Brain of Venus

By John Russel Fearn

The malignant brain of a condemned criminal comes to life on another planet and radiates force-rays of madness and death.

John Russell Fearn (1908–1960) was a British author and one of the first British writers to appear in American pulp science fiction magazines. Always a highly prolific author, he published not only under his own name, but also as Vargo Statten and other pseudonyms including Thornton Ayre, Polton Cross, Geoffrey Armstrong, John Cotton, Dennis Clive, Ephriam Winiki, Astron Del Martia (and others). He remains best known for his long-running Golden Amazon saga. At times these drew on the pulp traditions of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Fearn also wrote Westerns and crime fiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: May 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781479469505

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Table of Contents

BRAIN OF VENUS

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

BRAIN OF VENUS

JOHN RUSSELL FEARN

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 1937 by John Russell Fearn.

Reprinted with the permission of the Cosmos Literary Agency.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

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CHAPTER I

Mutiny In Space

Captain Brant, pilot of Liner 762 of the Earth-Mars Transit Service, stood quietly at attention before the desk of his superior. In silence he watched Commandant Bradley add the final official seals to a bulky package, scribble the details on a check-sheet, and finally hand them both across.

Brant, the commandant said quietly, looking up, you are undertaking an unusual delivery on this trip.

Yes, sir, Brant nodded.

In this package, sealed in preserving solution, is the brain of Lu Sang. At the order of the Imperial Surgical Council it was removed from that notorious Chinese criminal’s body when he was under the anaesthetic preceding his death for his countless crimes. The object in removing it while he still lived was so that his brain would still be alive when transferred to the preserving solution. You will take it to Mars and there deliver it to Kron, the head surgeon, who will send a special messenger to the space grounds to meet you. It is his wish to study the brain of a criminal from Earth so that he may learn to eliminate similar traits in Martian brains. You understand?

Perfectly, sir, Brant answered crisply. He took the package gingerly, stuffing the check-sheet in his pocket.

Very well, then, that is all. Have a good trip.

Brandt departed with agile strides, but once out in the long exterior corridor he permitted a frown to come to his face. It was not the assignment that worried him; that was mere routine—but the thought of the difficulties he was likely to encounter on this particular voyage to Mars.

For months now, ever since the new Earth-Mars Corporation had been installed, there had been a slowly growing trouble among the men—the grimy, embittered wretches who toiled in the depths of the space monsters, tending the rocket-tube equipment, grinding out their beings in torrid heat and yellow-lit gloom with scarcely any remuneration for their services.

The old system had been better, controlled by the