Grotto of the Dancing Deer by Clifford D. Simak

Author:Clifford D. Simak
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2016-01-19T21:37:35+00:00

Mutiny on Mercury

As far as I can tell from the author’s journals, Clifford Simak wrote this story in 1930, making it perhaps his very first. But since it was initially rejected by Astounding Science Fiction, and then by Wonder Stories, Miracle Science and Fantasy Stories, and Argosy All-Story Weekly, it was not the first of his stories to appear in print. (Wonder Stories ultimately accepted and published it in 1932.)

As might be expected, “Mutiny on Mercury” is a crude first attempt at writing. It is also, as might be expected from its era, violent and displays elements clearly derivative of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s John Carter of Mars series. And there’s plenty of room for argument about its implications. …

—dww

Tom Clark stared at the sword he held in his hand. It should have been in a museum, for it was a rare specimen. The steel was bright and the hilt was an example of workmanship in which the ancients had excelled.

It had been centuries since a sword had been used in battle. But on this day, in the atmosphere plant which supplied oxygen to the great quartz dome on the twilight belt of the planet Mercury, a naked blade had leaped and flashed, a weapon again. It was no longer a relic doomed to be regarded with curiosity by a race that had forgotten its use.

The blade had belonged to Ben Jacobs, an heirloom which had been handed down, in the name of sentiment, from father to son, for many generations. Undoubtedly it was worth a small fortune, for the museums of the Earth held only a few such weapons. But now Ben Jacobs lay in a heap on the floor of the plant, struck down by a burly Selenite.

To Jacobs the sword had been a symbol. He had carried it from the Earth to this forsaken planet, where the only evidence of life was ten huge domes of quartz set over as many mines, owned and operated completely by the Universal Ore Mining Company.

Only twenty-four hours ago he had told Tom the story of the sword. Now Jacobs lay motionless on the floor and the ancient blade was dyed with the blood of vanquished foemen.

Gently Tom lowered the point of the sword to the floor and gazed upon his handiwork. Before him lay three bodies. One was that of a Martian, a yellow-skinned, eight-limbed body, the skin covered with hideous warts. The grinning head, almost severed from the trunk, boasted three eyes, two in the same position as those of a Terrestrial, the other on the top of the hairless head. The mouth was large, as was also the nose, with the ears almost twice as large as those of an Earth man.

The other two bodies were those of Selenites, the gigantic Moon men with their small heads, their abnormally developed torsos and correspondingly large, powerful arms and their small, but singularly powerful legs, built on the same lines as those of a kangaroo.

Tom lifted the sword again and ran his fingers along its edge.

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