Page:Weird Tales volume 30 number 01.djvu/51

 "Abruptly the Raider's ship flashed away, came darting down at them."

By HENRY KUTTNER

A startling weird-scientific story, about the fantastic and horrible entity that lay like a cosmic vampire on the hideous Night Side of Venus

1. The Raider Strikes

AL KENWORTH was collecting the nectar from his elysia plants and swearing quietly as he worked. He was perspiring in spite of the rain, for it was the steady warm drizzle that falls constantly on the sunward side of Venus. Thank heaven, he would be free to return to earth when the collection ship came to pick up his elysia—but the ship was not due for a week. He bent the tiny dead-white cup of a bell-shaped elysia flower, and a single drop