THE FALL OF MERCURY (2)
By:
September 14, 2025
Leslie F. Stone was one of the first women science fiction pulp writers; her stories — including “The Fall of Mercury” (Amazing Stories, Dec. 1935), in which a Black hero uses super-science to destroy a white race bent on conquering the solar system — often featured female or Black protagonists. We are pleased to serialize this story for HILOBROW’s readers.
ALL INSTALLMENTS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12.
CHAPTER TWO
THE STRANGE CLIFF
I nodded. “Yes, Mort, we’re out of there, but don’t give me the credit. Something else did it, Mort, something — an outside force — I swear it!”
It was true. The force that had saved us had not come from the Victory, of that I was certain. The motors had frozen, refused to respond, and with all my work it had not been I that saved us. Something out there; some unguessed at power out of the Void, had given us a helping hand!
“Rubbish!” ejaculated the scientist. “Rubbish. We are too far from Venus for succor, even if they had the power. And, well, naturally — there’s nothing on Mercury to have saved us!”
“Nevertheless something did it, Mort, I tell you. You know the Victory couldn’t have done what you saw done. You saw the force the Spot registered upon our meters. Nothing on the planets can equal that. Something from the outside did save us. I’ll stake my life on it. Otherwise, we’d still be in there, trapped, until food, water and oxygen gave out — unless the Victory rammed one of those derelicts I saw inside. There were fragments of two or three ships with which we all but collided.”
“There’s some reasonable explanation for it, Warren. We must have swept into a current of the pool that threw us on the rim, and the Victory did the rest. See, the motors are normal now.”
He would not believe my explanation, even when I made a new discovery as the trip progressed. After leaving the Whirlpool, I noticed the Victory was using very little of her own power. This may have been due to some faulty recording instrument, strained in the fight with the Spot, as Forrest insisted was the case. I, on the other hand, felt differently. Delicate as the instruments were, nothing was wrong; they responded equally as well when I tried them, but the fact remained that something else was motivating the ship.
Tentatively I switched off most of the motors. And I found that we continued forward on the proper course. It was as if we rode an invisible beam that had us in leash, through which no outside power could penetrate; not even our own! And that power came from Mercury. I went so far as to attempt to change our course, only to find it impossible. Of this I said nothing, however. I did not want to be laughed at again.
*
Mercury lay directly before us, a dark circle against the yellow glare of the sun which had grown larger and more splendid as we rushed upon it. Larger and larger grew the planet until its rough sides filled the sky, swung over us, then became a great inverted bowl into which we were dropping. Soon we were hurtling along at the same velocity a the planet, until we seemed stationary beside it. Then we fell toward it. And we moved on our own power. Once more the motors reacted in perfect accord.
Forrest had since gone to the tiny laboratory he maintained in the ship, and was busily testing Mercury’s physical being, atmosphere, gravity-field, water-pressure, mass, et cetera, to correct and add to the data of the Astronomical Union of the Federation. He reported a thin atmosphere which was chiefly chlorine! His voice was filled with an “I told you so” inference. I merely shrugged my shoulders. I hardly expected more. I knew that Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune all possessed an undue amount of chlorine in their atmosphere, but what did that matter? Uranus and Saturn were both known to contain sentient life; so that meant little to my theory about Mercury, even if it also contained that foul gas in its atmosphere.
I was intent upon bringing the Victory down in a portion of the globe where sunlight and starlight had a common meeting ground; which neither ruled. Here only could we hope to survive, even in our air-suits, for on the sun-side we would have been broiled, and on the night-side frozen, because of the extremes of temperature. In this twilighted sector I had reason to hope for a comparatively normal temperature; and if there was life on Mercury, here would be its home*. At best it was not a complete haven, because of Mercury’s irregularities of rotation, sometimes the sunlight encroached, sometimes the blackness of night.
I noticed that the sky had a sickly, greenish-yellow tint, due to the presence of the chlorine; but because of the atmosphere’s tenuosity the color was vague, wraith-like. The sun was a great yellowish globe resting on the horizon; biliousyellow, rather. Its light but faintly illuminated this portion of the planet. Opposite the sun the blackness was tinged with yellow, the stars were dim and faded. Only high above were there any features of note. One was the blue-white light of Venus likewise yellowed — a lamp hung there to give light to this morose land. The other feature was Tellus, smaller, more distant, a golden luminary vying with Venus for beauty.
*
It was the landscape that held most of my attention. There was just light enough to make out the bleak, dirty-white terrain of broken, rough-pitted rock in which there was nothing to break the utter monotony of ugliness. Hills, valleys, plains were all tumbled together in a hodge-podge — colorless, uninviting. For the first time since our embarkment from New York I felt a letdown. After all, wasn’t I a fool to believe Mercury worth a call, when the whole system agreed the planet was nothing but waste land? Where was my hunch that Mercury held something of interest now? Forrest was right. The trip was useless. And the motors’ acting-up was just faulty recording. Surely no power from Mercury had pulled us out of the Pool. I shrugged my shoulders, ready to accept defeat.
Had Forrest said one word I might have turned about right then and headed for home, but he was silent. My pride back to the Victory, two hundred feet to make some show of interest. I sighted a spot more level and smoother than the surrounding territory, overshadowed by a grotesque cliff that rose out of the plain without apparent reason for its being there. With scarcely a jar I brought our brave little flyer down on Mercury, snapped fast all levers and climbed down from my seat. I stretched my arms and strolled to the nearest port. Forrest came to my side.
“Nice little world, eh? You don’t appear over-anxious to explore it, my fine buckaroo?”
Irritated though I was, I didn’t intend to show it. I forced a grin. “At least it’s the most quiet place I’ve ever seen. Ideal for sleeping!”
“That’s the best suggestion you’ve made since we left home. Only I intend to eat first.” So spake the fat man.
*
I welcomed food, realizing I had not eaten in ten hours. I would very much have liked to sleep, only appearances had to be maintained. I must show some interest in my find. I invited Forrest to accompany me on an exploration trip; but the landscape did not whet his scientific appetite. He declared he preferred my first suggestion, so I was left to climb into my airsuit alone. I took the precaution to add lead weights to my person, saw to it that my oxygen tank was charged and my heating units in good order. The difference in Mercury’s surface gravity was not felt in the Victory because of its electro-magnets. Outside, I found that by shuffling my feet as I walked I offset some of the change. Naturally enough I headed toward that strange towering cliff that had attracted me in the first place to this spot, fascinated by its unique situation in the comparatively level plain.
But the plane was not as level as I at first had supposed. It had a tendency to fall away on the approach to the base; the peculiar lighting effect of this portion of the globe having hidden this fact from me before. And when I stood by the cliff I noticed that it really sat in a great bowl-like setting, its far edge almost on a level with the cliffs top, which was some three hundred feet high. The bluff was black, and seemed of different formation than that of the ground upon which it stood. It was of harder quality, less broken and pitted, though there was a long irregular crack across its face, as if some space-giant had flung a meteor against it. I found the fragments of the meteor lying about, fused to the ground; but the fragments did not appear large enough on the whole to have forced that crack. It was not until I had made my first astounding discovery that I found the heap of rubble that corresponded to the substance of the meteor lying some distance away. The neatness of the stack struck me as being too neat; as if the exploded pieces had been gathered together out of the way by thinking creatures!
More from habit than from curiosity I worked a few moments with hammer and chisel (part of my suit’s equipment) and pared off a chip of the black stone of the cliff with some difficulty. The stuff looked more like concrete to me than any rock I had ever seen; but I wasn’t scientist enough to catalogue it at a glance. That was the sort of thing Forrest loved. True, my mind was stirred but the thought of what that would mean if the stuff were really manufactured. My original hunch that I would find men or their equivalent on Mercury came back to me. However, a look about that grim-visaged land brought certainty that there was no longer life to be found. The cliff was age-old! With that conviction I turned back to the Victory, two hundred feet or so upon the slope of the depression.
I had only gone about twenty feet when the impulse to reestimate the size of the cliff forced me to look back. It was then I saw something on its far side to call my attention. It was the glitter of something blue! And, in a world devoid of color this was a phenomenon worthy of inspection. I retraced my steps. Imagine my wonder to find the bit of blue nothing less than a Venerian water-flask!
I turned my torch on it before I dared pick it up. It was a pretty little thing, enameled and embossed, the sort Venerian nobles always carry. A strange thing indeed to find on this bleak, drear world. I stood there turning it over in my hand, trying to estimate how long it had been here. I turned it upside down and felt its weight change in my hand. I opened it. It was three-quarters full of water!
*
The outside had not begun to weather; it looked new. But how had it come here? Had it been dropped accidentally from a space-ship, and or being attracted to Mercury, fallen by the cliff’s foot? There was only a tiny dent on its enameled side, otherwise it was as fresh as if just from the shop. Surely it could not have dropped very far, no farther than from a man’s pocket! Had its owner come to investigate the strange cliff as I had come? Who was he? Where was he now? Why had he dropped the flask? Was it merely an accident? Was his coming so recent that we had not heard of his trip to this wild land?
Then I saw the rubble heap lying against one side of the cliff. It extended well above the height of my head. The fragments were fused, and on one particularly large piece was a mark I was almost certain had come from a pick! Another fragment showed a smooth, flat plane that was too unusual to be accidental. I bent over with my torch to examine it closer. I drew back in surprise. Only a heat ray could have made that cut. It had been sheared from another surface!
With that thought in mind I went back to the front of the cliff. And I was rewarded by find the very spot from which that fragment had come. It had been a large rock which, hot from its transit through the Mercurian atmosphere, had forced its way partially into the ground, just below the cracked face of the cliff. And something had come later, when it had cooled. Unable to lift the entire rock out it had simply sheared its top off, leaving the ground level as before! A chill went through me at the thought. I even glanced about me warily; and there it was I noticed the great bowl-like depression in which the cliff stood. How even was that distant edge! Nature never worked with such precision; it was too unnaturally perfect. It was man-made — or what?
I was inclined to run back to the Victory. I needed Forrest’s support; to hear him pooh-pooh my opinions. But wait! What is this? I had left the Victory a good quarter of a mile from the cliff, well up on the side of the artificial bowl, its nose facing the promontory. And I had locked the controls myself. But now it was no longer stationary. It was coming toward me!
*
What madness was this? what had come over Forrest? Had something happened that he wanted me immediately? Why didn’t the fellow slacken his speed? At the rate he was coming he would crash headlong into the cliffs face. Yet he was gaining speed as he came along.
For a moment I was paralyzed, unable to move, and on came the ship…. A moment of tortured wonder, and I regained control of myself. I started in a run for the ship. Running was difficult on Mercury. I cannot remember that race now, but it was short with the Victory bearing down upon the cliff and me. I caught the half-open door of the lock (I had left it so on departing), and miraculously swung aboard. A minute and a half of waiting is necessary before the automatic controls inside permit the inner door of the lock to open, but I could not wait for the air in the lock to reach its full level. I let some bad air get into the ship, I had to get within. It took all my strength to wrench the door open. A single glance shoed me Forrest. He was asleep in his bunk — as I had left him!
*
And the Victory was moving forward! Was this magic, or had the incline upon which the ship landed been too precipitous for its brakes? I was through the ship, up in the turret control. A glance showed that the motors were still, but I had realized their silence on entering the ship. I dropped my hand to the brake of the caterpillar treads praying I was soon enough. A touch on the pneumatic lever was ordinarily sufficient to bring the ship to a dead stop, but we still moved, we still moved! And the cliff loomed large before my eyes. Less than a half dozen feet separated the Victory‘s nose from the cliff’s front. A scream rose in my throat as I pulled frantically upon the brakes, but my cry was never uttered; instead with mouth agape I forgot everything as I stared….
___
* Although Mercury’s period of rotation is the same as that of its revolution, it moves in its orbit so as to fulfill the laws of areas, its motion of revolution sometimes slower, sometimes faster than average. Thus the same face is not always exactly to the sun: for sometimes it is 23° ahead of its mean position in its orbit and sometimes vice versa, for Mercuty has a libration of 23°.7. Hence there is 132°.6 of longitude upon which the sun always shines, an equal amount where it never shines, and two zones 47°.4 wide in which there is alternating day and night with a period equal to the planet’s revolution around the sun.
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.
SERIALIZED BY HILOBOOKS: James Parker’s Cocky the Fox | Annalee Newitz’s “The Great Oxygen Race” | Matthew Battles’s “Imago” | & many more original and reissued novels and stories.