Raymond A. Palmer - The Vengence of Martin Brand.pdf - Raymond A. Palmer - allforjesus2001

THE VENGENCE OF MARTIN BRAND

RAYMOND A. PALMER

A Renaissance E Books publication

ISBN 1-58873-809-4

First published Amazing Stories 1942

No record of copyright renewal found

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.

For information:

Publisher@renebooks.com

PageTurner Editions/Futures-Past Science Fiction

FIRST BOOK EDITION

ABOUT THIS AUTHOR AND BOOK

Raymond A. Palmer (1910-1977) was one of science fiction's most successful and controversial editors.

When as a budding young science fiction writer he was asked to take over the helm of the moribund

Amazing Stories in 1938, Palmer immediately propelled it to the number one ranking science fiction

magazine in terms of sales. However, the magazine's juvenile slant (Palmer said he intended his magazine

to be the steppingstone between the comic book and more mature science fiction) and Palmer's later

publication of the so-called “Shaver Mystery” (1945-9), a series of lightly fictionalized stories which the

author, Richard S. Shaver, claimed represented his actual, personal encounters with powerful beings in

vast caverns beneath the Earth's crust. These creatures interfered for good or ill (mostly ill) with the lives

of those on the surface via a series of superscientific inventions (these were supposedly the descendents

of a once mighty race that had ruled the stars but degenerated when the sun's rays changed millions of

years ago). The Shaver Mystery boosted Amazing's sales even further, thousands of people wrote in to

recount similar experiences, and the phenomenon reached such proportions that it drew the attention of

Life magazine, and other national publications. However, more serious science fiction readers and

authors felt the Shaver Mystery, besides being a hoax, was making them look like kooks and the genre

appear even more juvenile just as they were beginning to be taken seriously by a few mainstream critics

and anthologists. So in 1949, in a palace coup led by Palmer's assistant, Howard Browne (who soon

took over the top editorial job on Amazing) , Brown and a number of top sf authors bearded the

magazine's publisher in his den and convinced him that in the long run the company's reputation would be

tarnished if he allowed the Shaver stories to continue. Faced with having his editorial hands tied for the

first time in a decade during which he had piloted Amazing to the top of the sales charts, Palmer resigned

to found Clark Publishing Company, which he then ran until his death in 1977.

During his years at Amazing and after, Palmer had continued to write science fiction, under his own

name and a slew of pseudonyms including A. R. Steber, Morris J. Steel, Henry Gade, Frank Patton and

others. Under whichever name he used, Palmer's stories were highly popular with readers, as the glowing

praise heaped on them in the letter columns attests. Yet, amazingly enough, until this ebook publication

of The Vengeance of Martin Brand , none of the stories and novels he wrote has ever been reprinted.

This is all the more difficult to understand, for the work Palmer produced, as this classic 1942 space

opera from Amazing shows, was unusually sophisticated for its time. Here is the first of the adult space

operas. In this book, Palmer took a giant stride forward from his contemporaries, replacing the noble,

uncomplicated heroes of the first space exploration epics, with the tormented anti-hero. Meet “Suicide”

Martin Brand, one of science fiction's most memorable characters. The half-crazed Brand, who likes to

play Wagner while rocketing toward a half-dozen enemy ships, atomic cannons blasting, is Earth's only

hope. The embittered former spy for the Interplanetary Patrol is the only one who knows about the

Martian spaceships waiting in the hidden cavern on the Moon. To warn Earth Brand would have to

forsake vengeance on the man who betrayed him, survive two ultra-dangerous women, one who has

sworn to kill him and one who has sworn to arrest him dead or alive. Then, if he does survive, he'll have

to fight his way to the surface through half the Martian army. But that's why the call him “Suicide” Martin

Brand. Worse, if he does succeed in warning Earth, war will flare across three worlds, setting them

ablaze and killing billions! From its advanced flashback within a flashback technique, to the adult passions

and emotions of the characters, The Vengeance of Martin Brand is superior space opera far ahead of

its time!

Jean Marie Stine

CHAPTER I

"It's a crazy thing, Kathleen,” Hal Orson said in a savage whisper. “Worse still, it can only hurt you. He's

dead ... why open up old wounds? You'll break your heart..."

"It's already broken,” Kathleen Dennis said in a tight, strained voice. “It broke the day they took him

away, condemned as a traitor, and I believed it ... until you told me the truth."

Orson stopped in the darkness and grasped her arm. “Kathy, please don't do it! You don't know how

much trouble you can get into if you are caught at this mad scheme. You couldn't possibly explain why

you did it—” Orson pulled her around until she faced him in the gloom of the tomb's interior. “Just why

are you doing it?” he insisted. “Why! For the life of me I can't understand..."

"Why did you agree to come along in the first place?” she whispered fiercely.

He tried to see her face in the gloom, but it was only a pale oval, and for an instant he thought he saw

something glistening, as though there were tears on her cheeks reflecting little glints of light from some

unseen source. He lifted one hand and brushed his fingers across her velvet skin. They came away wet.

He shook his head in irritation.

"Because I was his best friend—or as good a friend as he'd let anybody be. And because...” He fumbled

for words, but the wetness on his fingers strangled them in his throat. To say more would only hurt her

worse...

"Because you felt there was a possibility that I might be right,” she finished for him. “That he might not

be..."

"Kathy,” he begged. “Don't say it. You'll break yourself up..."

"Because I'm crying?” she asked, defiantly. “Hal, discovering that he really is dead can't hurt me half as

much as the torture of not knowing. And as long as this doubt gnaws at me, I'll be a river of pain

dammed forever from the sea. The dam will break if I don't relieve the pressure."

"Then let me look!” he exclaimed. “There's no use in burning such a ghastly picture into your mind..."

"Don't be afraid of that,” she said. “For eleven years I've burned a picture of him into my mind—ten

years while I worshipped him from a distance, and once since I told him I loved him. No other picture

can replace that one. I can take it, Hal, I'm no baby."

"You're crying like one,” he said and regretted the words instantly. “I'm sorry, Kathy. I didn't mean that.

I'm a fool...” His voice broke and he stopped speaking.

She reached out and touched her cool fingers to his face. He stood still while they explored. He didn't

flinch when she found the wetness.

"Hal,” she said. “You're good. Too good to get into trouble because of me. Go now, Hal—I'll finish the

job alone."

He hefted the crowbar in his left hand. “No!” he said roughly. “I'm going to take this tomb apart, stone

for stone, and if he's in there, I'm going to take the Capitol Building apart right afterward!” He strode on

the gloom of the marble monument to seek the hero whose real heroism had never even been told, whose

life had been forfeited by the cowardice of a nation's government. Kathleen followed behind him,

clutching his right hand with her left.

They reached the rail around the sunken marble mausoleum and Orson halted. “Over you go,” he

whispered. “I'll let you down and you can drop the last foot or so. It's only eight feet...” He put down the

crowbar, and it clanged loudly against the floor.

Kathleen clambered over the rail. He grasped both her wrists and lowered her gently, leaning over as far

as he could. Then, with a whispered warning, he released his grip. He heard her soft sandals slap against

the floor, and knew that she hadn't lost her balance.

"Here I come,” he said, picking up the crowbar.

In an instant he stood beside her in the gloom and fumbled in his pocket for the black-light spectacles

necessary to give them vision. She put on a pair, and as he donned his, she snapped on the black-light

flash. Without the glasses, nothing would have been visible at all in the impenetrable darkness. An eerie

reddish-glow seemed to fill the chamber. He turned to look at her. She stood stiffly, staring at the huge

marble coffin in the center of the circular floor. Even in the weird light he could see that her face was

starkly white.

He clenched his fist so tightly that the nails bit into his palm, and turned almost savagely toward the coffin.

She held the light while he placed the crowbar against the thin crack that marked the lid. The slab was

tremendously heavy, but by fractional inches he forced the thin edge of the bar beneath it until enough of

it was under the slab to give leverage. His first heave moved the slab not more than an inch. He tried it

again, and once more he moved the slab a tiny bit.

"Can you do it?” Kathleen asked anxiously.

"It's a cinch you alone couldn't have,” he grunted.

"I'd have smashed it,” she said simply, “if it took me all night. I don't think anyone outside could hear

what went on in here. It's almost soundproof."

"I hope so,” he said, inching the bar under the slab once more. “It looks as though we'll be making plenty

of noise before I get this off."

* * * *

Ten sweating minutes later the slab had moved enough to show a thin black line of the interior of the

outer coffin. Orson thrust the crowbar into it with a mighty heave. The muscles in his shoulders bunched

as he strained against the bar. Then the lid slid aside as though it were greased and fell with a thunderous

crash to the floor. The echoes were deafening in the vaulted chamber, then silence came once more.

They waited almost a full minute, listening for the sound of running footsteps, for an alarm; but no further

sound came other than their hoarse breathing.

Kathleen thrust the light over the edge of the sarcophagus.

"The coffin!” she gasped. “It's there."

"Of course,” he said, almost savagely. “It would be. And it's going to be a devil of a job to open it. It's

metal, and it'll be bolted shut. I only hope the wrenches I've brought will fit..."

He tried them one by one, then grunted as he found one that worked. He began loosening the first bolt...

* * * *

An hour later he sank back, his hands bleeding. “There, that's the last one,” he gasped, “but I'll have to

rest a moment. I haven't got the strength left to lift that cover..."

Kathleen laid the flash on the floor and leaned over the coffin.

"Kathy!” said Orson sharply.

"Don't..."

But with one superhuman heave, she lifted the metal cover. It crashed aside, ringing as though a thousand

gongs had been clashed together. Orson clapped his hands over his ears, then took them off. He looked

at Kathleen, who was peering into the coffin.

Suddenly she screamed. Again and again she screamed, ear-piercing shrieks that penetrated his

eardrums with more intensity than had the noise of the metal coffin lid.

He leaped forward, grasped her in his arms and pulled her away from the coffin.

"Kathy! Come away! Don't look any more..."

Her screams stopped and she whirled on him, sobbing shrilly. “Hal! He's ... he's not there. He's not

there! Don't you understand? .. .He's alive! He's not dead at all; he's alive! The coffin's empty!"

"Oh God,” said Hal Orson, folding her trembling body in his arms. “Oh God!"

As he stood there, holding the sobbing girl tightly, his mind went back to that memorable day when the

“luck of Suicide Martin Brand” had become almost a legend with the Interplanetary Patrol. They had

heard it all over his transmitter, which, in the heat of battle he had forgotten to turn off. They had heard

him screaming his defiance at his enemies while he plunged in for his suicidal attack against impossible

odds, accompanied by the roar of Wagner's immortal Die Walkure dinning at them out of their

loudspeakers from the music tape he habitually carried into battle with him...

CHAPTER II

"Come and get me, boys!—If you can!"

Martin Brand clenched one space-browned fist around the fighter's throttle and threw the ship into a

screaming, roaring bank that ended in a terrific dive straight down, parallel with the breath-taking

forty-thousand feet of cliff that was one side of the Liebnitz Mountains. With his other hand he pressed a

switch on the control panel—a switch that had all the earmarks of having been crudely installed by one

who was not a mechanic.

There was a faint hum, then from a speaker mounted over his head.

Brand grinned as the strains of Wagner's inspired music dinned in his ears. He turned up the volume still

further, until the roar of the music drowned out the drone of his rockets.

"Now come on, you lousy ambushers!” he roared.

Behind the ship against the rocky wall of the Liebnitz, a brilliant, soundless puff of light momentarily

erased the inky moon-shadows at the mountain's foot.

"Missed!” exclaimed Brand triumphantly. “And you had me boxed!"

Suddenly, across his sights flashed a hurtling dot. Brand tripped his guns. Once again the bright light

puffed, this time as one of Brand's shells exploded in the hull of the enemy ship.

"That's it!” screamed Brand. “The luck of ‘Suicide’ Martin Brand! Back on Earth I'm a legend, but right

here, I'm a damn fool—a fool even the devil won't kill."

There was something bitter in Brand's tone as he shouted aloud over the crash of the magnificent

Siegfried music which was filling the control room of the tiny fighter rocket. There was bitter recklessness

in the thrust of his hand as he bore the throttle over hard and sent the flier zooming up again in a

heart-bursting maneuver.

The fire of the remaining three pirates—the thought of the word pirate brought an angry flash to Brand's

eyes—converged on the Lunar floor over which he'd been, and then, suddenly, they were below him and

in line with his sights as he looped over at the top of his upward rush.

Once again those brown fingers clenched, and this time a spray of shells vomited outward toward his

enemies. Not just one lucky potshot, but a barrage with all six forward-guns.

Brilliance blinded him as thirty-six magnesium-atomics burst all around the diving ships trapped in his

sights. When the light faded, he saw another ship dropping in a mass of fragments toward the desolate

surface below. The other two were streaking desperately across the sea bottom, crater-hopping like

mad, to put distance between them and the demon fighter who had so recklessly and amazingly escaped

the perfect “box” ambush they had laid for him along the slopes of the Liebnitz.

Without pausing, Brand lanced his ship after them. Gray lava swept under the belly of his flier with a blur

of motion. With a grim, set grin on his lips, he centered the crosshairs on the flames of the laggard's

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