The Beast-Jewel of Mars

Burk Winters was a starship captain until the girl he meant to marry flew out over the Martian desert and never came back. Now he is a shaking wreck with one reason left to return to Kahora Port.

In the Trade City, Shanga is the newest fashionable vice: an old Martian radiation treatment that lets bored Earthlings slip back toward the primitive for a few carefree hours. Jill Leland used to come here. Burk tells Kor Hal, the hall's smooth director, that he only wants to forget, and demands the real Shanga, forbidden for centuries by the City-States of Mars. It will take him beyond the domes to an evil old city, a prism the colour of fire, and the cruel games of a woman named Fand. Some who go back that far never return.