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    Vampire Queen
    Vampire Queen
    Vampire Queen
    Ebook47 pages42 minutes

    Vampire Queen

    By John Russel Fearn

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    About this ebook

    “I’m mightier than the law!” Valeine Drew, Vampire Queen of the Starways, flung her challenge at the Interplanetary Patrol. Curt Stanley accepted the challenge—and stepped directly into a Jovian space-trap from which there was no escape.


    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWildside Press
    Release dateApr 30, 2021
    ISBN9781479469758
    Vampire Queen

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      Book preview

      Vampire Queen - John Russel Fearn

      Table of Contents

      VAMPIRE QUEEN

      COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      CHAPTER 1

      CHAPTER 2

      CHAPTER 3

      CHAPTER 4

      VAMPIRE QUEEN

      JOHN RUSSELL FEARN

      COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      Copyright © 1942 by John Russell Fearn.

      First published Planet Stories, Fall Issue 1942, under the pseudonym Thornton Ayre.

      Reprinted with the permission of the Cosmos Literary Agency.

      Published by Wildside Press LLC.

      wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

      CHAPTER 1

      I had been wondering for some little time why the Chief had summoned me with such urgency. However, being a well trained special agent of the Interplanetary Police I knew my place and kept quiet while he went through his papers, and generally attended to matters which were of no concern to me.

      Then at length he glanced through the huge windows of the office and motioned me to his side.

      See her? he asked quietly, nodding outside.

      Here on the ground floor of the building we had a clear view of the square outside. The building opposite belonged to the Consolidated Trust, one of the biggest financial groups in the world and virtual backers of the Interplanetary Corporation itself.

      Just emerging from the building was a slender girl in a cornflower blue costume of the time. She was blonde—flaxen blonde almost—and wore no hat. I could see her features were acquiline; her manner alert and decisive.

      What of her? I asked the Chief presently, puzzledly.

      Ever see a woman without a soul, Curt? the Chief asked me seriously, his lips tightening. If not, now’s your chance. That is Valcine Drew—or if you prefer it, ‘The Granite Angel’.

      I began to understand. Valcine Drew—mystery woman, incredibly wealthy—known among the lower dives by her queer appelation because she traveled the starry ways and was reputed to be inhumanly cruel.

      It is never easy to reconcile beauty and viciousness; I certainly couldn’t manage it in regard to this lovely girl.

      I’ve something to tell you about her, the Chief went on, watching her. From the private reports I have received it is more than clear that she is dodging the law somewhere. Take a good look at her: later you may need to meet her at closer quarters.

      We watched her finally get into a sleek atomic roadster and make off for parts unknown. Cruel? Ridiculous! I began to suspect the Chief had gotten a bad dose of suspicion from the reports he had received.

      Then he crossed over to his desk, motioned to me. There was no doubt of the gravity of his expression.

      Valcine Drew is a menace, he said. From somewhere in space she keeps obtaining critanium mineral. Not just a few grams at a time but whole pounds of it! How she gets it is the mystery, and that is why we suspect it must be illegal. Naturally she sells it to the Trust and because of its immense value they buy it without question. But since we represent the law we have to look into it. It’s a knotty problem to solve how she gets the stuff because our own ways of getting it demand skilled engineers. The stuff can only be obtained from Jupiter so far as we know, and Jupiter is a living hell as you realize. Twice a year our engineers get some of the mineral from there, and more often than not lose fifty percent of their men doing it. But this girl secures the stuff incessantly! How, I can’t imagine. And it is your job, Curt, to find out.

      I nodded slowly, thinking. "The

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