The John Russell Fearn Science Fiction Megapack

by John Russell Fearn

  In 1944, Fearn completely revised his Amazon concept, upgrading his writing from the pulp level, and broke into the hardcover market in Britain with The Golden Amazon. In the totally different novel version, a baby girl is the unwitting subject of an idealistic scientist’s glandular experiments, his aim being to end world wars by creating a superwoman who would institute a scientific rule upon reaching maturity. The Golden Amazon was reprinted in the Canadian magazine the Toronto Star Weekly in 1945, and proved so popular with the magazine’s predominantly female readership, that Fearn was commissioned to bring the Amazon back to life for a whole series of sequels. These were tremendously successful, and appeared regularly in the Star Weekly over the next 16 years, ending only with Fearn’s death. The novels were syndicated to several American newspapers, with the early novels appearing in both hardcover and paperback in the UK and Canada respectively.

  Having found a more lucrative market after the war, Fearn quit writing for the pulp magazines. He wrote hardcover detective novels as John Slate, beginning with Black Maria, M.A. The book was acknowledged as a classic of the “locked room murder” genre, and reviewers hailed ‘Slate’ as a second Agatha Christie. Writing as Hugo Blayn, Fearn then created a scientific detective, ‘Dr. Carruthers.’ Fearn also became a very successful writer of Westerns and Romances, and his 52 science fiction novels as Vargo Statten became best-sellers and were translated worldwide, particularly in France and Italy.

  But after publishing some 180 novels, Fearn died suddenly in September 1960, the victim of a massive heart attack, aged only 52. His grief-stricken widow fell seriously ill herself, and was unable to promote his work, or answer publishers’ letters. His work quickly fell out of print, and since much of it was under pseudonyms that were not generally known to be his, Fearn was in danger of becoming completely forgotten.

  His reputation was only revived by the publication in 1968 of the present writer’s biography, The Multi-Man, which included a detailed bibliography and revealed dozens of pseudonyms for the first time. Posthumous work quickly appeared in a new British SF magazine, Vision of Tomorrow. After Mrs. Fearn asked me to become her agent, a number of Fearn’s novels and stories were reprinted. The Vargo Statten books again became bestsellers in Italy, as did some of his detective novels and westerns. In 1995, the New York-based small press Gryphon Books launched a ‘Science Fiction Rediscovery’ series, eventually reprinting all of the ‘Golden Amazon’ novels, and other titles. Over the next decade, other larger publishers began an extensive reprinting of his novels in all of the genres in which he had worked—this time under his own name.

  The best of these novels are currently in print in the U.S. from Borgo Books and Wildside Press, who have also issued a number of collections of his best early science fiction pulp stories, beginning with The Best of John Russell Fearn in two volumes, followed by A Case for Brutus Lloyd, Dynasty of the Small, Last Conflict, The Man From Hell, Rule of the Brains, Something From Mercury, Valley of Pretenders and World Without Chance, all edited by Philip Harbottle.

  But these collections have only skimmed the cream of the crop; they have deliberately been restricted to stories that have not greatly dated scientifically. There yet remains a large number of Fearn’s early science fiction stories that have never been reprinted simply because they are now known to be ‘impossible’ in that they feature Martians or Venusians and the like, and as such have become fantasy. What was still possible to speculative writers in the 1930s and 1940s is no longer believable today.

  But should such stories be allowed to slip into oblivion and be entirely forgotten? Cannot such stories, with due allowances made for the time when they were written, still entertain and amuse modern readers willing to suspend their disbelief and simply enjoy these stories in their historical context?

  Gathered together in this Megapack is a generous first selection of these early ‘lost’ and ‘impossible’ Fearn stories, so that modern readers can judge for themselves!

  —Philip Harbottle,

  Wallsend,

  December 2013.

  RED HERITAGE

  A trap-planet waited—baited—through millennia—for a cosmic thief.

  I

  “There can be no doubt about it—our world is dying!”

  Kil-Dio, the Venusian, uttered the words in the scraping diction that was his equivalent of language. His stalked eyes traveled solemnly over the assembly of five thousand Venusians filling the great columned administrative hall. Like him, they were all slug-like—nauseous-looking, dirty-gray creatures, propelled by a group of powerful feelers, with arms that were mere extensions of their bodies. But the Venusians were not merely intelligent—they were super-scientists, confronted now with the greatest problem they had yet been called upon to master.

  “We are faced with a defunct world unless we resort to theft,” Kil-Dio went on, quietly. “It is a grievous slur on the nobility of science that we should be compelled to rob another world in order to rejuvenate our own—but I foresee no other way.” His stalked eyes turned from the assembly and looked in silent eloquence through the broad, floor-length window.

  Beyond the main administrative hall was the view of a vast desert of sun-blistered sand, riven by huge gorges, soaked in the blistering heat of a slow-moving, unclouded Sun. Venus, revolving once in 720 hours, was a world without clouds, without protection from a sun only 63,000,000 miles away. A blazing eye which had long since evaporated the seas and slowly plucked away the once heavy atmosphere.

  Far away on the horizon a whirling dust storm rose black against the brazen blue of the sky, settled, rose again. Kil-Dio made an odd sound—a sigh of deep regret.

  “It requires no words of mine to emphasizc approaching doom,” he resumed. “I have been in consultation with Ri-Dathan, our chief astronomer, and he is of the opinion that our only method of escape is to steal the seas and atmosphere of a neighboring world—preferably that of the world which is fourth from the Sun—Rinia, as we name it. There, there is plentiful atmosphere and water. By the theft of those seas we can transform this world of ours into a youthful, thriving planet once more.”

  “Can we not migrate to this fourth world?” questioned Bi-Tokar, self-appointed spokesman for the assembly.

  “We could, but it might mean—in fact would mean—war. We would lose many of our numbers, and that we cannot afford. Further, I do not believe we could accustom ourselves to the fourth world’s far lesser gravitation without adaptation beforehand—and since adaptation must begin with birth that is obviously quite impossible for our particular generation. This fourth world is only forty-two hundred miles in diameter, whereas our world is nearly twice as large. Our gravitation is double. Only by adaptation could we tolerate half our present attractive pressure.”

  “Then what of the third world?” Bi-Tokar persisted.

  But again Kil-Dio shook his head.

  “No. It is a young world, raged by tempests, and in many parts still steaming with poisonous vapors. Similar in gravity, yes—but that is all. As yet, its atmosphere and seas are too fetid for us, at least by comparison with the perfect offerings of the fourth world.”

  There was a brief silence. Then Bi-Tokar spoke again. “Has the excellent Ri-Dathan considered the possibility of our own moon? Could we not migrate to—”

  “Again, no. Our moon is only three thousand miles in diameter, and airless. But the main point is that it is infested with inert life spores, deadly indeed to us. Were we to bring an atmosphere to our moon, and warmth, those life spores would flourish and might even finally destroy us with toxic emanations. And also, we would again be faced with less gravity. No, our moon is definitely discounted. There is no way other than to attack this fourth world.”

  Adamant in his decision Kil-Dio descended from the huge, stone platform by long slithering motions, passed through an adjoining doorway, and crept into the long passageway that led to his major laboratories and machine rooms.

  * * * *

  Kil-Dio’s s
peech had represented the consummation of plans the Venusians had not hurriedly made. They had known through generations that they lived on a world too close to the Sun for comfort, had known that one day the searing primary would absorb all the moisture they so needed for life. In itself, it had been a slow process, but, of course, far faster than on a less Sunward world.

  At the first, Venus had had heavy clouds, but with the slow progression of ages they had gone. Little by little, the expanded gases of the upper atmosphere, open to the torrid rays every 720 hours, had leaked out into space. Rain had become less and less frequent and had now ceased entirely. The once soft, fertile land had dried up, until now it was split into arid plains and chasms under the eternally cloudless sky.

  It was the same in every part of Venus. The whole planet was a scorched, dusty wilderness, its only life consisting of the five thousand who had grouped themselves together in their surface city at the base of a vast mountain range, its highest peaks soaring fifteen miles up into the cloudless, brazen skies.

  Long days of saturating heat; long nights of bitter cold, for the thinning atmosphere held little of the scorching warmth of the daytime. During the dark hours, when their moon silently rode the starry skies, the Venusians sought the shelter of their underground honeycombs, deep under the mountain range, to emerge only when the Sun once more flamed in intolerable grandeur into the sky.

  Heat they were accustomed to—it was their natural state—but lack of water and the presence of cold were their absolute enemies. The former they needed in copious quantities, both as free oxygen and hydrogen and the combined H2O form. For ages their synthesizing machines had done much to meet their needs, but now the time had come for definite action. Further delay would bring about the extinction of the race.

  Kil-Dio’s emotions were not of the happiest as, in company with his chief scientists and Ri-Dathan, the astronomer, he studied the image of the fourth world in the flawlessly polished mirror of the X-ray telescope. In the merciless blue of the Venusian-day sky the fourth world was naturally invisible to the eye, but here in the observatory delicate fingers of light-gathering power reached through the rock that buried this underground place, and passed out into the endless deeps of space to repattern on the mirror exactly what they saw.

  This time it was a thriving, prosperous world of green, clouds floating serenely in its atmosphere, cities sprawled amidst its emerald landscapes, the dots pf seagoing shipping scattered over its oceans. Rinia! Or, as it would come to be known in the dim future of a race struggling slowly up the third world’s evolutionary scale, Mars.

  “They are intelligent, these Rinians?” Kil-Dio questioned, pondering.

  “To a certain extent,” acceded the astronomer. “They have space travel by crude rocket propulsion, they understand radio to quite an advanced degree, and they seem well versed in all the ordinary sciences—but even so they are far behind us. In appearance they are rather queer, but then life on other worlds is very unlikely to take the same form as ours. The Rinians walk upright on two legs, possess round-shaped heads crowned with strange furry mats. Their eyes are set flat in their craniums and they have queer openings that are presumably for the purpose of food and speech. Revolting creatures indeed! And they are big—very big. I would definitely place them as eight feet tall.”

  “Lesser gravity demands greater size,” Kil-Dio murmured. Then; “And their atmosphere?”

  “Perfect for our purpose, Excellency. Oxygen and hydrogen in great quantities, together with nitrogen, argon and krypton. Their oceans are absolute combined oxygen and hydrogen with a heavy percentage of chloride of sodium.”

  Kil-Dio was silent for a while, then seemed to come to a decision. He spoke quietly, regretfully. “Our plans must be acted upon. In a few more hours it will be night and time for our rest period, but afterwards we will all set to work with the scheme we have laid—the erection of the absorption-vacuum on the mountain range and its linkage with the machines in the adjoining laboratory. There must be no delays. Is that understood?”

  The gleaming heads of the astronomer and attendant scientists inclined in assent.

  II

  With the coming of the next day-period activity began. Silent, faultlessly efficient robots marched single file to a point 2,000 feet up the nearby mountain range, bearing metal-synthesizing machines, tools, and scientific engines of all descriptions. They were nearly all day on the ascent, a long irregular line of metal figures on firm, jointed legs, gleaming in the sunshine, only halting when they finally gained a broad, natural ledge extending for an area of three miles before the mountain range began the second, upward thrusting to vast, unscaleable heights.

  Kil-Dio and his immediate scientific colleagues reached the heights in a fast ascending levitator, operated by means of gravity-shields. They directed the operations of their robot servants efficiently, but they had only started when the intense cold of the night put a halt to work for another 720 hours.

  Then, with sunlight again, the real work began. The huge ledge was disrupted in the center for an area of half a mile diameter, going down and down in the form of an enormous cylindrical shaft, sinking at last to a depth of a thousand feet, its sides lined with sheets of pressure-resisting alloy. Night came—day came.

  The Venusians and their servants worked untiringly, watching the slow erection of a vast, latticed tower of metal, mainly comprised of four three-foot-thick girders held in position by crossed and lateral bars and struts. Twenty days later it was finished, rearing to a height of a thousand feet—huge enough, but seeming dwarfed by comparison with the vast range against which it stood. It commanded a view of the sun-soaked terrain below, stood over the Venusian city like a guardian presence.

  At its top reposed a huge circle of polished copper, able to turn swiftly on massive gimbals, and within the center of the circle, suspended by electromagnets, was a curiously designed transmitter, fitted with numberless graded lenses. Both this instrument and the copper hoop were connected by stout cables dropping the length of the tower and thence passing through the supporting bed of now-hardened pressure-resisting metal in which the tower was embedded. From this point the cables continued their journey in a complicated switchboard deep under the city in the night quarters.

  The most difficult part of the work was done—the rest was a matter of careful analysis and computation.

  * * * *

  In the course of another day, Kil-Dio and his entire race forsook the upper ground levels of their city and sealed themselves below. If their plans matured according to expectations a sea would finally roll where the desert now stood, obliterating their city beneath its waves. But against this possibility they had taken the fullest safeguard.

  A network of tunnels and shafts passed into the mountain range from their underground habitat and emerged at a point 6,000 feet up the range. These served as air-purifying vents and could also be traversed and ascended in the levitators. From such a vantage point up the mountain the Venusians hoped to be able to take stock of their remade world when the tumult was over.

  No possibility had been overlooked, nothing left to chance. The valves that dosed the roof of their underground city had been tested and found capable of withstanding an almost inconceivable water pressure, a pressure that could only exist on the bottom of an ocean. Certainly it was impossible for them to be drowned.

  Kil-Dio had thrust most if his misgivings aside when the time finally came to take the last steps. His first regret at stealing a prosperous world’s life-blood had vanished before the realization that in nature only the fittest can survive, If he and his race were so much cleverer than their neighbors—so be it!

  Standing in the vast laboratory, he looked silently round with his stalked eyes upon the gathered, interested members of his race. Vast electrical engines of every shape and design stretched around him in a wilderness of gleaming metal. Generators, vacuum tubes, enormous anode and cathode balls roped together by slender but incredibly powerful filaments, great
bridges and ladders of insulated metal perched between titanic electromagnets—the whole gamut of nth degree electricity was present, some of it comprehensible to all those who watched, but much of it an enigma reflecting the prodigious intellect of its conceivers.

  At length Kil-Dio spoke: “Gravity, as we well know, is as much a force as cosmic rays, light or heat. It has definable limits and its power can be increased or decreased at will—that we know from our levitators, which lift easily against the pull of gravitation. Also, we know it from our space machines, which shield gravity and hurl us away from any gravitational field. We know that, even as ordinary radio waves can be heterodyned, so can a correct force operate to ‘heterodyne’ gravitational fields and render the part in question entirely free of gravitation. This, then, is our plan:

  “Across space, directly to Rinia, we shall project a heterodyning beam, which, when it strikes Rinia, will encompass some one thousand miles of surface area. This heterodyning beam will be in the exact center of what we might call a funnel of force. That is to say, this funnel will be a beam having walls of vibration solid enough to withstand the sudden uprushing vortex of water and air. Obviously, with part of Rinia degravitated and the force tunnel immediately over that part, the air and ocean will be sucked up our force tunnel by the normal process of following the line of least resistance. But for our force tunnel they would spew Sunward, hence the presence of the tunnel to hold them in one fixed path, until they deluge down on the surface of this world.”

  “And the people and cities?” questioned Bi-Tokar gravely. “Will not they, too, be absorbed toward the tube and rain down upon us?”

  “No, because the binding molecular forces that hold solid things together will be destroyed by our forces, but degravitated water and air can only reassemble into their original nonsolid form.”