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Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June 1930: Vol. II, No. 3 - Murder Madness

by Astounding StoriesNovember 14th, 2022

Too Long; Didn't Read

Cyrus R. Thurston bought himself a single-motored Stoughton job he was looking for new thrills. He wanted to join that jaunty group who spoke so easily of hopping off for Los Angeles. The Earth lay powerless beneath those loathsome, yellowish monsters that, sheathed in cometlike globes, sprang from the skies to annihilate man and reduce his cities to ashes. But if that young millionaire-sportsman had been told that on his first flight this blocky, bulletlike ship was to pitch him headlong into the exact center of the wildest, strangest war this earth had ever seen.

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Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June 1930, by Astounding Stories is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Vol. II, No. 3: Murder Madness

"As the madness grew, the two men fought. They were murder mad. The local sub-deputy gave his guests the thrill of watching maniacs battling to the death."

Murder Madness

PART TWO OF A FOUR-PART NOVEL

By Murray Leinster

Seven United States Secret Service men have disappeared in South America. Another is found—a screaming homicidal maniac. It is rumored that they are victims of a diabolical poison which produces "murder madness."

Bell, of the secret "Trade," strikes into the South American jungle to find the hidden stronghold of The Master—the unknown monster whose diabolical poison swiftly and surely is enslaving the whole continent.

Charley Bell, of the "Trade"—a secret service organization that does not officially exist—discovers that a sinister system of slavery is flourishing in South America, headed by a mysterious man known only as The Master. This slavery is accomplished by means of a poison which causes its victims to experience a horrible writhing of the hands, followed by a madness to do murder, two weeks after the poison is taken.

The victims get relief only with an antidote supplied through Ribiera, The Master's Chief Deputy; but in the antidote there is more of the poison which again in two weeks will take effect. And so it is that a person who once receives the poison is forever enslaved.

Bell learns that Ribiera has kidnapped Paula Canalejas, daughter of a Brazilian cabinet minister—himself a victim—who has killed himself on feeling the "murder madness," caused by the poison, coming over him. Bell corners Ribiera in his home, buries the muzzles of two six-guns in his stomach, and demands that he set Paula free.

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Astounding Stories. 2009. Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June 1930. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved May 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29848/29848-h/29848-h.htm#Page_310

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