The Lunar Point of View by S.M. Tenneshaw

Book Details

The Lunar Point of View is a FREE collection of four stories by S.M. Tenneshaw a “house name” for Fantastic Adventures and Amazing Stories. The actual writers of these stories are unknown.

The Outcast (1949) – Hell broke loose in the Venusian Jungle when Jack Bradley found out he wasn’t really an outcast — and set out to get his revenge!

The Lunar Point of View (1950) – Earthmen fought for control of the Lunar Mines while the Moon People waited patiently – waiting to reward the loser!

Who Sups With the Devil (1948) – The devil granted a thousand years of life to George Bollata – ten centuries of hell, that is…

Diana And The Golden Ring (1950) – This golden ring was the key to a problem in two separate worlds. But could it exist in both of them at the same time?

The Lunar Point of View contains 9 illustrations.

Files:

1. LunarPointOfView.epub

Excerpt: The Outcast

HIS MACHETE strokes had weakened to the point where they were little more than futile swipes at the heavy Venusian foliage. His arms, working ceaselessly for days, seemed to hang from his shoulders like leaden weights. And his mind echoed the green, buzzing confusion of the jungle around him.

Two days. Two days that seemed like two years. Hack, and stumble. Hack, and stumble through the opening his machete had cleared. And always ahead there was the seemingly impenetrable wall of the jungle, pressing down upon him with its heat, a buzzing enemy of insects adding to his misery.

Wearily he slashed again and stumbled on. Somewhere ahead, he knew, lay Tellus Spaceport. Somewhere a hundred miles away beyond the mountain range he glimpsed at rare intervals at the horizon’s end. He slashed his way toward that goal. For he knew his only chance lay in reaching it alive.

A rotting log jutted in his path and he sank down upon it wearily, wiping the sweat from his forehead. Almost mechanically his mind turned back to what he left behind there in the jungle. And the thought was not a pleasant one.

For years Earthmen had been attempting to colonize Venus and stretch forth the frontiers of Tellus beyond the Moon. And he knew they had succeeded to a degree. But every step gained had been won with an equal amount of blood. For the savages who inhabited Venus did not like the idea of Earthmen taking over the planet. But Earthmen doggedly fought on.

He thought of the colony he left behind him. And of the subsequent events that had happened almost too fast for him to grasp.

Old Borden Farnsworth had struck a rich vein a month ago. And the Farnsworth colony boomed. Ore trains were bringing in record hauls of platinum. And the old man had been a wreath of smiles.

“Bradley,” he had said one morning after Jack Bradley brought in the weekly ore train, “I’ve looked forward to this day for over fifty years. Used to be a time when every colony had to fight to bring the ore trains in. But it begins to look like the Venusians are finally learning they can’t stop us.”

But a few days later the old man had changed his tune. Men were disappearing. And when they were found, there wasn’t much left to recognize them. The answer was all too clear. The Venusians had attacked again. But even that wasn’t the worst.

Bradley’s ore train had been massacred. The Venusians had been drunk and armed with automatic rifles. Bradley’s men hadn’t a chance. It had been a miracle that he and a few scattered colonized native supply carriers had escaped with their lives. The old man had fairly flown into a rage.

“I might have known it!” he exploded. “Somebody’s deliberately running guns and liquor to these savages! Some dirty outcast Earthman! If I ever lay my hands on him!”

SUSPICION fell for awhile on Jason Brail and his colony fifty miles west. But Brail was in no position to know the Farnsworth ore train schedule, so he had to be ruled out.

Things kept getting worse. Every ore train Jack Bradley led was attacked. And blood ran free. The old man was nearing apoplexy.

And then one day things reached a climax.

Bradley had just reported the loss of his latest train to armed drunken savages, when Mandel Craig, assistant engineer to old Farnsworth, and a group of others strode into the old man’s office.

Craig walked up to Bradley.

“Lost another train, eh, Bradley?”

Jack Bradley nodded wearily but noticed the strange gleam in Craig’s eyes. Craig turned to the old man.

“For about a month now we’ve been losing men and shipments to armed savages. And in that time I’ve learned a few things.” His eyes played on the tense features of Jack Bradley. The old man was leaning forward, listening. Craig continued.

“It seems mighty peculiar that the only ore trains to get attacked are those led by Bradley—”

“What the hell are you driving at!” Bradley demanded, his face growing angrily perplexed.

“Just this,” replied Craig. “It seemed strange to me that you should always come back from these attacks when most of the others didn’t. And two nights ago I learned something to make my suspicions right.” He paused and gazed over at Bradley, a hard smile pulling at the comers of his mouth. Then:

“Two nights ago I saw Bradley here steal out of the stockade and meet a group of Venusians. He was probably telling them of the ore shipment he was leading back in a day. Luckily these others,” he motioned to the silent group of men standing behind him, “saw Bradley, too. It seems pretty obvious now who’s been selling us out!”

Excerpt From: S.M. Tenneshaw. “The Lunar Point of View.”