The John Russell Fearn Science Fiction MEGAPACK ®: 25 Golden Age Stories by John Russell Fearn

Author:John Russell Fearn [Fearn, John Russell]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: mystery, detective, hardboiled, historical, noir
ISBN: 9781479403868
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2014-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

He sat coiled up in his bunk while I told bin what I intended to do. With the energy of youth I raced through the details while he sat looking at me steadily with smoke coiling out of the crackling bowl of his pipe.

“Lad, you won’t like this,” he said finally, considering, “but my advice is, don’t! Yes, yes, I know Lucia is a lovely girl,” he went on, as I started interrupt. “As fair a picture as any man could wish to see—even at my age; but that’sn only the outside of the parcel, as it were. I think that if you marry that girl and take her back to Earth with you you’ll regret it—and so will she. Besides, marriage between people of different planets hasn’t yet been made legal. The eugenicists haven’t yet examined the possibilities of such unions.”

“But there’s no law against it, either,” I pointed out. “That is why I want to marry Lucia before some committee or other thinks up the notion of banning interplanetary marriages… Anyway, Lucia is quite willing.”

“Mmmm. What do you plan to do when you get to Earth?”

“I’ll give up space-roving. It won’t interest me any more, and I’m getting to the age that doesn’t make for a good spaceman. I’ve made a good deal of money in these last few years, so I propose to buy a decent home for Lucia and myself—somewhere in the country if I can—and then I’ll take up an executive position. My papers qualify me for that.”

He sighed, knocked the ashes out of his pipe on the bunk rail.

“Well, lad, if your mind is made up that’s all there is to be said. I gave up trying to reason with youth—or love—long ago. It can’t be done… All I can suggest is that you think very carefully, because I’m convinced that it won’t turn out as you expect. Nature, my boy,” he added solemnly, wagging a finger at me. “You can’t get behind the old lady. Lucia is a Venusian, born to this world: you are an Earth man, born to that world. Not much difference, you say? Well, we’ll see. You’d be better off preserving a friendship with Lucia than marrying her.”

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