The huge red orb of the Sun hung perpetually at the horizon, peering like a giant eye at the tragedy that was being enacted in this ancient metropolis of the little planet Mercury. Thin and cold was the air. It was so thin, indeed, that the lungs had to gulp it feverishly to secure enough oxygen to maintain life. And it was so dry that its touch seemed to wither the skin. Year by year, the air and water of the little world had failed, until now — A pathetic parade was winding through the gleaming chromaloy towers of this city of the Twilight Zone. Mercurian men and women and children, swarthy small-statured people, clutched bundles of their most precious possessions as they dully shuffled toward the spaceport.“Move along, please,” came the constant quiet urging of uniformed officers of the Planet Police.The tragic-eyed marchers made no answer. And the throngs of their fellow Mercurians who lined the streets and watched them pass also maintained a dead silence in which an aching agony was implicit.“Move along!”The shuffling throng wound on to the edge of the big spaceport on which a score of mammoth, cigar-shaped space-liners lay waiting.Then the heavy silence of tragedy was abruptly broken.
What do You think about Captain Future 09 - Quest Beyond The Stars (Winter 1942)?
