The Dancing Girl of Ganymede

By Leigh Brackett

She had come to life, but she was not human. Leigh Brackett was the undisputed Queen of Space Opera and the first women to be nominated for the coveted Hugo Award. She wrote short stories, novels, and scripts for Hollywood. She wrote the first draft of the Empire Strikes Back shortly before her death in 1978.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Start Publishing LLC
• Release date: Nov 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781649741035

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The Dancing Girl of Ganymede

Leigh Brackett

Start Publishing LLC

Copyright © 2020 by Start Publishing LLC

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

First Start Publishing eBook edition.

Start Publishing is a registered trademark of Start Publishing LLC

Manufactured in the United States of America

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ISBN 978-1-64974-103-5

Come to life, but she was not human.

I: The Wanderer

Tony Harrah came into the bazaar of Komar, heading for the Street of the Gamblers. The sour wine was heavy in him and his pockets were light and he was in no hurry. Win or lose, there was nothing to be in a hurry about. He was on the beach and Komar is a far lost beach for an Earthman.

The wind blew slowly through the narrow streets, stirring the torch flames that burned eternally under the dim red sky. It smelled of heat and sulphur, of the volcanic heart of Ganymede. Even here on the plateau, a thousand feet above the jungle, there was no escape from it. The sliding roofs of the houses were open wide to receive it for there was no other breath of air.

Above the tumult of the bazaar the great yellow star that was the Sun blazed splendidly in the far darkness of space. Jupiter filled half the sky, misty, banded with crimson and purple and grey. Between Sun and Jupiter raced the thronging moons, catching light now from one, now from the other, burning, flashing, glorious.

Harrah took no joy in that magnificence. He had looked at it too long.

He shouldered his way toward the square where the Street of the Gamblers joins the Street of Maidens and the Street of Thieves and at his heels like a furry shadow came Tok the aboriginal, the lemur-eyed child of the forests, who was Harrah’s and who loved him utterly.

It was on the edge of the square that Harrah caught the first wild rhythms of the music. And it was there that Tok reached out one sudden hand-like paw and caught his master’s shirt and said, Lord—wait!

Harrah turned, startled by the urgency in Tok’s voice. He opened his mouth to speak but he did not speak. The look in Tok’s eyes stopped him. A queer blank look, luminous with some great fear.

The aboriginal moved forward, past Harrah, and then became a motionless shape of darkness between the torches and the moons. His head was lifted slightly into the wind. His nostrils quivered and gradually the quivering spread over his whole slim body as though he breathed in terror with every breath. Imperceptibly his flesh seemed to shrink in upon itself until all the look of humankind was gone from him and he was an animal poised for flight.

Lord, he whispered. Evil, Lord—evil and death. It is in the wind.

Harrah repressed a shiver. He could see nothing but the crowded square—the polyglot life of Komar, the landless, the lawless, the unwanted and forgotten, the mingled off-scourings of the Inner Worlds, mixed with the dark native-human folk of Ganymede. The only unusual thing was the music and there was nothing fearsome in that. Pipe and drum and a double-banked harp, raw and barbaric but stirring to the