THE FALL OF MERCURY (12)
By:
December 17, 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 XII
Au Revoir
Someone was shaking me. I could feel the touch of flesh on my arm, I heard a voice, but I was unmoved. I was dead, of that I was now thoroughly convinced. Why should someone try to arouse me?
But the shaking persisted, the voice was insistent. “Bruce, Bruce Warren, old man, come out of it. It’s all over now!” I recognized Morton Forrest’s voice, his shaking hand was physical. “We’re safe, man, safe. Don’t you understand? Wake up, wake up.”
“All over? Safe?” What did those words mean? Ah, it comes back. Mercury, the little men, the Saturnian escape, the impossible ship, the fall into the sun. But how could we he safe? I was curious enough to open my eyes.
I was lying on the floor of the inner ball of Chen-Chak’s ship. It wasn’t a dream after all. Forrest was bending over me. I saw the strange form of the Saturnian above me on the stool facing me. Behind him a rosy light glowed in the hundreds of tubes. Overhead was the great globe of the sun, normal once again, scaroely larger than when seen from Mercury. It was all a hoax, None of these things had happened. We had not fallen into the sun!
“What’s all over?” I demanded of Forrest.
“Mercury — in there!” He jerked a hand toward the sun.
I shook my head to clear it. “Then — Then it really happened. We dumped Mercury into the sun?”
“Yes, Mercury is in the sun.”
“But we — how did we escape? I thought we were done for!”
“We went through the sun, through the chromosphere!”
“We what? You mean we really fell into the sun?”
“Well, not into it, but through it, through the outer shell. We’re on the other side now. Look, you can see Tellus just appearing around the limb of the sun.”
“But that’s impossible!”
Chen-Chak spoke for the firat time, his voice sounded infinitely weary. “It is true — we have been through the sun — the first men to have been through a sun — and live.” There was real awe in his voice. He went on speaking as if thinking aloud. “Men of Raxta said it could be done by attaining a velocity of a speed more than that of light itself…”
“Lord! And Mercury fell in there!”
“They fought to the end, refusing to believe it could be done; they refused to admit defeat, to bow to the supremacy of the Raxtau! It is better so. No man has the right to enslave another.”
Forrest and I added “Amen.” It was true, men most live in harmony, in brotherhood, not in strife and slavery. The solar system was too small to contain such creatures as the Mercurians. I remembered Tica Burno, and those other living test-tubes. They were revenged, the future saved.
“But wait,” I cried. “We have been taught that each planet has its place in the system, that each is a cog necessary to the balance of all. How could Mercury fall and not affect the others?”
Chen-Chak shook his head. “The whole system was affected, but my people were guarding them; they did not permit them to fall. You will find changes, some, I think, for the best.”
I found myself shivering, my head was in a whirl. “I want sleep, I can’t think,” I cried out.
The Saturnian nodded, his face was kindly, fatherly. “A few minutes and you shall be home, my friends, on your own familiar world,” and as he spoke he turned to his controls.
I may have slept. I do not know, but I was aroused by the deep voice of our host. “You have arrived, my friends,” he said.
I jumped at the sound of his voice, and saw that Forrest had been deeply wrapped in his thoughts. He almost jumped from his seat at the sound of that heavy voice. We both stared across the few million miles separating us from our own world. Behind us glowered a turbulent sun, its heaving tentacles painting space in a raw gash of color. It seemed more radiant than ever, its prominences higher, less controlled. Was Sol having a fit of indigestion after its heavy meal? It appeared closer to Tellus than usual.
Later we learned what had happened during the fall of Mercury. Tellus had dropped fourteen million miles nearer the sun in one awful moment, Venus six million. Our world was to profit by the change in the future, but now the terrific storms occasioned by Mercury’s going had not subsided. From our position we could not see a single physical feature, earth and water were shrouded in thick clouds.
Forrest spoke. “I had hoped, Chen-Chak, that you would invite us to your world.”
The Saturnian or Raxtau was silent a moment. “I believe you are needed more on your planet for the present, Morton Forrest. There is much you can explain there. I shall not say you are unwelcome on my world.
“Now you must go.”
As he finished speaking he rose from his stool and picked up the rifle-like affair with which he had raised us from the inner shell of his ship to the control globe on which we stood. We made our adieux, and as he turned his instrument upon us we felt that awful sickness of his ray, as it reduced our bodies to normal size. We found ourselves standing once again on the solid floor beside the Victory. Chen-Chak stood on the globe waving one monstrous hand from the air-lock of his ship.
Forrest took his place before the controls, and the walls under us melted away. Slowly the Victory drove through the swirling mists, and we popped into space once more. Together we turned our eyes to look at the giant sphere, but it was gone. Gone completely!
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.