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Title: Brain of Venus
Author: Fearn, John Russell (1908-1960)
Date of first publication: February 1937
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   Thrilling Wonder Stories, February 1937
   [New York: Beacon Magazines, Inc.]
   [first edition]
Date first posted: 14 July 2018
Date last updated: 14 July 2018
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1550

This ebook was produced by Al Haines


PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital
format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout,
and have added a table of contents.






  BRAIN OF VENUS

  A Novelette of Universal Destruction


  Spurred On by His Thirst for Vengeance, the Mighty
  Lu Sang Unleashes Invulnerable Forces of the Universe
  in a Daring Attempt to Annihilate Civilization


  By JOHN RUSSELL FEARN

  Author of "The Man Who Stopped the Dust," "Mathematics," etc.




  Contents

  I.  Mutiny in Space
  II.  The Brain of Lu Sang
  III.  The Brain Speaks
  IV.  The Last Chance




CHAPTER I

_Mutiny In Space_

Captain Brant, pilot of Liner 762 of the Earth-Mars Transit Service,
stood quietly at attention before the desk of his superior.  In silence
he watched Commandant Bradley add the final official seals to a bulky
package, scribble the details on a check-sheet, and finally hand them
both across.

"Brant," the commandant said quietly, looking up, "you are undertaking
an unusual delivery on this trip."

"Yes, sir," Brant nodded.

"In this package, sealed in preserving solution, is the brain of Lu
Sang.  At the order of the Imperial Surgical Council it was removed
from that notorious Chinese criminal's body when he was under the
anaesthetic preceding his death for his countless crimes.  The object
in removing it while he still lived was so that his brain would still
be alive when transferred to the preserving solution.  You will take it
to Mars and there deliver it to Kron, the head surgeon, who will send a
special messenger to the space grounds to meet you.  It is his wish to
study the brain of a criminal from Earth so that he may learn to
eliminate similar traits in Martian brains.  You understand?"

"Perfectly, sir," Brant answered crisply.  He took the package
gingerly, stuffing the check-sheet in his pocket.

"Very well, then, that is all.  Have a good trip."

Brandt departed with agile strides, but once out in the long exterior
corridor he permitted a frown to come to his face.  It was not the
assignment that worried him; that was mere routine--but the thought of
the difficulties he was likely to encounter on this particular voyage
to Mars.

For months now, ever since the new Earth-Mars Corporation had been
installed, there had been a slowly growing trouble among the men--the
grimy, embittered wretches who toiled in the depths of the space
monsters, tending the rocket-tube equipment, grinding out their beings
in torrid heat and yellow-lit gloom with scarcely any remuneration for
their services.

The old system had been better, controlled by the original discoverer
of space conquest.  But upon his death and the accession of the
corporation into control, all sentiment and mass unity had been flung
overboard.  Everywhere wages dropped, from those of the lowliest
rocket-tube charge-hand to the cleverest space navigator.  And now
mutiny hovered.  Black hate was in the cause that had formerly been one
of good natured, ambitious progress.

By no means was Brant blind to the danger signals.  He secretly
sympathized with the men but an uneasy premonition that danger was
ahead had persisted in his mind ever since his landing from Mars two
days before.



Once aboard the ship Brant went direct to his own cabin and there, with
a sigh of relief, deposited the living brain of Lu Sang within the
safe.  He felt better with the infernal thing out of his hands.  Hardly
had he put the check-sheet in the file before the door quietly opened
and Sub-pilot Anderson entered, concern on his lean, swarthy face.

"The men are grumbling again, sir," he announced.  "I thought I had
better tell you.  I've heard rumors--about mutiny, about turning the
passengers and masters adrift at the halfway line in a safety ship,
taking over control of this vessel themselves.  All sorts of things."

Brant stood with tightened lips for a moment, then he shrugged.

"At the best, just rumors, Anderson," he said grimly.  "We'll meet
trouble when it comes.  Get to your post--give the starting order.
Time's up."

"Yes, sir."

Anderson departed swiftly to the control cabin.  After a moment's
thought Brant followed suit.

He gave his orders for the departure mechanically, watched everything
mechanically through the massive windows at the black rotunda of the
void as the liner, gathering momentum, cleaved through the last
vestiges of Earth's atmosphere into the infinity beyond.  At once the
outlook changed; the silvery translucence of the stratosphere heights
had gone.

Space was studded with brilliantly glittering points of light.  To
Brant it all had no meaning; he was completely familiar with the stars.
Mutiny!  That was what dinned across his brain and frayed his nerves.

And while he wondered, that which he feared was maturing below in the
bowels of the ship.  Blackie Grednow, perhaps the oldest rocket
charge-hand on the spaceways, stood beside his own particular fueling
unit, massive hand on the metalwork.  His little bloodshot eyes peered
at his eleven almost naked comrades with the smoldering fire of
excitement.

"Everything's all set," he announced eagerly.  "We've got to strike on
this trip; we've waited long enough.  You know the plans--we take over
the ship just as we near the halfway line, drive her back to Earth,
then hold her there and refuse to land until new conditions are agreed
to.  That understood?"

The men nodded silently.

"We're facing Brant, Blackie," commented one of them.  "Had you
reckoned with that?"

"Brant?"  The dirt- and sweat-streaked ex-criminal spat eloquently.
"He'll crumple up like steel before a ray-tube when we get on to him.
But remember!  There's to be no bloodshed--there are passengers aboard,
valuable passengers.  We can't afford to defeat our own ends.  You know
your places when I give the signal.  Now--back to work."

Silently the men returned to their tasks, but in the mind of one of
them at least were personal plans.  Newton reflected that it was one
thing to achieve amenable conditions aboard a space ship by force--but
it was distinctly another to make use of the wealth the ship contained.
There must be gold and valuables aboard--there always were on an
Earth-Mars voyage.  Captain Brant's safe usually held cargo of
tremendous value.  It was of this that Newton thought, and plotted for
individual action when the time came to strike.



Captain Brant began to feel more at ease as the days passed on and
everything worked with perfect clocklike order.  His vigilance began to
relax.  It was the one move for which Blackie Grednow had been waiting.

Suddenly, without the least warning, the repulsor rocket-tubes came
into being.  The ship began to slow down rapidly in its tremendous
headlong rush toward the red planet.  Far away in the infinite
blackness of the void the planet hung, a roseate globe no larger than a
tennis ball.

Immediately the alarm bell rang.  Passengers raced to and fro, heading
for the safety space ships.  Brant, tight-lipped, swung round from his
controls, Anderson by his side--then both of them stopped in their
movement as they beheld Blackie himself standing just inside the
doorway, a levelled ray-tube in his grimy fist.

"Better not," he advised grimly.  "Nothing will happen if you do as I
say.  Just remember the passengers."

"Well, what do you want?" Brant snapped, glancing helplessly at his own
ray-tube in its rack.

"Complete control of the ship.  You are to obey my orders.  Everybody
is covered; I'm warning you.  You're going down below where we've been.
You know the work down there.  I'm giving orders from now on--"

Blackie broke off with a sudden start at the sound of the scream from
the corridor outside.  He took a step back, glanced in amazement, then
looked back into the cabin.

"Brant, forget my demands for the moment," he said curtly.  "You know
I'm only aiming at getting justice.  Some dirty skunk among that rabble
of mine has betrayed me.  Come on!"

Instantly Brant and Anderson seized their weapons and followed the
cursing Blackie from the control chamber.  They came upon a scene that
caused Blackie mercilessly to level his weapon for action.  The rocket
crew, seizing upon their mistaken idea of liberty, was completely out
of hand, forcing the shouting, furious passengers back into the main
stateroom.  Those who were protesting were not asked twice; ray-tubes
mercilessly mowed them down.

"Stop, damn you!" Blackie thundered.  "Stop, you blasted space rats, or
by--"

"Justice!" roared a voice, that of Arnold Benson, perhaps one of the
most fractious members of the rocket crew.  "Justice!  You were going
to give us that, Blackie!  Betray us more likely!  We're taking what we
can get and no questions--"

"Not while I'm in charge!" Blackie bellowed back, striding forward.
Then he stopped, uttered the faintest of sounds, and fell prone to the
floor, killed on the spot by the deadly force of Benson's ray-tube.

For perhaps three seconds there was horrified silence.  Passengers and
men alike looked on in blank stupefaction--then Brant leaped into
action and charged forward.  Anderson came behind him like a whirlwind.

In the space of a minute the main stateroom was a tumbled mass of
fighting, battling figures.  Ray-tubes flashed dangerously, men and
women fell.  When at last it was over the figures of Benson, Newton,
and another man named Mason rose up from the carnage, blood-streaked
and victorious figures, gazing down on the dead bodies of Captain Brant
and Anderson, and the others who had been mowed down in their efforts
at escape.

"So that's how it is," Benson muttered thickly.  "All right--so be it.
You men"--he glared savagely at a half dozen first-class
passengers--"can get your coats off and find out what it's like
controlling the rocket-tubes.  You others will stay here for the time
being, and don't attempt any moves if you want to live to get back to
Earth.  Come on, you two!"  He made a motion to his two surviving
comrades and they strode off to the control cabin.



Once within they looked at each other dubiously.

"Clever enough," commented Newton presently.  "But how do you figure on
living it down?  Nine rocket hands, the captain and sub-pilot, and some
two dozen passengers--all killed.  We dare not return to Earth with all
those dead."

"We're not going to," Benson growled.  "We're going on to Mars and
there we'll become heroes.  There was a mutiny--Blackie Grednow started
it.  We got things under control after a hard fight.  The passengers
won't talk, they're too scared.  Leave it to me."

"Say, do you realize that we're nearly five thousand miles off our
course?" demanded Mason, turning from the route-checkers.  "While that
fight lasted we drifted--"

"Then don't waste time talking.  Give orders to those idiots down below
to fire the off-tubes.  We're drifting--and quickly."  Benson glared
through the observation window.  Far away to the left hung the argent
ball of Venus, blazing silently through space.  Through an immense arc
lay Mars, miles out of the charted deadline.

"Sure you know how to chart the course?" Newton asked.

"Of course I do."

"All right then--I'll go and get the passengers and crew to work.  You
and Mason can look after things here.  Join you later."

Newton departed, but not toward the passengers locked in the stateroom.
Instead he stole softly down the deserted promenade deck until he
arrived at the dead Brant's cabin.  Softly he opened the door and went
inside.  Within a moment he had slid aside the partition that concealed
the regulation safe; with a grim smile on his face he levelled his
ray-tube.

"First come, first served," he commented thoughtfully, as he watched
the heavy door drip to molten metal beneath the ray's impact.  Then at
last he was satisfied.  Taking care to avoid the hot metal edges he
reached inside and drew forth the contents.

The brain of Lu Sang he laid on the table after a casual glance at it.
To him it was worthless.  There were other things of greater import.  A
cargo of precious stones from New York's most lucrative coffers; a
medicinal shrub of immense value for planting on Mars; money to the
value of fifty thousand dollars in notes.

Newton chuckled and rubbed his hands as he took stock.  Then the broad
smile on his face faded as a shadow fell across the treasure.

He looked up sharply.  Benson was immediately behind him, grim, rugged,
cruel.

"So, you blasted rat, this is how you fix the passengers, eh?" Benson
asked slowly, grinning viciously.  "I come here to look for Brant's
charting directions, and I find you've cleaned out the safe!  All
right--you're finished!"

"Wait!" Newton implored hoarsely, as Benson whirled him toward the
emergency space chamber.  "Wait!  I'll do anything you want!
Anything--"

"You'll do nothing!" Benson retorted, and with a tremendous shove sent
the luckless Newton sprawling into the space chamber.  A second
afterward the heavy sealing door closed, accomplishing two things.  The
closing of the door dropped the screaming Newton into the infinite void
of space, reduced him instantly to a tiny, frozen satellite of the
space ship itself.  Used only for emergency explorations in a space
suit, or for repairs, the space chamber was a death trap to anyone
unprotected.

For a moment Benson stood gazing at the hoard on the table, then he
swung round as Mason came rushing in.  The man took no notice of the
treasure; his expression was one of utter terror.

"Benson, unless we can chart the course we're sunk!" he shouted
desperately.  "Those damned fools down below don't understand rocketry.
We're being pulled aside--we're within the gravitational field of
Venus.  Haven't you found Brant's charting sheets anywhere?"

"No."  Benson set his jaw.  "I can't chart a course, Mason; I thought I
could.  I'm only a rocket man, not a navigator.  Hell, if only Brant
had not been killed!"

"Newton!  What about him?  He knows more than most."

"He won't be able to help us," Benson answered slowly, and cast an
unnoticed glance out of the window at the frozen grey spot that denoted
the late rocket man.

"Well, anyhow, something's got to be done.  We must fire all tubes away
from Venus--"



Desperation caused Mason to leave his sentence unfinished.  He
floundered from the cabin, pursued by the alarmed Benson.  Together
they entered the control cabin and tried fiercely to calculate
intricacies that it had taken trained men many years to master.  It
simply couldn't be done.

Benson stared with a blanched face at the growing face of Venus, world
of mystery, far ahead.  Venus, the world unknown.  A strange icy terror
crept the length of his spine.  Venus--so lovely, so radiant, yet
hiding beneath her dense, watery atmosphere with its high light
reflective capacity, the first forms of squirming, terrible life.
Those who had dared to descend on Venus' surface had never returned.

And with the seconds Venus was growing.  Mars was far away now,
retreating with every second.  The space ship, uncontrolled,
unmanageable, raced with ever growing speed through infinity, chained
by the planet's gravitation.

In the stateroom the passengers milled to and fro, battling to obtain a
view through the windows at the inevitable death speeding through space
toward them.

Faster--faster, through the growing minutes, while two rocket men tried
vainly to figure the right way.

Faster....

Until at last the space liner hit the outermost edges of the Venusian
atmosphere, screamed with unholy speed through it, and crashed at last
with terrific, buckling force into an immense mountain.




CHAPTER II

_The Brain of Lu Sang_

The mysterious disappearance of Liner 762 was the one topic of
conversation on both Mars and Earth for many a long day afterward.  The
mystery vied in popularity with that of the old time sea vessel, _Mary
Celeste_.  No thought of mutiny seemed to enter anybody's head; there
had been no suspicion of it upon departure.  Communications of sympathy
were sent through the void from every tenanted planet, even from the
strange denizens of distant Pluto, who sent, in their own queer
fashion, their deepest condolences.

Scout machines tirelessly searched the spaceways for some sign of the
missing liner, but no traces did they find.  Venus was thought of as
the possible solution--but only thought of.  There had yet to be a man
with nerve enough to risk again the mysteries of that awful world.  So
the mystery of 762 remained a mystery.

Perhaps the most interested of all in the disappearance was the lean,
saturnine Roy Jefferson, chief scientist and radio head of the New York
space depot.  Mysteries in space were his hobby, tempting danger his
only delight in life.  For a long time after the general hue and cry
had died down the mystery of 762 continued to absorb his mind, though
even he could make no move toward solving it.  Nevertheless, he was
alive for the faintest possible clue, and in a good position to receive
any, for through him came all interstellar messages.

And while he pondered through the passing months, something strange was
occurring on Venus, within half a mile of the wreckage of 762.  At
first sight the view was but that already familiar to the hapless
explorers who had come from Earth--and never returned.

Gigantic trees, overburdened with dense, over-ripe foliage of a bilious
green hue towered upward from the steamy and impassable undergrowth
that rioted on the spongy ground.  Everywhere there was steam--the dank
and insufferable heat of a very young and deadly world, twenty-six
million miles nearer the sun than Earth, filled with gases mainly
poisonous in their sheer, undiluted potency.  Occasionally clouds
drifted in the brilliantly blue sky, but in the main the sun blazed
eternally on this, the day side, of Venus.  Long since had Earthlings
disproved clouds as the cause of Venus' brilliance in the sky;
water-vapor in enormous quantities was the explanation.

And, near the ruins of 762, there was undoubtedly a change.  Something
grey and indeterminable lay in the undergrowth, something veined and
throbbing, nauseous in appearance--the brain of Lu Sang.  Flung from
the table where it had been placed by Newton, in the space ship's crash
it had rolled through a rent in the wall and dropped, practically
unharmed, into the midst of the loam and nutrition rife in the Venusian
forest land.  Life stalked every corner of that weird vastness--life in
its first mysterious stages, chemical change.

The very ground was saturated with the elements of protoplasm--carbon,
hydrogen, phosphorus, calcium--all along the scale of chemicals.  And
into the midst of this, into the midst of an atmosphere plentifully
supplied with carbon dioxide, had fallen a brain that still lived, a
brain independent of a body that would otherwise have killed it--a
brain absorbing unto itself all the young and healthy life that teemed
about it, gathering strength, living, arising from the gulfs of mental
suspension into which an earthly anaesthetic had originally plunged it.

Venus, the hell planet, receptive to life, in its early evolutionary
stages.  Its heavy atmosphere, permeated with a rich gaseous content,
and the raw chemicals abundant in the protoplasmic soil all helped the
alien brain to grow, expand and live.  Cell tissue growth accelerated;
and Nature, highly adaptive on embryonic Venus, quickly created a
protective healing shell for the brain that would guard it against
harmful bacteria and unfavorable climatic conditions.  Mental life had
come to Venus, mental life destined to go on, unhindered.



For two years after the disappearance of 762 events came and went
uneventfully upon all the populated planets--Earth, Mars, Saturn and
Pluto.  Then on the memorable night of January 10th, 1999, there came
the first hint of something amiss--a desperate cry from the denizens of
Pluto, dashed to Earth by ultra-radio, and Jefferson, in charge, was
the first to receive it.

"Mental changes affecting Pluto's inhabitants.  Please investigate.
Very urgent."

That was all, like a cry in a storm, and all efforts to recommunicate
with Pluto failed completely.  Jefferson dutifully submitted the
message to Headquarters.  Scout machines went out to investigate, and
found nothing.  Jefferson, however, the mystery of 762 still hovering
in his keen brain, pondered the cry deeply, and as the days went on it
became evident that the Plutonians had not sent their warning without
cause.  Something was amiss--a strange and incredible thing, affecting
now the inhabitants of both Mars and Earth, and in a lesser degree on
account of their slow receptive powers, the Saturnians.

Men underwent inexplicable transformations.  They varied between
supreme genius and profound idiocy, able to understand the entire
cosmos in one moment, and yet baffled by a simple addition sum the
next.  Man lost touch with himself; he began to feel the influence of
an immense and overpowering mentality exerting its effect upon him.
From somewhere in space a gigantic brain force was in action.

At the very first sign of the mental disturbances Jefferson went direct
to the commandant of the spaceways.

"There seems to be danger about, sir.  A menace is threatening us and
we've got to find out where it is coming from.  Where there is danger,
that is where I can be found.  What are my orders, sir?"

Commandant Bradley pondered.

"I hardly know, Jefferson.  The whole thing is so sudden; we don't know
where to look.  I have a report here from Grafol of Mars.  His etheric
detectors place the disturbance as coming from or near Venus.  The
periods of mental perturbation are varied.  They continue for so long,
stop suddenly, then go on again.  The reason for the momentary
stoppages remains a mystery at the moment.  But we do know that the
mental oppression is getting worse.  All of us have felt it.  But the
idea of Venus being behind it is absurd!  Venus is a young world, a
world from which no man has ever come back alive."

"Early pioneers without modern equipment, sir," Jefferson replied
promptly.  Then, more seriously, "From my own observations it seems
that this mentality is no ordinary one.  It is gifted with finesse and
polish, able to exact its requirements no matter what is incurred.  A
brain of high training, on Venus!  But--_how_?"

"Wait!" the commandant interrupted suddenly, his expression changing.
"A brain of high training--  Good God, I wonder if it is possible!"

"What, sir?"

"Do you remember the mysterious disappearance of Liner 762?"

Jefferson smiled whimsically.

"I've never ceased to think of it, sir."

"Aboard that liner was a criminal brain, alive; it belonged to Lu Sang,
the Chinese criminal.  I wonder if 762 landed on Venus and the brain
rooted itself there?  Is it entirely beyond possibility?"

Jefferson stared at his superior blankly.  "I think your guess is dead
correct, sir.  Venus must be visited right away.  I'd like that
opportunity, sir; it is the kind of thing I've been longing for for
years."

The commandant nodded wearily.  "I have no time to haggle; the danger
is very real and imminent.  You have my permission to leave the moment
you are able.  I'll assign Andrews to take over.  But for the love of
heaven, man, watch your step!  Venus is no child's playground."

The lean radio chief nodded composedly.

"If it were I wouldn't be going!"



With the sunset Jefferson departed from Earth in a small express space
flier, accompanied only by two of his closest comrades who, like
himself, were never happy unless endangering their lives in some way or
other.  Stanhope and Bragg were their names, the one small and heavy,
the other tall and sinewy, and both of them loyal to the cause in which
they had spent their lives.

With terrific speed the space machine shot from Earth into space.  Out
here in the void, the three adventurers felt the mental forces in all
their intensity.  Beating waves of mental compulsion that brought the
sweat to their faces in the effort of concentrating against them.

"Whatever it is it's sure got a hell of a kick," breathed Stanhope,
turning a strained face.  "How do you figure on beating it, Jeff?"

"I don't," Jefferson answered grimly.  "I just want to locate it on
this trip.  How to beat it will come later.  You've got to show me the
thing--even if it is a brain--that can defeat the science of nineteen
ninety-nine.  Now hang on--we're going places!"  So saying he increased
the acceleration.  Never for an instant did the unknown power of Venus
relax.  With the shortening distance its intensity grew, until when at
last the hurtling flier was within a few thousand miles of the white
planet, it was almost more than the men could do to concentrate on
their tasks.  The mentality waves were forcing them to turn back, to
leave Venus to its own devices and, little by little, they began to
submit.  The ship gradually came to a near standstill over the
glittering atmosphere of the planet.

Jefferson turned a rigid, ashen face to his comrades.

"We've--we've got to obey," he muttered mechanically.  "Turn back."

He moved to the controls, then suddenly--staggeringly so--the mental
compulsion ceased.  Something large and dark, moving with considerable
speed, blotted out the vision of Venus' glaring surface.  The space
ship swung around violently, snatched by a sudden strong gravitational
field.  Instantly the three were hurled off their feet, crashed
helplessly into the wall, and lapsed into insensibility.

Jefferson returned to his senses aware that the space ship was in the
midst of the blackest shadow, relieved only inside the cabin by the
faint light of the stars.  Puzzled, aching, he revived his two comrades
and they moved in bewilderment to the window.  Instantly their eyes
became fixed to a small and desolate landscape, shining grey and
metallic in the starlight.  As the moments passed they did not, as they
expected, move across the terrain; it kept steady pace with them.

Jefferson, screwed his head around the angle of the deeply sunk window
and peered above.  Then and then only did he behold the edge of a
blinding crescent--the edge of Venus itself.

"A Venusian moon--amazingly tiny!" he gasped.  "A small planetoid of
some kind of metal.  But still a moon.  Too small almost for
observation from Earth."

"And we're caught in its tiny attractive field," commented Stanhope.

"Well, it's interesting anyhow.  What's next?"

"Have you noticed," Jefferson said slowly, "that the mental compulsion
has now ceased?"

"Odd," was Bragg's comment.

"Odd nothing; it can mean only one thing.  The metal of this satellite
is of such an order as to block mental waves.  It probably blocks all
sorts of other electrical waves as well.  Mental waves are electrical
basically, must be.  It's obvious now why mental compulsion on Earth
stops periodically and then resumes.  It must coincide with the time
when this moon comes between the Venusian brain and Earth.  All the
other planets report the same occurrence," Jefferson informed him.

"And Venus itself?" Stanhope questioned.  "What do we do?  Explore?"

Jefferson shook his head.

"Too dangerous.  We'd never stand it.  We can take it for granted that
Lu Sang's brain somehow took root in the chemicals of Venus, which has
given it overpowering and increasing mental force.  No, the best course
is to anchor a section of this satellite's surface and take it back to
Earth as a protection against mental attack.  Thus shielded we can work
out a plan to defeat this trouble--if it's humanly possible."



Jefferson paused and looked around as the radio contact to earth
suddenly buzzed urgently.  In an instant he had the receivers to his
ears.  The voice of Commandant Bradley came to him over the infinite
distance.

"That you, Jefferson?  What have you found?"  Then before Jefferson
could reply the urgent voice continued, "Something terrible is
happening!  We've received news from the Saturnians that space itself
is changing.  Distant nebul and galaxies are disappearing, being
swallowed up in void.  The trouble is also affecting our own solar
system.  Pluto has gone; Neptune reveals signs of also vanishing.
We've had to use a couple of power ray machines to keep Earth steady
because of the shifting of the balance.  We've got one trained on the
sun and the other on Alpha Centauri.  That'll keep us safe for the time
being.  But that isn't all.  Some sort of protoplasm has appeared on
Earth, and it radiates mentality.  It's overcoming the world--"

The voice trailed down into, silence and ceased.  Frantically Jefferson
buzzed the contactor, without success.  Bitter-faced, he flung down the
receivers and made a brief explanation to his wondering companions.

"Things are getting tough!" whistled Stanhope.  "Vanishing planets,
protoplasm!  What the devil next?  What's it all for, I wonder?"

"This is no time to ask questions," Jefferson snorted.  "We've got to
act--fast.  Give me a hand with the blast-tubes; we're taking some of
this moon back to Earth.  Quickly!"

Without another word the three set to work, each performing his part of
the task with absolute assurance.  Disintegrator blast-tubes, operated
from the base of the ship, set to work and cut a full square mile of
the apparently solid satellite below.  For a time that iron grey
surface was ripped and torn with shafts of energy, then, as they ceased
their activity the magnetizers came into action.

Immediately, the mile-square sheet, jagged-edged, was torn from its
native bed and floated into space.  In response the space ship adjusted
her position to the new balance and a blinding segment of Venus
appeared beyond the satellite's edge.

"Full speed ahead," Jefferson snapped.

The rocket-tubes roared and under their influence the ship began to
pull away from the tiny satellite's weak gravitation, drew slowly but
into the void away from Venus, the section of severed moon trailing at
an unvarying distance in the rear, weightless, chained only by the
space ship's own small gravity and powerful magnetizers.

Little by little the immense bulk of Venus began to appear as the
distance increased and the satellite's width correspondingly lessened.
And as it did so the mental compulsions returned.

Again the trio wrestled desperately with the mental waves, but this
time they felt more than compulsion.  There was a message, a distinct
message, an impression of thought waves, as though a voice were
speaking.  Silent and rigid they listened.

"Be warned, before you go too far.  You are grappling with the brain of
Lu Sang, a brain that formerly lay in a pitifully inadequate earthly
body.  The time has come when I have learned all that matter has to
tell; that being so I seek the region of pure thought, the thought that
exists where matter is not.  Originally in the dim beginning there was
naught but space; the accident of certain crystallizing radiations
produced matter--a cancer in the midst of an otherwise uniform sea of
thought-impressions.  With my knowledge it is an easy matter to produce
a radiation capable of causing atomic collapse through the medium of
heat, the destruction of matter and its resolution into apparently
empty space.

"Not until space is empty and all life destroyed can I obtain the real
concept of thought.  My mental radiations now are disturbing matter
life, reducing it to the final stage when it will be a simple matter to
destroy the living bodies without impairing the minds.  These
perturbations are caused entirely by the efforts of the human
mentalities to escape from their Earthbound bodies.  In the end they
will all escape--that is my aim.  So, puny humans, do not attempt to
stand in my way.  You may struggle as you wish, invent all you desire,
but your end is inevitable."



With that the communication ceased, but the mental perturbations
continued.  The three men said nothing, and in a manner purely
mechanical drove the flier steadily back toward Earth.

When ultimately they gained the landing grounds mechanical devices came
into operation to take control of the colossal sheet of metal they had
brought with them.  Gently and carefully it was lowered to the ground,
then, opening the door, Jefferson found himself facing Commandant
Bradley.

"Thank God you're back, Jefferson," were his first words.  "You got my
radio report, of course?  I was overcome at the end by a mental attack.
Things have gone much worse while you've been away.  The protoplasm is
everywhere, slowly covering Earth.  The same stuff has also appeared on
Mars and smothered that planet completely.  The same thing will happen
to Earth.  Worst of all are the disappearing planets.  Thank God we
have four force-ray projectors.  Two of them help to keep Earth steady
during the shiftings of the balance.  What did you find?  Anything?"

Briefly Jefferson related everything.

"So the only bright spot is our bringing the metal back with us," he
concluded.  "It protects us against the Brain's thought waves.  We can
build a shelter of it and work inside with peace.  It's our only
chance.  There must be something that can destroy this infernal
Brain--we've got to find something.  If we don't all matter will be
eliminated and all mind released to its primordial level before matter
came.  How many men can you let me have, sir?"

"You can have the entire space unit.  We're running no space ships now."

Jefferson nodded.

"Send them to me, sir, and at the earliest moment we'll figure ways and
means.  Now, let's get busy."




CHAPTER III

_The Brain Speaks_

In the days that followed men labored to build a small shed from the
material of the Venusian moon.  It was hard work--cruelly hard--but the
need for urgency accomplished wonders.

And while the men struggled to erect the building on the space grounds,
death was stalking in every corner of Earth.  From every city came news
of the steady death of populations, of people of weak mental resistance
overcome by the onslaughts of the Venusian brain.  The now vast seas of
protoplasmic matter that also smeared Earth's surface were impossible
things to fight.

"The stuff isn't brain matter, sir," Jefferson explained to his worried
superior.  "It's really unintelligent chemical, but somehow, probably
through the medium of electricity, the distant Brain has managed to
excite the atoms of lowly chemicals existing in the very ground into a
formation of protoplasm.  The stuff has a cellular reflective power
which enables it to reflect the mental outpourings of the Brain with
tremendous amplification, just as a mirror reflects the sunlight.  The
Brain is using it, I imagine, purely to increase the potency of his
thought-range.  Since the same thing happened on Mars it seems a
logical conclusion.  By this means the Brain has doubled his power, can
reach everywhere."

"And now?" Bradley asked drearily.  "How do we fight it?"

"We still have time," Jefferson answered grimly.  "The shelter is
finished.  Inside the hut we are perfectly safe.  And the only way to
defeat the Brain is by electricity.  One electric wave can always upset
another if you go about it properly.  Brain-radiations, or
thought-waves, are electrical in nature.  These incoming mental waves
are in the vicinity of one hundred and ninety thousand frequency,
working on the new Crookes-Matthew Table.  Frequencies of that order
are far and away in advance of anything yet produced on Earth, and the
only way we can get it is by the electric and almost inexhaustible
discharge of smashing atoms.  You see, if we can once achieve a similar
number of frequencies and direct them at Venus, it seems obvious that
like will repulse like.

"In other words, the power of the Brain will be so heterodyned, or
turned aside, as to cease to have effect.  Then, while the effect is
maintained and the Brain is helpless we will venture near enough to
Venus' surface to smash it out of existence with large-sized ray-tubes.
That cannot be done without the Brain being temporarily incapacitated.
Normally it can turn aside any ray-tube in existence.  It is virtually
indestructible, unless under the anaesthesia of frequencies of a like
power to its own."

"Go to it," the commandant encouraged.  "I hope it works.  And
remember, the protoplasm stuff has reached West Virginia and is rapidly
moving eastward.  It'll be here any time."

Jefferson nodded.  "If we're quick we can beat it.  I'm going right now
to make the final details."

The equipping and hook-up of the directional instruments with the main
power lines proved a longer job than Jefferson had anticipated.
Throughout two days and nights men milled and flocked about the job,
battling with both the elements of time and mental trouble.  With every
passing hour the force of the Brain was becoming stronger.  Jefferson
fumed and cursed, listened to desperate radio reports that told of the
protoplasm's advance into Pennsylvania.

At six p.m. on the following evening, when the cabling and machine
connections were at last completed, Mars vanished from the cosmic map.
Instantly the two bracing power-rays, automatically controlled, changed
their power, adjusting themselves to equal pressure and negating what
would otherwise have been world-shattering earthquakes.  Stanhope, who
had been present at the observatory when the Martian disaster had
happened, issued an immediate report.



There was nothing particularly unusual about the matter, it seemed.
The Brain was obviously capable of utilizing radiations able to cause
atomic excitation.  Hence the atoms of Mar's had been agitated through
continuously rising temperature.  Mars, it appeared, had passed through
all the stages of atomic destruction.  It had glowed red, then white,
then violet as the 6000 C. temperature was reached.  Higher and
higher, until tremendous X-rays had poured forth into space; to be
replaced by gamma rays as the temperature soared to millions of
degrees.  The nuclei of Mars' atoms had begun to tremble, and finally
at 2,000,000 had collapsed altogether.

Mars had passed out in a grand splash of cosmic rays and ceased to be.
Why the furious heat of the collapsing planet had not blistered Earth
to cinders was a mystery.  The only explanation, apparently, was that
the Brain had its own ways of working, was saving Earth for its own
particular experiments.

Jefferson's jaw squared when he heard the news.  With hardly a word he
entered the protective building not an hour afterward, accompanied by
Stanhope, Bragg, and the commandant himself.  No sooner was the door
shut than activity began--the main power house of the United Powerlines
being constantly in television contact.

Jefferson moved steadily and resolutely in the midst of the apparatus,
gazed at the distance-gauge.  From his calculations, he knew that the
main immense transmitter, four miles away, was pointed so that its
outflowing radiations would impinge directly on Venus.  The remainder
of his instruments told him exactly the load being carried, the number
of frequencies, and countless other electrical details, while way back
in the laboratories of the Powerline Company the atom-smashing
apparatus was at work.  Atom-smashing was not a new art to the
scientists, but the amount of energy called for on this occasion most
certainly was.  One hundred and ninety-five thousand frequencies!  That
was what it was now.

It needed at least twelve atom-smashing machines, directed upon three
one-ton blocks of copper to produce the desired load.  Desperate
scientists worked in the midst of terrific heat and light, protected by
heavy suits and goggled helmets, watching an awe-inspiring display of
disruption and annihilation, the result of which was transmitted direct
to the protective shelter at the space grounds, and then to the
transmitter itself.

For two hours, and more, Jefferson labored with the switches and
resistances until he finally achieved a steady output of one hundred
and ninety-five thousand frequencies.

"That's the first part, sir," he announced quietly to the commandant.
"If I'm correct, the Brain can't operate with that force being hurled
at it.  Naturally the force will be blocked as that tiny satellite
passes between, but that's hardly worth reckoning in.  The power will
remain on until Stanhope, Bragg and I have been to Venus and blown the
Brain to atoms with the ray-tubes we've had fixed aboard our ship.
We've got to go right away.  You'd better stay here, sir.  There'll be
no hitch; the power is automatically controlled.  Come on, you two."

The three moved to the door and opened it--but instead of an absence of
mental compulsion, such as they had expected, there swept in on them a
tremendous communication, so intense that they staggered before it.

"So, you imagine by the use of electricity that you can defeat me?  You
pitiful fools!  When will you realize that the electricity you have
hurled into space is far from a detriment?  Rather it is an advantage!
I discovered that when the satellite passed me and reflected my own
radiations.  I absorb it into myself, increase my mental range to
double because you have doubled the frequencies.  You notice how strong
my power is?  Realize that there is no power that can stop my plans.  I
shall now destroy you in the same way I destroyed Mars, by a radiation
that will annihilate matter.  There remains, of the entire spatial
universe, reckoning, that is, to Alpha Centauri, only Earth and Mercury
to destroy, together with a few odd planetoids and moons.  Tomorrow at
eight in the morning, by Earth time, Earth shall pass.  Remember that.
And at that time those who have not succumbed to mental power will die
in the ordinary way."

The three men heard no more.  They stepped back into the protective
shelter, dazed, alarmed.  Almost mechanically Jefferson gave the
stopping order to the power houses, then he turned a bleak face to the
others.

"It's impregnable!" he muttered.  "Instead of electricity stopping it,
it's just used it!  Yet there must be a way.  And we've only got twelve
hours!"

He stopped and sat down to think, head buried in his hands.




CHAPTER IV

_The Last Chance_

At length Jefferson looked up, his eyes bright.

"There's only one chance," he said grimly: "It might just work.  At
eight tomorrow the new disruptive radiation will be hurled at Earth.
But what is to happen if we deflect the radiation and turn it back on
Venus?"

"Presumably it would wreck Venus," Stanhope returned obviously.

"Or the Brain might absorb it.  First find your deflector."

"That's simple.  This satellite metal, of which this shelter is built,
evidently reflects all known vibrations and does not absorb any of
them--not even thought-waves.  The Brain has proved that.  That being
so it is a certainty that the Venusian satellite itself will be able to
deflect the disruptive radiations hurled from Venus back onto Venus
herself."

"But why won't the Brain itself absorb the reflected radiations?"

"For two reasons.  In the first place, this new radiation will be
inconceivably more powerful--too tremendously potent for the Brain to
nullify or absorb.  It will annihilate him almost instantly.  Secondly,
in the past the Brain drew his energy from outer space.  Now he's using
his own, built-up thought power.  It's a fundamental law of Nature that
no organism can survive in its own waste.  Just as the carbon dioxide
we exhale proves fatal to other organisms--the same carbon dioxide
absorbed by the exhaler would have a lethal affect on him.  Similarly,
the Brain will be unable to cope with his own emanations which will be,
in a sense, his waste."

"Agreed," nodded Bragg.  "The slight difficulty in the way is holding
the said satellite still enough to accomplish the deflection.  You can
bet your life the Brain has got it all worked out to send the
disruptive, vibrations intermittently as the satellite whirls past."

"Naturally, but I'm thinking of our power rays which are holding Earth
steady.  We have two other power rays, standing by in case of
emergency.  Doesn't it seem possible that we can utilize them?  Direct
one at our moon, which is infinitely heavier than the Venusian
satellite, and the other at the Venusian satellite itself, the power
being just sufficient to hold that small body steady and stationary at
the exact moment the Brain fires forth the disruptive power.  That will
cause the power to recoil and destroy all Venus at exactly eight
o'clock.  So far as the calculation goes, I shall go into space and
give radio directions to Earth.  My instruments will check it."

Bragg smiled cynically.

"And the Brain?  How do you expect to stand that mentality?"

"Simple.  We have Venus satellite metal left over.  We can soon fashion
helmets both for myself and the men who will be working the power rays
on Earth here.  We have the apparatus to fashion as many helmets as we
want.  With those we will be safe."



At midnight Jefferson left a world that was slowly disappearing under
the steady advance of reflective protoplasm.  He left satisfied,
rough-hewn helmet on his head, content that Stanhope would see through
the final details, content too that Bragg would expertly handle all the
radio messages that came to him.  He felt confident that the Brain
would not intercept the radio messages, mainly because of the helmets.

Two hours after Jefferson's departure Bragg began to receive the
necessary instructions--the rate of the satellite, its position--every
detail, checked by Jefferson's own instruments, was given, to be
immediately relayed by Bragg to the waiting Stanhope.  He in turn gave
the helmeted engineers the instructions and they set to work on the
details of the two spare force projectors.

Helmeted as they were the men received no mental distractions, but they
were forced to struggle constantly with ever-expanding protoplasm.  New
York was already a smothered city.  The only advantage about the stuff
was that it did not kill or digest human beings, merely rendered them
unconscious.

So, watched by the helmeted commandant, the last conscious men of Earth
made their last stand, waiting for the dawn, listening to the radio
instructions that came through the silent night, uttered originally by
a lone man situated almost stationary one thousand miles from the
surface of the Venusian moon.

Jefferson himself spent the last hours with his eyes glued to the
chronometer, timed exactly to Earth time.  Then he gave the firing
signal to Earth, allowing for the time interval of nearly eight
minutes, and a corresponding eight minutes for the projected force to
strike the Venusian moon.  Back on Earth response was exact to the
second.  Lunar and Venusian force rays were projected to the
pre-calculated second, allowing for the differences in distance.
Helmeted men in the major power house fed the immense projector
engines, engines now working to support four instead of two machines.

Jefferson waited tensely, eyes glued to the Venusian satellite.  He
watched breathlessly as it appeared on its usual fast journey round the
parent world--but now there was something different.  Its onrush was
slowing down.  Slower.  The hands of the chronometer pointed exactly to
eight, and exactly at the identical second the satellite halted, dead
in a line between Earth and Venus.

Jefferson never knew what happened after that.  Too long he had
lingered, too close to the danger zone, drawn by the uncanny
fascination of it all.

He had one glimpse of a world crumbling and smashing into blinding
flame, of a stationary satellite etched out against the glare.  Vast
and tremendous electrical repercussions beat through infinity, seized
the infinitesimally small space ship and hurled it into the uttermost
reaches of space.  Jefferson never knew what happened.  Death claimed
him instantly.  His ship slowly returned, wrecked, to the position of
the shattered Venus and gravitated finally as a tiny moon around the
largest remaining piece.

Back on Earth, the danger averted, men waited through the days and
weeks for the return of Jefferson--waited long past the time when the
protoplasm, deprived of the energy from Venus that had given it life,
had died and rotted, long past the time when man had recovered himself
and set himself to the task of rebuilding the shattered solar system.
The task of recreating a balance equalling that of the old.

But Jefferson never returned.  He had tempted danger once too often.






[End of Brain of Venus, by John Russell Fearn]
