Table of Contents
CAST OF CHARACTERS
EMPIRE OF WOMEN
ORIGINAL COVER ART
INTERIOR ILLUSTRATION #1
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
INTERIOR ILLUSTRATION #2
INTERIOR ILLUSTRATION #3
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TETE-BECHE COVER
CAST OF CHARACTERS
ONE OF OUR CITIES IS MISSING
ORIGINAL COVER ART
INTERIOR ILLUSTRATION #1
CHAPTER ONE
INTERIOR ILLUSTRATION #2
CHAPTER TWO
INTERIOR ILLUSTRATION #3
INTERIOR ILLUSTRATION #4
INTERIOR ILLUSTRATION #5
CHAPTER THREE
AUTHOR PORTRAIT
THEY POSSESSED THE SECRET TO ETERNAL LIFE!
That coveted secret was what the men of Konapar were looking for when they attacked the long-living women of the planet Phira. Their massive fleet swept down upon the planet with ease. But though initially defeated in a sweeping space battle, the women of Phira knew that brutal men can be tamed, and greedy men can always be bought, regardless of results on the battlefield. So the initial triumph over Phira appeared settled, the race of aged, yet still beautiful women had been subdued if not entirely defeated. But they still had no need or desire for men. However, a noble space pirate—with the help of a ten-year-old—set out to bring the women of Phira to a new understanding. But what did this race of eternal beauties really have up their sleeve?
CAST OF CHARACTERS
CAP GAN ALAIN
Pirate Captain, mercenary, business man. This guy knew what he wanted—and he knew how to get it!
CELYS
High priestess of the cult of Myrmi-Atla. She had reigned supreme for hundreds of years.
GUNNAR TOR BRANTHAK
The ambitious Regent of Konapar, he wanted the secret to eternal life and he would seize it at whatever the cost.
APHELE
Courageous and valiant, she was a warrior among the Phiran women. But she had dreams of a different way of life…
ELVIR
The bounty of a pirate raid. A ten-year-old, would-be slave, if not for the men who had found her.
CHAN DUCHAILE
First Mate on the Warspear. His loyalty to Captain Alain would never be in question.
THE ANCIENT ONE
One of the few women on Phira to show any signs of aging, she had been pitting her mind against men for 500 years!
EMPIRE OF WOMEN
By
JOHN FLETCHER
ARMCHAIR FICTION
PO Box 4369, Medford, Oregon 97501
The original text of this novel was first
published by Ziff-Davis Publishing Co.
Armchair Edition, Copyright 2011, by Gregory J. Luce
All Rights Reserved
For more information about Armchair Books and products, visit our website at…
www.armchairfiction.com
Or email us at…
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ORIGINAL COVER ART
In the early days of Armchair Fiction sometimes we decided to release a story as part of one of our double novels not because we thought the story itself was good, but because it had an incredible cover! When I saw the front of the May 1952 issue of Amazing Stories, I knew that John Fletcher’s “Empire of Women” was a story we just had to come out with. The original painting, which is a pulp masterpiece, was created by Lawrence Stevens, better known simply as “Lawrence.” As it turned out, the story was a pretty good one, a lively tale about a race of non-aging females who possess the secret of eternal life.
It was a pretty tough job converting the original Amazing Stories cover into our Armchair Fiction double novel cover. That big Amazing logo is always a real challenge to remove. There were also some sizable chunks of the cover missing, especially toward the bottom. These empty spots were reconstructed using the Photoshop clone tool, which was also used for the aforementioned text and logo removal. There was also the usual cleanup: creases, rub marks, etc. Below are the original Amazing Stories cover from 1952, followed by our final Armchair Double Novel paperback cover from 2011.
Greg Luce
Editor-in-Chief
Armchair Fiction
Amazing Stories, May, 1952 Issue
Armchair Fiction Paperback Edition, 2011
INTERIOR ILLUSTRATION #1
Art by Ed Valigursky and Leo Summers
CHAPTER ONE
THE WARSPEAR was loafing along under a half G acceleration somewhere between Denebola and Konapar, when the news tape started clicking out the story of the space battle that had served as a “declaration” of war between Konapar and Phira. The captain’s hands reached for the controls, rang the acceleration alarm, and changed course. He upped the speed to a good ten G’s.
Nobody takes that kind of acceleration if they can avoid it unless, like the Cap, they were raised on a two-G planet. Or unless there was a terrific reason which made it imperative, such as the reason in the Cap’s mind as his eyes glittered in retrospection over the war news and what it implied.
The Warspear had to pass Phira within a half-hour’s distance. But the Cap swung closer to the gigantic gray-green globe now, turning on the vari-wave detectors to pick up any vibration that might be disturbing the ether around Phira. There was a scramble of sound, but it was all in code and nothing he could make sense of, though he tried.
A few moments after the war news had come through on the tape, the radar screen picked up a ship, dead ahead, making for the atmosphere of Phira under full rocket blast. The Cap signaled her for identification. That he had no business asking made no difference to him. Apparently the strange ship knew that fact, for she refused to answer. The Cap leaned to his intercom.
“Mister DuChaile, put a torpedo across her bow,” he said calmly.
Chan DuChaile was the first mate of the Warspear, and he deserved his post. Under his direction the torpedo crew put a guided missile across the stranger’s bow so close the Cap couldn’t see space between the fiery wake and the hull. The stranger’s captain couldn’t see it either, apparently, for he flashed a surrender signal immediately; not too surprisingly, because the Warspear could scare almost anything in space into a collapse. Especially merchantmen, which this ship was, and which the Warspear was built for. In plain words, the Warspear was a pirate.
When the prize crew boarded the captive they found to their delight that they had indeed captured a prize. She was loaded to the bulkheads with explosives, and a hundred tons of fission-grenades, designed to be thrown by repulse rays in hand weapons. These latter were outlawed wherever the Terran Empire held sway. It was a terrible weapon to place in a common soldier’s hands, and the Cap looked thoughtful when the prize crew reported the cargo to him. If the Phirans had much of that type of weapon, they must mean business, outlawed business they didn’t intend to allow any Terran to rule, or any code of decency to forestall. Alid, on Phira, was proving herself to be the barbarian nation she was!
For an instant the Cap chuckled. If he’d touched the other ship with just one ray, that cargo would have sent both sh
ips to glory.
But he stopped chuckling when he learned of the forty-odd slave girls bound for the Temple of the Matriarchs in Alid. They had been branded already with the blue hieroglyph of Myrmi-Atla, which meant a strictly manless future for them, were they delivered to the infamous temple.
The Cap went over to the prize and looked at them. They were just kids, only beginning to blossom into maidenhood. Obviously the crew wanted to take them aboard, but the Cap knew better than that. He ordered them sent to the hideaway on the Black Moon.
But for the first time in his career, one of his orders was obeyed with questioning glances and a few mumbles of “it ain’t fair”…for the Cap bent too long a glance on a sprightly little being he called “Elvir” because she was so small and quick. An “elvir” is a baby eel. She was a pert little blonde, not at all like an eel except for her smooth and quick movements, but the name seemed to fit all the same. Perhaps it was the way she accepted it, and the way she wriggled into the Cap’s heart. Anyway, Elvir came aboard the Warspear, and jealousy shone out of the eyes of many of her crew. But it was a good kind of jealousy, for Elvir was only ten.
THE PRIZE crew boarded the freighter and headed her for the hideaway on the rock named the Black Moon…the Cap could always get quick cash out of a cargo of explosives. Then the Warspear resumed course for Konapar.
Before long, Elvir’s pert beauty and high sense of humor had endeared her to everyone. She was full of questions, and she carried a potent load of sunbeams in her laugh and in her child’s way of playing. The crew got a boost out of her, and she was too young to have to worry about any fights starting over her…or so the captain thought. Pirates his men might be, but there’s a soft spot in the core of every real man, and the hardy fighters aboard the Warspear were no exception.
Elvir had never been to space before she had been placed aboard the freighter, and she was determined to learn all about it, which was funny because it was so impossible.
“Where are we, Captain Alain?” she’d ask, and he’d take her on his knee and trace out their course through the stars on the chart with one broad, scarred finger, and tell her a whopping big lie about the people of each planet along the course. She’d swallow it all and come back for more.
“What is the Empire of Terra? Who are the pirates you have to fight for Terra?” The Cap had reversed the truth and told her the Warspear was engaged in exterminating pirates. He’d patiently explain how huge the Terran Empire was, taking in a good portion of the galaxy, and how numberless the independent worlds where pirates could hang out masquerading as honest merchant ships. Little Elvir drank it all in, her eyes sparkling as she absorbed the star charts he handed her, and you’d swear she understood it all as well as he before a week was out.
“Will I meet some pirates?” she’d ask…and the Cap would look at Chan DuChaile and wink.
“I hope not,” he’d say. “Pirates are terrible bad men!”
“What do pirates look like?” she’d ask, and he’d have them with long whiskers and blasters as big as beer kegs and bandy-legged and cross-eyed.
Chan and the other officers would laugh, but the fact was they themselves were about as war-scarred a bunch of mercenaries as ever looted a city or sacked a ship; and just about as deadly as any story-time pirate could hope to be.
But Captain Gan Alain had contacts, a reputation for straight dealing, and had turned in plenty of honest jobs convoying trading ships that had had sense enough to hire him. The rims of the Terran Empire were rough and tough, and most everything went. But most of the men on the Warspear knew the value of a good record on the official books, and especially did Gan Alain know this. He’d done convoying long enough for the traders to know he never doublecrossed an employer who paid his price.
There were others in the business, however, like Tiger Phelan, whose record included a half-dozen convoys that never reached port, and a dozen lame excuses by the Tiger as to where other cargoes had disappeared to—from his own holds. Men like the Tiger forced action against themselves by messing up the record. Out of a hundred trips, it was natural to lose one or two convoys. But it would be a very dumb and blind trader who hired the Tiger to take him across the void from Dires to Delphon.
On the record, the Cap’s nose was clean. He could cradle at almost any civilized port without a murmur from officialdom. So far, that is…
ELVIR was either well developed for her age, or had adult instincts, for she fell for the captain. There was some excuse, for he was the kind most women make fools of themselves over. Full of vitality, ruddy-cheeked, curly-haired, he was taller and broader than most men of Earth stock. He’d been raised on a heavy planet, though he never talked much about exactly where it had been, and what kind of a home he’d had. On the Warspear everyone had secrets and sore spots—that’s why they were there.
Captain Alain he was called, formally. In space some were allowed to call him “Cap”, and a few called him Gan, off duty. He was a mild enough man, ordinarily; but so powerful that the mildness was deceptive. He didn’t have to shout or bluster or throw his weight around to get obedience. His men had seen him break a man’s back by hitting him in the belly in a fight, and they didn’t give him any arguments. Big he was, with his mane of red-gold hair and beard making him look even bigger. Nobody pushed the Cap around. He could let out a bellow that made the plates in the hull rattle, but he seldom did. It wasn’t necessary. Men leaped to obey his quietest whisper.
He was no ladies’ man, but when there were ladies present, they did their best to make one out of him. Now little Elvir was on the same course, but somehow with her it was comical, she was so small. In spite of his attitude toward females, the Cap made a fuss over her; and so did all the rest, but without the reaction she gave the Cap.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS mid-course between Phira and Konapar that the radar beams began to have grasshoppers. The telescope finally gave the answer: they were heading smack into a whopping big fleet, as DuChaile put it.
The Cap began to decelerate, then turned the controls over to Chan. Most of the crew guessed what was ahead, but if they’d suspected their captain was planning on plunging right into the middle of the Konapar war fleet, they’d have worried a lot more than they did.
Soon the fleet became visible, strung out in a series of V’s too numerous to count. There were hundreds of them and, as they neared, the televisor began to bellow out questions at the Warspear. When the crew heard their captain’s answer, they suddenly had reason to worry, and most of the officers felt sure this was IT—the lugubrious finish of the Warspear’s career. But every man stood to his post, grimly ready.
“Tell your commander this ship is the Warspear, heavy-cruiser class, with five-score seasoned fighting men, reporting for action against the Phiran tyranny.”
Chan DuChaile, listening, had never heard the government of the Matriarchs called a tyranny before, and he didn’t like the idea of fighting against women; but he knew Gan Alain well enough to realize there were wits at work, so he listened without too much amazement.
After a few seconds, the receiving screen came to life. Mentally, Chan analyzed the scene in his own peculiar way: A big, black-bearded mogul in a monkey-suit trimmed with gold braid, garnished with medals, draped with golden spaghetti and epaulettes. Chan recognized him, after a snort of disdain, as the Regent of Konapar. He’d seen his picture in a dozen bars in ports across the Dires sun-cluster.
Yet, after a good look at him, Chan wouldn’t have given more than two brass buttons for the young prince’s chances of ever taking over the rule of Konapar from this fellow. He was neither bad looking nor particularly villainish in appearance; it was just that he was a man who got what he wanted, and who wanted everything. Too ambitious, Chan classified him.
He was big-necked, big chested, black-haired, a very handsome man. His cheeks were a little too full and flushed with good living. His eyes, the deep sloe-black of most Konaparians, were just a little sleepy-lidded, with a
gleam of temper veiled behind. His complexion was clear and his voice was hearty and pleasant. He was a man’s man who knew how to be liked by those under him. Chan liked him, and Chan wouldn’t have trusted him as far as he could throw the Warspear off the surface of Jupiter.
Captain Alain, also observing the lusty ambition in the man, saw that he was the kind who never grabs with one hand, but uses both.
“What are your arms, Captain?” the Konaparian ruler was saying, and those sleepy eyes were registering caution at sight of a man as powerful and as obviously experienced in space war as the Cap.
Gan Alain grinned, a kind of respectful, now-you’re-joking grin, and said: “Ah-ahh! We mercenaries have our little secrets. We have to be a wee bit ahead of the average military armament to stay alive, you know. I’ll guarantee to best any ship my tonnage, and most of them twice that, if necessary.”
Chan DuChaile snickered at the Cap’s effrontery, here in the midst of a war-fleet of total strangers, and refraining from telling his armament or its range.
The Regent colored the slightest bit, but his face didn’t move a muscle. “Now, by Satan, Captain, how can I direct your ship in battle if I don’t know your range?”
“It won’t be necessary to direct my ship in battle, Your Highness,” answered the captain. “Employers invariably put mercenaries in the fore of every battle, since they do not have to pay dead men. My duties will consist only of guarding your person and your ship from surprise attack, let us say, by ambitious parties unknown who would stand to benefit by your demise. Agreed?”
Empire of Women & One of our Cities is Missing (Armchair Fiction Double Novels Book 25) Page 1
