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    The Beast-Jewel of Mars
    The Beast-Jewel of Mars
    The Beast-Jewel of Mars
    Ebook63 pages42 minutes

    The Beast-Jewel of Mars

    By Edwin Balmer and William MacHarg

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    About this ebook

    The wise men of Caer Dhu were not so wise. They found the secret of Shanga, and they escaped their wars and their troubles by fleeing backward along the path of evolution.


    Excerpt

    Burk Winters remained in the passenger section while the Starflight made her landing at Kahora Port. He did not think that he could bear to see another man, not even one he liked as much as he did Johnny Niles, handle the controls of the ship that had been his for so long.

    He did not wish even to say goodbye to Johnny, but there was no avoiding it. The young officer was waiting for him as he came down the ramp, and the deep concern he felt was not hidden in the least by his casually hearty grin.

    Johnny held out his hand. "So long, Burk. You've earned this leave. Have fun with it."

    Burk Winters looked out over the vast tarmac that spread for miles across the ochre desert. An orderly, roaring confusion of trucks and flatcars and men and ships-ore ships, freighters, tramps, sleek liners like the Starflight, bearing the colors of three planets and a dozen colonies, but still arrogantly and predominantly Terran.

    Johnny followed his gaze and said softly, "It always gives you a thrill, doesn't it?"

    Winters did not answer. Miles away, safe from the thundering rocket blasts, the glassite dome of Kahora, Trade City for Mars, rose jewel-like out of the red sand. The little sun stared wearily down and the ancient hills considered it, and the old, old wandering wind passed over it, and it seemed as though the planet bore Kahora and its spaceport with patience, as though it were a small local infection that would soon be gone.

    He had forgotten Johnny Niles. He had forgotten everything but his own dark thoughts. The young officer studied him with covert pity, and he did not know it.

    Burk Winters was a big man, and a tough man, tempered by years of deep-space flying. The same glare of naked light that had burned his skin so dark had bleached his hair until it was almost white, and just in the last few months his gray eyes seemed to have caught and held a spark of that pitiless radiance. The easy good nature was gone out of them, and the lines that laughter had shaped around his mouth had deepened now into bitter scars.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherXinXii
    Release dateOct 20, 2015
    ISBN9781612103648
    The Beast-Jewel of Mars

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    Reviews for The Beast-Jewel of Mars

    4/5

    8 ratings2 reviews

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    • 4/5
      An interesting twist on rescuing the maiden and mutual revenge tales sat in an exotic, decadent Mars. The villainous Dry Towns, bandit kingdoms of Brackett's Mars, are engaged in a bizarre reversed version of the opium trade with the Terran elites. Caught up in this very personal revenge and degradation of their conquerors by the Martians is Captain Burk Winters, who has lost his fiancee to it.

      The story ripples with beautiful imagery. Twists on the conventional adventure plot add excitement. Each of the characters has more depth than is often supplied in adventure tales, with doubts about the cost lingering even at the end.
    • 4/5
      A devolutionary drug-type ceremony draws a spacer in a search for a lost woman, and some truths about the Martians are revealed.4 out of 5

    Book preview

    The Beast-Jewel of Mars - Edwin Balmer and William MacHarg

    The Beast-Jewel of Mars

    By Leigh Brackett

    Copyright © 1948 by Leigh Brackett

    This edition published in 2011 by eStar Books, LLC.

    www.estarbooks.com

    ISBN 9781612103648

    This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

    The publishers at eStar Books are proud to provide this quality title for your reading pleasure. At eStar Books, we specialize in the unique and unusual. To find more titles in the genres you love most, including sci-fi, fantasy and speculative fiction, visit us at www.estarbooks.com.

    The Beast-Jewel of Mars

    By Leigh Brackett

    Chapter I

    Burk Winters remained in the passenger section while the Starflight made her landing at Kahora Port. He did not think that he could bear to see another man, not even one he liked as much as he did Johnny Niles, handle the controls of the ship that had been his for so long.

    He did not wish even to say goodbye to Johnny, but there was no avoiding it. The young officer was waiting for him as he came down the ramp, and the deep concern he felt was not hidden in the least by his casually hearty grin.

    Johnny held out his hand. So long, Burk. You've earned this leave. Have fun with it.

    Burk Winters looked out over the vast tarmac that spread for miles across the ochre desert. An orderly, roaring confusion of trucks and flatcars and men and ships—ore ships, freighters, tramps, sleek liners like the Starflight, bearing the colors of three planets and a dozen colonies, but still arrogantly and predominantly Terran.

    Johnny followed his gaze and said softly, It always gives you a thrill, doesn't it?

    Winters did not answer. Miles away, safe from the thundering rocket blasts, the glassite dome of Kahora, Trade City for Mars, rose jewel-like out of the red sand. The little sun stared wearily down and the ancient hills considered it, and the old, old wandering wind passed over it, and it seemed as though the planet bore Kahora and its spaceport with patience, as though it were a small local infection that would soon be gone.

    He had forgotten Johnny Niles. He had forgotten everything but his own dark thoughts. The young officer studied him with covert pity, and he did not know it.

    Burk Winters was a big man, and a tough man, tempered by years of deep-space flying. The same glare of naked light that had burned his skin so dark had bleached his hair until it was almost white, and just in the last few months his gray eyes seemed to have caught and held a spark of that pitiless radiance. The easy good nature was gone out of them, and the lines that laughter had shaped around his mouth had deepened now into bitter scars.

    A big man, a hard man, but a man who was no longer in control of himself. All during the voyage out from Earth he had chain-smoked the little Venusian cigarettes that have a sedative effect. He was smoking one now, and even so he could not keep his hands steady nor stop the everlasting tic in his right cheek.

    Burk. Johnny's voice came to him from a great distance; Burk, it's none of my business, but . . . He hesitated, then blurted out, Do you think Mars is good for you, now?

    Quite abruptly, Winters said, Take good care of the Starflight, Johnny. Goodbye.

    He went away, down the ramp. The pilot stared after him.

    The Second Officer came up to Johnny. That guy has sure gone to pieces, he said.

    Johnny nodded. He was angry, because he had come up under Winters and he loved him.

    The damn fool. he said. He shouldn't have come here. He looked out over the mocking immensity of Mars and added, His girl was lost out there, somewhere. They never found her body.

    * * *

    A spaceport taxi took Burk Winters into Kahora, and Mars vanished. He was back in the world of the Trade Cities, which belong to all planets, and none.

    Vhia on Venus, N'York on Earth, Sun City in Mercury's Twilight Belt, the glassite refuges of the Outer Worlds, they were all alike. They were dedicated to the coddling of wealth and greed, little paradises where millions were made and lost in comfort, where men and women from all over the Solar System could expend their feverish energies without regard for such annoyances as weather and gravitation.

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