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    A World is Born
    A World is Born
    A World is Born
    Ebook58 pages40 minutes

    A World is Born

    By Leigh Douglass Brackett

    3/5

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 2009
    A World is Born
    Author

    Leigh Douglass Brackett

    Leigh Douglass Brackett (December 7, 1915 – March 18, 1978) was an American writer, particularly of science fiction, and has been referred to as the Queen of Space Opera. She was also a screenwriter, known for her work on such films as The Big Sleep (1946), Rio Bravo (1959) and The Long Goodbye (1973).

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    • 2/5
      Backed by the Interplanetary Prison Authority, John Moulton and his daughter Jill lead a project to building a community on Mercury as a second chance for prisoners and derelicts from Earth. Most of the laborers are volunteers, with one exception. Mel Gray was sent by the IPA, which puts him under suspicion of working for Caron, the leader of Mars. Since Radium was discovered on Mercury, Caron has been trying to sabotage Moulton's project and turn it into a mining colony. Angered at the thought of being used, Gray attempts to escape and return to his life on Earth, but the Moultons can't let that happen lest it put their project in jeopardy and play right into Caron's hands.
    • 3/5
      A fast-paced planetary adventure set on a Mercury which is survivable on the surface. There are aliens, space villains and a dashing hero. Quite light but easy to read.

    Book preview

    A World is Born - Leigh Douglass Brackett

    The Project Gutenberg eBook, A World is Born, by Leigh Douglass Brackett

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

    almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

    re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

    with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

    Title: A World is Born

    Author: Leigh Douglass Brackett

    Release Date: September 8, 2007 [eBook #22544]

    Language: English

    Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

    ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WORLD IS BORN***

    E-text prepared by Greg Weeks, Joel Schlosberg,

    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

    (http://www.pgdp.net)

    Transcriber's Note:

    This eBook was produced from Comet magazine, July 1941, pp. 56-70. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

    p. 56

    A WORLD IS BORN

    by LEIGH BRACKETT

    Mel Gray flung down his hoe with a sudden tigerish fierceness and stood erect. Tom Ward, working beside him, glanced at Gray's Indianesque profile, the youth of it hardened by war and the hells of the Eros prison blocks.

    A quick flash of satisfaction crossed Ward's dark eyes. Then he grinned and said mockingly.

    Hell of a place to spend the rest of your life, ain't it?

    Mel Gray stared with slitted blue eyes down the valley. The huge sun of Mercury seared his naked body. Sweat channeled the dust on his skin. His throat ached with thirst. And the bitter landscape mocked him more than Wade's dark face.

    The rest of my life, he repeated softly. The rest of my life!

    He was twenty-eight.

    Wade spat in the damp black earth. You ought to be glad—helping the unfortunate, building a haven for the derelict....

    Shut up! Fury rose in Gray, hotter than the boiling springs that ran p. 57 from the Sunside to water the valleys. He hated Mercury. He hated John Moulton and his daughter Jill, who had conceived this plan of building a new world for the destitute and desperate veterans of the Second Interplanetary War.

    I've had enough 'unselfish service', he whispered. I'm serving myself from now on.

    Escape. That was all he wanted. Escape from these stifling valleys, from the snarl of the wind in the barren crags that towered higher than Everest into airless space. Escape from the surveillance of the twenty guards, the forced companionship of the ninety-nine other veteran-convicts.

    Wade poked at the furrows between the sturdy hybrid tubers. It ain't possible, kid. Not even for 'Duke' Gray, the 'light-fingered genius who held the Interstellar Police at a standstill for five years'. He laughed. I read your publicity.

    Gray stroked slow, earth-stained fingers over his sleek cap of yellow p. 58 hair. You think so? he asked softly.

    Dio the Martian came down the furrow, his lean, wiry figure silhouetted against the upper panorama of the valley; the neat rows of vegetables and the green riot of Venusian wheat, dotted with toiling men and their friendly guards.

    Dio's green, narrowed eyes studied Gray's hard face.

    "What's the matter,

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