The Best of Argosy #6 - Minions of Mars
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Introduction to the Best of Argosy
by Robert Weinberg
Minions of Mars — Argosy January 13, 1940 — February 10, 1940
by William Grey Beyer
Rip Van Winkle was a mere cat-napper compared to Mark Nevin who went to sleep in 1939 and woke up six thousand years later. That was confusing enough without being elected by a prankish, disembodied intelligence to be the father of the future race, and chosen by a smooth-tongued rebel as king of a crazy country Mark had never even heard of. A sparkling and fast-moving tale of adventures in the Days to Come...
Radio Archives • 2014
Copyright Page
Copyright © 1940 by Popular Publications, Inc. Copyright renewed © 1968 and assigned to Argosy Communications, Inc. “Argosy” and its distinctive logo and symbolism and all related elements are trademarks and are the property of Argosy Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. © 2014 RadioArchives.com. Reprinted and produced under license from Argosy Communications, Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form.
These pulp stories are a product of their time. The text is reprinted intact, unabridged, and may include ethnic and cultural stereotyping that was typical of the era.
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Introduction to The Best of Argosy
By Robert Weinberg
Perhaps the most profitable decision ever made in American magazine publishing was made by Frank A. Munsey in 1896. Munsey had started a magazine titled The Golden Argosy in 1882, aimed at the boy’s adventure audience. In 1888, he dropped the word Golden as he tried to move to an older audience. In 1894, Munsey began publishing The Argosy as a monthly magazine. Two years later, he made his big decision. Reasoning that his readership bought his magazine for the stories it contained and not the paper the magazine was printed upon, Munsey started publishing The Argosy on much cheaper pulp-wood paper instead of the slick white paper used by nearly all magazines. This bold move enabled him to drop the price of his all-fiction magazine from a quarter to a dime. Munsey’s reasoning proved correct and The Argosy magazine became one of the best selling publications in America.
The goal of Argosy, (the The being dropped over the years) was to publish the best adventure and action fiction for men and boys. Not that women were neglected as there was plenty of romance mixed in with the danger. But, Argosy remained true to its purpose for well over a thousand issues, printing the top-of-the-line stories by the world’s greatest masters of exciting fiction.
The purpose of this series, The Best of Argosy, is to make available to modern adventure fans some of the finest stories ever published in the 1920s and 1930s issues of Argosy. This period is considered, by most pulp magazine historians, the magazine’s greatest. While many of the tremendous tales from these eras have been reprinted in book and paperback format, many many others have been forgotten and never before been reprinted. The Best of Argosy will make available incredible stories by such writers as George F. Worts, William Grey Beyer, Arthur Leo Zagat, Ray Cummings, Borden Chase, and dozens of others. Fire up your ray gun, cinch your saddle, put your car into gear – it’s time to revisit the golden age of pulp adventure with The Best of Argosy!
Robert Weinberg
Minions of Mars
Great New Fantastic Novel
By William Grey Beyer, author of “Minions of the Moon”
from the pages of Argosy January 13, 1940 — February 10, 1940
Rip Van Winkle was a mere cat-napper compared to Mark Nevin who went to sleep in 1939 and woke up six thousand years later. That was confusing enough without being elected by a prankish, disembodied intelligence to be the father of the future race, and chosen by a smooth-tongued rebel as king of a crazy country Mark had never even heard of. A sparkling and fast-moving tale of adventures in the Days to Come...
Foreword
Mark Nevin, away back in the twentieth century A.D., had a stomach ache. Then his doctor diagnosed his ailment as appendicitis and persuaded Mark to be the first to try his new anaesthetic. Something slipped, and Mark slept peacefully on in a blissful state of suspended animation.
While Mark was napping, a cataclysmic war broke out that shattered civilization.
Things were a little better when Mark finally did come to, but he might have fared badly just the same but for the intervention of one Omega, a disembodied intelligence.
He selects Mark to be the father of the neo-man and chooses the lovely Nona as his mate, which is agreeable as Mark has already fallen in love with her. He imparts a radioactive element to their blood.
With Mark as leader, Omega enlists an army of Vikings to wipe out two malignant intelligences which threaten to destroy the world. Victorious, the Vikings, Mark and Nona take their leave of Omega and sail for home.
Chapter 1: Hail Fellow
A LONE figure stood atop the little knoll and gazed in perplexity at the distant city. Eyes shaded from the glaring light of the rising sun he seemed to be seeing a sight beyond understanding. He turned back and as he did so, the golden light of the sun caught the play of powerful muscles under his bronzed skin. Brief leather trunks, as pliable and almost as close-fitting as his own skin, were held by a broad belt from which hung a shiny hand-axe. He wore no other clothing except a helmet, adorned with wings and considerably battered.
His face was as strong as his smoothly muscled body. The clear, blue eyes were baffled, haunted by a persistently elusive memory. He seemed to have forgotten everything he ever knew. It had taken him, for instance, more than a day to remember his own name. It had only come to him a few hours ago. Mark Nevin. And now, as his hand brushed the axe in turning, he caught the fleeting recollection that he had been known as Mark the Axe-thrower. The axe-thrower — idiotic! But of course there was the axe — but whom did he throw it at — and why?
Experimentally, he drew the axe and let fly at, a sapling fifty yards away. It was a tremendous throw, but he didn’t know that. Nor was he much surprised when the axe sped true and sheared through the four-inch tree. His only emotion, as he retrieved the weapon, was a certain satisfaction that he had earned his name. Mark, the Axe-thrower, it was. Whatever that meant.
Briefly he inspected the axe before returning it to his belt. There was something he should remember about it; something he couldn’t quite grasp. The weapon was a solid piece of metal. Its entire surface was gleaming with a tarnish-proof luster. Stainless steel, he would have called it if he could have remembered the term. But he couldn’t.
There was some association here, but no amount of concentration would bring it to the fore. Only the dim thought struggled to the surface, that here was a thing of great antiquity. And he wondered how he knew that. For the axe was as shiny as one made and polished an hour ago. One thing he did know, and that was that he must not distrust these vague recollections of his. There was a lot to remember, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that someone, somewhere, depended on him to remember.
HE COULD see that someone and he knew her name. She had been with him since his first conscious memory yesterday morning. The vision of her loveliness had been with him in the salty water as he swam toward the land he was now exploring. Even then he had known her name — Nona.
But no amount of thinking had brought the slightest
added knowledge. It was very irritating to recall her so perfectly, and not actually to know the slightest thing about her.
Discontentedly, he turned and faced the distant city. There he would find human beings. And it was most likely that among humans he would find the thought associations that would stir his tantalizing memory.
There were no workers in the tilled fields about the city. Nor any movement in the harbor on his left. The sun made long shadows of the masts of these vessels, and the rippling of the waves turned the shadows into writhing snakes. But there was no other motion.
There was an explanation for this gloomy quiet, and a simple one at that. It was still early, and the inhabitants of the city were simply still in bed. But even if this simple fact had been explained to him, he would have found it strange. For Mark was not the same as other men in this respect. He didn’t waste the sun-less hours of the night in stupor. He was as active then as he was in the daytime.
Mark was not even aware that normal men needed sleep and food. For in the short day and night of his conscious existence he had done none of these things, and had felt no loss. He was a self-sufficient machine, and he felt marvelously fit and vigorous as he strode rapidly toward the city.
Mark, with the childlike trust of the innocent or the not-quite-bright, made no attempt to be stealthy.
He was walking beside a broad, cobbled path. This was an ox-cart road, he recognized, and then wondered how he knew. There were no ox-carts to be seen. And certainly in the day and night of his memory he had seen no such conveyances, nor the roads on which they traveled.
Somewhere beyond that day and night such things must have been familiar.
The sight of the cobbles seemed to touch some familiar chord, and experimentally he stepped on them. They were uncomfortable to his bare feet, and he moved back to the smooth dirt by the side of the road. Then the struggling memory came to the surface.
It was the smooth feel of the caked dirt which carried the association. For an instant he seemed to see a road stretching endlessly into the distance. Rushing along its hard, smooth surface were wheeled vehicles, traveling at breakneck speed.
The vision passed, and with its passing came the realization that the road he had seen and the automobiles moving on it, were things of antiquity equal to that of his axe. Such things no longer existed, he was acutely aware. And yet he felt that even with the knowledge that thousands of years had gone since their existence, nevertheless he had seen such roads and traveled in such cars. This was getting more unnerving at every second, and he decided that unless he could remember everything at once, it would be more comfortable not to remember anything at all.
The cobbled road led directly between two buildings at the edge of the city. It continued as a street, narrow and shadowy. Mark walked on, intent on finding men. And men he found, though not quite in the way he had expected. He had gone perhaps a half-mile, when abruptly a horde of yelling maniacs catapulted from an alley and bore him to the ground!
THERE had been no warning, and the thing was so sudden that he hadn’t had time even to let out a yip of protest. Then he was lying wonderingly beneath a ton or so of evil smelling humanity and waiting patiently for further developments. He felt no more resentment, than he had felt pain from the beating he had taken.
His assailants were more surprised than he. Surely, thought they, a man of such tremendous physique would require mighty strenuous subduing. Disappointed and a little relieved, too, they lifted themselves off their prisoner’s body. Two of them eased their feelings by cuffing him as they rose. The blows, while vigorous, caused only a momentary twinge and Mark blissfully ignored them. He was busy watching the astonished expressions on their faces, as he sprang, unmarked and, unhurt, to his feet.
This was not a new experience, he realized, noticing that several of his attackers were holding short clubs in their hands. Sometime in the past men had attacked him with weapons and had been surprised that he had emerged unscathed. For the first time he sensed the fact that he was in some manner different from other men. That for some unaccountable reason he was hardier and less easily damaged. This, he decided, was probably a good thing.
“Hooray?” suddenly demanded the foremost of his captors. “Mac or Mic?”
Mark frowned momentarily. Then he grinned. For into his continually astonishing brain had popped the knowledge that a Mac was a Scotchman and a Mic, an Irishman.
“Yank,” he answered, and then wondered why he said it. In his head came the sound of a baseball popping off a bat, although Mark didn’t realize what it was.
“No such!” declared the other. “Soo!”
Whereupon his attackers closed in fore and aft, and marched him down the street, clubs held menacingly. Mark was still grinning as he walked between them. He wanted to go into the city anyway.
His eyes fell on the leader of the crowd and he was surprised to note that the beefy one was carrying his axe. He hadn’t known he had lost it, but realized that it had probably been wrenched from his belt during the short scuffle. Somehow the axe didn’t seem a dangerous weapon in the leader’s possession. He wondered if he was also immune from damage by axecuts. It annoyed him that he couldn’t remember why he was different from normal humans.
Right now he resolved not to let the axe get out of his sight. He knew that somehow it was connected with the past, and that he mustn’t lose it.
Here and there as they marched, a sleepy-looking head would poke out of a window to see what the night-watch had caught. Mark grinned at them, one and all, and usually got a startled look in reply. His captors were very military in their manner, assiduously keeping in step. They were burly and dressed in ill-fitting uniforms of coarse cloth, and armed with daggers which were fastened in their belts, in addition to the short clubs.
Mark with his vast splotches of ignorance, could not, of course, know that it was not exactly military in the most rigorous tradition for the guards to chatter like monkeys as they marched. Some of the words and expressions they used were unfamiliar ones, but most of their conversation Mark was able to translate into intelligible meaning. This puzzled him for a while, but as their words became more understandable he forgot about it. They were talking English, he knew, and the reason it sounded strange was probably that they spoke a dialect he had never heard. It didn’t occur to him that he was listening to English as it was spoken several thousand years after he had learned the language as a boy.
The conversation centered about him. Guesses were being made as to what manner of man he might be; and why he hadn’t suffered from the cudgel blows they had administered; and finally as to what disposition might be made of him by the local magistrate. Quite a few guesses were made concerning the last, and they varied all the way from slavery in the fields to burning at the stake. One fellow, on Mark’s left, voiced the opinion that the proper punishment for his crime of breaking curfew, should be a term in the king’s army.
“That’s no punishment!” exclaimed the man next to him, although he didn’t say it in quite that way. “The army lives high.”
“I know it,” replied the other, complacently. “But when I tell the magistrate what I saw, that’s what he’ll say, too.”
“What did you see?”
The first man carefully drew forth his knife. Mark noticed that it was stained with a bluish streak along its cutting edge. The stain seemed to sparkle with an iridescent sheen. The second guardsman looked at it stupidly.
“That’s where I sliced him on the shoulder,” explained the first man. “Look at the shoulder. The left one.”
MORE curious than they, Mark twisted his head to look at it too. There was a smear of the same bluish substance, but no cut. It had healed in such a short time that only a teaspoonful of blood had been spilled. One of the watchmen was also looking at the smear spot, his face portraying a certain amount of awe intermingled with profound respect.
“It’s only a scratch,” he murmured. “What bothers me is that blue stuff. You don’t sup
pose he bleeds blue, do you?”
“It was no scratch,” his friend insisted. “You know I always take a good slash when the sergeant isn’t looking. Now wouldn’t this lad make a soldier?”
The other shrugged. “Blue,” he muttered, unhappily. “Gorm.”
Mark’s brow was creased in a deep frown. Dimly he was grasping another section of his vanished past. Blood, he knew, should be red, not an iridescent blue. And this blood of his, which refused to follow the rules, had something to do with his differing from normal mortals. Was he really the freak these idiots seemed to think him?
He hardly noticed when they turned into a large courtyard, and stopped before a huge door of oak, studded and banded with iron. The sergeant hammered on it with his club, while the rest of them relaxed as if they expected a long wait.
Mark’s mind was going like blazes. Because he was remembering. Remembering a period of intense pain. He was remembering also the serious face of old Doc Kelso, who wanted his permission to use his new anaesthetic in the performance of the appendectomy he must undergo. It was all coming back...
Abruptly he was snapped to the present. A club-blow between the shoulder blades almost knocked him down. He caught himself, however, and spun round in fury. Blast them, just as it was all coming back, too. He stopped short at the sight of a dozen drawn daggers. Perhaps it wouldn’t be smart to test the peculiar power of his blood against so many of those knives. After all, why become hash merely because of overconfidence? And in that moment of hesitation he was forced through the now open portal.
Mark caught a fleeting glimpse of a small room with a table at which were seated three soldiers playing cards. A fourth was swinging open another massive door of oak. Mark was given a shove through this one also. A short, dark corridor led them past a series of barred doors, from behind which Mark heard a variety of snores, all in different keys. Before he had a chance to wonder where he was being led, he found himself thrust forcibly into an unoccupied cell.