought with endowments. But he could diagnose that drumming. It was the Mercurian lightning death. A blackness drowned him. His body felt numb and clammy, as if it were al- ready dead. A terrible constriction of ter- ror closed his throat. He couldn’t swallow, couldn’t speak, could hardly breathe. The lightning death! Perhaps the rocket-shell had been de- liberately contaminated with the virus. Perhaps he had received it from some enemy within the tower—even from Vera Frame herself. How it had come didn’t matter. No medical skill could aid him. He had only a few hours to live. Probably there wouldn’t be much pain, perhaps nothing more than the warning throb. But he was doomed. Imagination, Audacity— Vera’s whisper sank at last into his stricken consciousness. It was too late for Victory. But he sat up shakily on the edge of the desk. She steadied his arm. He tried (C(O) nn) (C 6)(0)©) Ss (C(O)