A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, October 1950 — page 119: what you’re looking at

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

116 A. MERRITT’S FANTASY novel] regret upon some of the most thrill- - ing bulletins that TAU had telecast, such as the love-nest murder of the director of IMA—a great many meteor-miners and other isolated folk still believed that that outraged gentleman was really dead. The dim emergency lights came on at last. Dr. Bull peered up at the face of Vera Frame, pale in the gloom. He shook his throbbing head. If Wells and Watter- son didn’t believe his appeal, it was certain that the indignant patrol and police of- ficials wouldn’t. Only the day before, he remembered, a TAU bulletin had stated that Earth police were using patrol ships in a tremendous conspiracy to flood the system with an insidious new synthetic drug. “Played and lost,” whispered Dr. Bull. Shoes grated on broken glass, and he turned to see a little group of defenders crowding into the studio. They were muddy, bleeding, ray-burned, power- stained. One of them, in his tattered splendor of scarlet-and-silver, came up to the hair and saluted nervously. “What is it?” rasped Dr. Bull. The Special Planteer gulped, twisted. “We've come to ask you to give up, sir,” he said huskily. ‘They keep picking us off. Only five of the Planteers left, sir. And six of the others. Nearly all of us wounded. There’s no use trying to hold out, sir.” Dr. Bull tugged wuncertainly at his beard. His fat shoulders sagged, in the bright uniform. The drumming in his brain became a measured funeral roll. Perhaps the soldier was right. What did anvthing matter ? His dull eyes looked up again at Vera Frame. He saw the weary pallor on her face. He was watching, when the stark and frantic terror struck her. He saw the quick, desperate pressure of her hands against her temples. In that instant, he knew, she had recog- nized the first onslaught of the lightning death. She had been no traitor, then. Perhaps she had even caught the pestilence from him. But her pale face, in a moment, was composed again. A light seemed to shine in her eyes. Her lips tried to smile, and she murmured faintly: “Doctor, don’t forget—your words.” Imagination, Audacity— Dr. Bull’s shoulders squared again. He stood up, and calmly polished his gold frame glasses with a spotless handkerchief. His blue .eyes twinkled confidently as he walked to face the little group of fright- ened men in the doorway. “Hold out, men, till dark.” The old magnetic power rang in his voice—the same power that had so long defied the IMA and the ICC and the patrol itself, that had fashioned the jewel of Taurus from a barren rock. “And I'll break the Iron Watch. I'll save your homes and your lives—” There were apprehensive protests. The bandaged crooner tried to point out that the situation was quite hopeless. But Dr. Bull was used to moving men, in the face of inconvenient practical details. The dis- couraged defenders found themselves promising to die or conquer. The whole world rocked, to that throb- bing in his head, as if all Taurus had been an anvil beneath some colossal hammer. But she managed to keep smiling. If the lightning death let him live another hour — The rush of details mercifully filled his mind. Once more he was in his element. He was Dr. Bull, the Planeteer. He bustled into the basement, to en- courage the engineers busy replacing the power tubes. He made a hasty, cheerful round of the tower’s defenses. He sent to his office for the sound-film record of his telebeam conversations with Scarr. He rushed into the make-up department, barking staccato instructions. Regretfully fingering his snowy beard, he told the three MICMOO (CO) <S) (C(O)