Argosy, Vol. 122, No. 1 — page 67: what you’re looking at

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

THE MAD PLANET. He came upon a valley full of torn and blackened mushrooms. There was not a single yellow top among them. Every one had been infested with tiny maggots which had liquefied the tough meat of the mush- room and caused it to drip to the ground below.. And all the liquid had gathered in a golden pool in the center of the small depression. Burl heard a loud humming and buzzing before he topped the rise that opened the valley for his inspection. He stopped a moment and looked down. A golden-red lake, its center reflecting the hazy sky overhead. All about, black- ened mushrooms, seeming to have been charred and burned by a fierce flame. A slow-flowing golden brooklet trickled slowly over a rocky ledge, into the larger pool. And all about the edges of the golden lake, - in ranks and rows, by hundreds, thousands, and by millions, were ranged the green- gold, shining bodies of great flies. They were small as compared with the other insects. They had increased in size but a fraction of the amount that the bees, for example, had increased; but it was due to an imperative necessity of their race. The flesh-flies laid their eggs by hun- dreds in decaying carcases. The others laid their eggs by hundreds in the mush- rooms. To feed the maggots that would hatch, a relatively great quantity of food was needed, therefore the flies must remain comparatively small, or the body of a single grasshopper, say, would furnish food for but two or three grubs instead of the hun- dreds it must support. Burl stared down at the golden pool, Bluebottles, greenbottles, and all the flies of metallic luster were gathered at the Lucullan feast of corruption. Their buz- zing as they darted above the odorous pool of golden liquid made the sound Burl had heard. Their bodies flashed and glittered as they darted back and forth, seeking a place to alight and join in the orgy. Those which clustered about the banks of the pool were still as if carved from metal. Their huge, red eyes glowed, and _ their bodies shone with an obscene fatness. Flies are the most disgusting of all insects. Burl watched them a moment, watched the 57 interlacing streams of light as they buzzed eagerly above the pool, seeking a place at the festive board. A drumming roar sounded in the air. A golden speck appeared in the sky, a slender, needlelike body with transparent, shining wings and two huge eyes. It grew nearer and became a dragon-fly twenty feet and more in length, its body shimmering, purest gold. It poised itself above the pool and then darted down. Its jaws snapped viciously and repeatedly, and at each snapping the glittering body of a fly van- ished. A second dragon-fly appeared, its body a vivid purple, and a third. They swooped and rushed above the golden pool, snap- ping in mid air, turning their abrupt, an- gular turns, creatures of incredible ferocity and beauty. At the moment they were nothing more or less than slaughtering- machines. They darted here and there, their many-faceted eyes burning with blood-lust. In that mass of buzzing flies even the most voracious appetite must be sated, but the dragon-flies kept on. Beautiful, slender, graceful creatures, they dashed here and there above the pond like avenging fiends or the mythical dragons for which they had been named. And the loud, contented buzzing kept on as before. Their comrades were being slaughtered by hundreds not fifty feet above their heads, but the glittering rows of red-eyed flies gorging themselves upon the golden, evil-smelling liquid kept placidly | on with their feasting. The dragon-flies could contain no more, even of their chosen prey, but they continued to swoop madly above the pool, striking down the buzzing flies even though the bodies must perforce drop uneaten. One or two of the dead flies —crushed to a pulp by the angry jaws of a great dragon-fly—dropped among its feast- ing brothers. They shook themselves. Presently one of them placed its dis- gusting proboscis upon the mangled form and sipped daintily of the juices exuding from the broken armor. Another joined it, and another. In a little while a cluster of them elbowed and pushed each other for a chance to join in the cannibalistic feast. Burl turned aside and went on, while cComiclbooks.com